Striker879

Does your onboard sound have any options for special effects (e.g. concert hall) ... if so try turning those effects off. Here's a quote from Koroush Ghazi's Oblivion Tweak Guide: You could also try disabling all sound in the ini file (though if you're crashing right before the menu then it's the menu music that's the problem). Find the file Oblivion.ini located in either Users\[username]\Documents\My Games\Oblivion for Vista and Windows 7 or in Documents and Settings\[username]\My Documents\My Games\Oblivion for Windows XP (and NOT the file Oblivion_default.ini that is found in your game install Oblivion folder). Find the following lines in Oblivion.ini and change the 1 to a 0 (change one to zero), again quoted from the Oblivion Tweak Guide: If you don't crash you know it's a sound related issue (either what I mentioned at the outset with an effects setting or codec issues).

What type of sound card does your machine have? Sound issues (either incompatible 'effects' or codecs) can cause crashes.

Here's a link to Bben46's Oblivion reinstall procedure. Don't neglect the part about cleaning your registry ... old registry entries will come back to haunt you if you uninstall/re-install without removing the old entries.

Any of the FLY series from yuravica that I have checked out have all been organized the same way, as simple replacer mods. Once you extract the downloaded Mithril_remodel-41039-1.7z (preferably to a folder, either on your desktop or, as I do, to a named subfolder in the OblivionDownloads folder you've created) what you'll find is a readme.txt file and a folder named meshes. Because this download will only replace the vanilla mithril armor with this version no esp is required. You will however need to have something called archive invalidation enabled for the game to use this newer version of mithril armor instead of the original. The easiest way to do that is select the Utilities button on the right hand side of the Oblivion Mod Manager window, then Archive invalidation from the menu presented and then BSA Redirection (no other options required, and this is a do once and leave it alone afterwards solution). The only other caveat is if you are using the Steam version of the game you may need to reset your BSA dates back to 2006, as for some reason Steam changes them to present day and some replacers will then appear to be older than the BSA files from Steam. You can use File Date Changer 1.61 for that. So once you have the file Mithril_remodel-41039-1.7z extracted all you need to do is copy the folder 'meshes' to the 'Data folder of your Oblivion install. If you right click on the meshes folder from your extracted download you would select Copy from the right click menu. Then navigate to your Oblivion install folder and right click on the Data folder found there. Select paste from the right click menu. You will be presented with a prompt about there already being a folder named meshes. Select 'Yes to all', as in this case the folders are all that is being replaced ... the files in the folders will not be the same as any you currently have installed unless you have previously installed a mithril armor replacer. In that case, if you now want to use the FLY version you can still safely overwrite, and then the game will use the FLY version instead of whatever other version of mithril replacer you used before. Two simple rules to remember from all this ... 1) When more than one replacer for the same item is installed, whichever is installed last is what the game will display and 2) When copy and pasting the rule is, for folders always paste into one folder level higher than you copied and for files always paste into the folder you want the file to be in.

I'll lead off with a quote from Koroush Ghazi's Oblivion Tweak Guide (emphasis added): If you look at the names for the variables being tweaked you'll also gain a clue as to why you're not seeing more threads used (beyond what I've highlighted in the first section above). The game engine must process quickly and quickly to the CPU is a lot different than quickly to us. If for example it took 2/10ths of a second to process and generate the face data for everyone in the Market District when we walked through the door everybody here would be bemoaning how slow the game was (considering I've isolated one of many tasks the game engine needs to do when we walk through that door). I could argue that 2/10ths of a second is pretty fast ... try to start and stop a stopwatch in less than 2/10ths and you'll see what I'm talking about. To the CPU 2/10ths of a second is nearly a millenium. When you walk through that door to the Market District I'd be surprised to find out that generating the face data took more than a microsecond (in all likelyhood a mere fraction of that). When you're trying to determine how many threads are in use you're looking at a snapshot. You walk through the door and then try to note how many threads are in use. Heck whatever method you're using to display how many threads may not be able to gather the info and then display it in some manner you'd actually see it. The only plausible way I can see would be to have something that reports the maximum used during a particular session. In my opinion the whole 'bench marking industry' is fraught with problems. I've done a little myself, to check where my builds line up to 'industry standards'. Even using recorded demo runs there's a bit of variability between runs, and it's a documented fact that video card manufacturers optimize their drivers for all the standard demos. If you use Fraps run-throughs you don't stand a chance of ever getting a true apples to apples comparison, unless you average a large number of runs. And then we get to the problem of subjectivity ... are you trying to give a true representation of real world performance, give your sponsors a good run for their money or maybe just show "My rig RULEZ". What you report is going to be flavoured by what you want to report. And for the record, my best time on the stopwatch start/stop exercise is 0.09 seconds on an old watch that had a two button start stop system ... and I only managed that once, and it was years ago.

The limit is 255 and then once you start using tools like Wrye Bash to get around that limit there is another around 400 I believe (but don't quote me on the second one).

Here's a link to Bben46's Oblivion reinstall procedure. Have a look through it and see if you see anything about reinstalling that's helpful.

It's not odd that it would check. If you someday decided to install an OBSE plugin what would you like to do ... download the source code for OBSE and recomplile it, now instructing it to look for plugins? It looks for plugins by default and ignores a zero plugin result so you don't have to learn how to modify and recompile it's source code. The game doesn't go from a working condition to a non-working condition on it's own. Have you installed any mods since the last time the game worked? Have you updated any drivers or audio codecs since the last time the game worked? I realize that you may not know the answer to that question, as most people leave auto updates on, so they wouldn't have a clue what happens behind their back. There are benefits to being a grumpy old dinosaur who turns all auto stuff off (but who does occasionally forget to check for updates, so there are down sides).

Is this a previously stable game that now isn't starting? At what point of starting the game does it crash? I see you're not installed in the default location (which is a good thing) ... are you running from a limited account or administrator account (and are you running Windows 7, Vista or Windows XP)? If you aren't using any plugins you won't have the plugins folder ... that's normal as you need to create the plugins folder when you install any OBSE plugins (MenuQue etc.), I'm guessing the OBSE initializing looks for the plugins folder to see if it needs to load anything else and ignores it if it's not found (my own OBSE log looks for it and I don't have a plugins folder either).

@ scyris99 ... Have you ever been able to run the game (in other words is it crashing on startup after you first installed it or did it used to run OK and now it's crashing on startup)? More details in either case would help. Is it the Game of the Year disk edition or download edition (and if so is it from Steam, Direct2Drive or Impulse)? When you installed the game did you install to the default C:\Program Files (x86) or did you change the install directory to something like C:\Games\Oblivion? At what point of the game startup does it crash? - Edit - You posted while I was head down picking away with two fingers ... glad you're working now.

Here's a link to Bben46's Oblivion reinstall procedure. Note the link at the end of the 10th line down from the top ... it will take you to the Steam support page for moving your Steam installation (linked again here because the link is easy to miss on the Wiki page).

Here's a quote from Koroush Ghazi's Oblivion Tweak Guide I run an older Intel 3 GHz CPU with 1 GB of ram and Geforce 8800GTS, but don't have all settings maxed so that I don't get slow downs when there are a lot of NPCs (i.e. Market District in the IC).

When you download mods do you keep a copy of the extracted download or original compressed archive? If you do you could try replacing the 'ghosted' esp files with originals. OBMM doesn't save any of the changes you've selected until you exit the utility, and the exit you describe wouldn't have allowed it to make it's changes.

I'm stumped on this ... the only issues I can recall hearing about at the game start are related to custom races, and in that case the prisoner across from you doesn't speak and so then the emperor doesn't show and the whole thing grinds to a standstill, but crashes are a result. In the grasping at straws category now ... check in your Oblivion\Data folder for the following files (I've also listed my file sizes, but those are from the original disk version of the game not the Steam version): Oblivion - Meshes.bsa 655,670 KB Oblivion - Misc.bsa 7,061 KB Oblivion - Sounds.bsa 322,389 KB Oblivion - Textures - Compressed.bsa 1,189,276 KB Oblivion - Voices1.bsa 768,920 KB Oblivion - Voices2.bsa 981,453 KB Oblivion.esm 241,591 KB After making the list another thought pops to mind ... what sound card/onboard sound chip are you using. If I recall correctly sound issues (i.e. CODECs etc.) can cause problems. Before you chose a race you'll only be hearing the music ... after that the game sounds begin. Here's a quote from Koroush Ghazi's Oblivion Tweak Guide The audio section is found on page 7 of the guide and continues in the advanced tweaking section on page 9. The more I look at it the more plausible it seems that sound might be your issue.

You say you have no mods installed ... what race are you selecting right before the crash?

I'm a non-Steam type of guy myself, so I don't know how it handles launching the game and managing updates (i.e. is there a 'Check for updates' button?). Normally hardware related issues on a new game don't show up until you exit the sewers at the end of the tutorial, and from your description you're not even making it out of the cell at the start. When you choose a race does the prisoner in the cell across the hall start to taunt you, or do you crash before that?

Renaming as I suggested will suffice, as the game won't load a file with the .old extension. As nothing new to try is immediately springing to mind for me, I'm going to suggest you have a look through the Oblivion reinstall procedure to see if anything suggested there tweaks a 'gee I didn't do that' for you. If nothing else, it will come in handy for you in as far as my next suggestion ... if Steam and Oblivion are installed in the default C:\Program Files (or Program Files (x86) if you're using a 64 bit OS) you'll need to move them to something like C:\Games\Steam or similar to avoid future issues with UAC (User Account Control). You can safely ignore that advice if you are using Windows XP like me, but I generally don't find many dinosaurs like me roaming about anymore. UAC isn't your problem now (providing you haven't installed any mods), but down the road, if you plan to install mods it will interfere.

Actually Lanceor, I believe you need to update that advice, as I've heard that the latest version of the Unofficial Oblivion Patch now includes the additional changes made previously by the Unofficial Oblivion Patch Supplemental (and in fact the Supplemental is no longer available for download ... info thanks to omeletted).

You can use either File Date Changer 1.61 or FileDate Changer v1.1 to change the dates on all of your bsa files. They will be found in your game install folder in the Data folder and will be named Oblivion - meshes.bsa, Oblivion - Misc.bsa, etc. Change the year to 2006 (which is what the year is on non-Steam bsa files) and you'll be good to go.

I used to crash pretty regularly, and used quicksave and overwrote saves all the time. Once I heard about the 'problems' with quicksave and autosave, and learned that the game has plenty of save slots so no overwriting is needed, I started saving only using the Esc menu save to a new slot. It took a while but now during normal play (i.e. when I'm not experimenting with the console and trying to set up battles with resurrected bandits etc.) I rarely crash, in fact now I have the problem of not saving often enough, so sometimes I need to use an autosave to avoid losing too much progress.

Try rebuilding your Oblivion.ini file to let it rediscover your hardware. The file we're looking for is NOT the one called Oblivion_default.ini located in your game install Oblivion folder. Find the file Oblivion.ini located in Users\[username]\Documents\My Games\Oblivion for Vista and Windows 7, and found in Documents and Settings\[username]\My Documents\My Games\Oblivion for Windows XP. You may not see the .ini extension in Windows Explorer if you have 'Hide file extensions for known file types' turned on. You can double click the file labelled 'Oblivion' in that folder if you want to be sure you have the right file ... ini files are just text files and will open in Notepad by default. What you'd see in that case is a long text file starting out with entries looking like this: When you're sure you have the correct file rename it to Oblivionini.old (if you have opened the file in Notepad you will need to close that before renaming or Windows will complain about the file being in use). After renaming the file start the game normally but don't load a save or start a new game ... just go as far as the menu and then exit. If you check, you should see that the game has created a new Oblivion.ini in the same folder as the renamed one. Try starting a new game and see if that helps. Oblivion is an old game, and sometimes has trouble identifying new modern hardware (especially video cards).

Are you getting the crashes with just the vanilla un-modded game, and are the crashes coming while you're still in the tutorial dungeon or once you get outside?

Glad you got it working, and thank you for reporting your solution.

Open the console using the tilde (~) key and then at the prompt: save YourNamedSave and hit enter, then close the console.

Without even seeing the game I can tell you what your problem is. When you install the game all the assets it needs are inside those bsa files, which are just compressed archives, similar idea to zip or 7z archives. If you looked inside those bsa files you'd see all the folders that are required for the game to find it's assets (there will be meshes and textures and sounds folders for example). When you want to add a mod it needs to either replace or augment the assets found in the bsa files. To do so it needs to conform to the folder structure the game was designed to work with (i.e. meshes would need to be in the meshes folder or the proper subfolder below meshes). If you've never installed a mod the meshes, textures sounds folders won't be seen in your Data folder, as they are all located within the bsa files. After you have properly installed the mod you will see the folders within your Data folder. The rule of thumb when copying using the right click copy and paste method is always paste into one directory level higher than you copied from. If you right click and copy the folder 'meshes' from your extracted download, you would right the 'Data' folder in your game install and select paste ... if you start from the 'Data' folder in your extracted download you will paste into the 'Skyrim' folder.