Tinien

Thank you very much, Tharkun221! That's exactly what I need. I've followed your instructions and made sure that my Oblivion.exe isn't patched with 4 GB Patcher. That is just as I want because some say that LAA Patch may make the game unstable in some cases.

Good day to everyone. I have some question for which I haven't found answer yet. How can one know if Oblivion.exe is patched with 4 GB Patch? Is there some way to verify it? Thank you.

Thanks, Felix, but these recommendations are similar to those on uesp and I've read them too. One parameter among them is disputable. I mean bUseBackgroundFileLoader which when set to 1 can cause CTDs on some systems, says Oblivion TweakGuide. There is another parameter though, which I haven't met so far in any guides - bDebugFaceGenMultithreading. Is it really needed to be enabled and what does it do? Maybe someone would know the answer. And I especially wish to note two variables in Oblivion.ini one more time - bUseMultiThreadedTrees and bBackgroundPathing. By default first is enabled (1) and the second is disabled (0). And there is a question about each one. First bUseMultiThreadedTrees - does this variable affect something regarding trees rendering and if yes then what exactly and how? And how would it be better to set it for the game stability on modern CPU - 1 or 0? And next bBackgroundPathing - what does this parameter do and is it needed at all if there is bUseBackgroundPathing=1 next to it? In other words, why do we need two apparently identical variables, one of which is disabled and the other is enabled by default?

Yes, I catch your thought. Koroush Ghazi, the author of famous TweakGuides, wrote in his Oblivion Tweak Guide that "many people report problems with this game and in almost all cases these are due to general system issues and not the game itself. With that in mind I strongly urge you to take some time and follow the advice below if you truly want this game, and indeed every other game you own, to run at its fastest and most trouble-free". And further he suggests to thoroughly read his TweakGuides Tweaking Companion - almost 500-page Windows guide. Well, I don't have such patience and time to read through all this guide just to get few useful tips on how to set up my OS for better and stable Oblivion gameplay. Not worth the candle. If only there was some program which could analyze my PC specs, OS version and in accordance to received data it would tweak OS optimally for Oblivion (or any other game with the same cranky engine) - I'd be ready to buy such miraculous program for any reasonable price. Of course provided that after all this OS tweaking my Oblivion would become absolutely stable. Like Skyrim without mods. P.S. My first post is still viable and I'll be very glad to read some useful tips from Oblivion gurus.

So, you have 5th Anniversary Edition too. I have several versions of Oblivion on HDD - 5th Edition, GOTY Deluxe version from WaLMaRT and Gold Edition (Russian localization from 1C). I've tried playing all three of them and do like 5th Edition most of all. About web-versions - I don't like this idea of purchasing game not on physical media but virtually, bying certain passcode to my copy of the game. It seems as if at any moment access to the game can be denied or the internet can simply be disconnected so you cannot play. In any case disc version looks more substantial and reliable. But that is all lyrics and going back to our subject I want to say that I'm already familiar with this mod ENBoost which you proposed, and I don't know if this ENBoost is useful for small modlist which doesn't use very much RAM. I know that ENBoost is used for the same purpose like LAA Patch - to increase the amount of RAM available for the game - but "increases memory even more (can be used together with 4gb patch)", as its readme says. I don't know if ENBoost works in the same way as LAA Patch or differently, so I'm not sure if ENBoost is absolutely safe for the game code and wouldn't cause any side effects as LAA Patch can do. People report about improved stability of their gameplay after installing ENBoost. But as its readme says, "It's only useful when you have many mods installed and high resolution textures, in that case game may run out of memory and crash without this patch". As I said before I don't use many mods and high resolution textures so for my modlist ENBoost will unlikely be of any use. But thank you for your trying to help anyway. This topic is probably of much interest and concern for any Oblivion fan who wants to make his gameplay as stable as possible. So together we will surely find the exact answers to OP questions. Moreover, maybe someone will give an advice about not only Oblivion.ini but some other aspects which can also be improved for the same purpose.

Thank you for your time and for your reply. I didn't know about this difference between Steam and disc versions and some different addresses in their code. I use Fifth Anniversary Edition + 8 DLCs. Maybe you would ask your daughter if she would be willing to help with this OP matter? I've thoroughly searched the web trying to find the exact instructions for Oblivion.ini tuning on multicore/multithreaded machines and haven't found the unanimous decision about the most exact settings for modern CPUs so far. Various sources propose various settings as I described above. About LAA patch I want to say that I don't use many mods in my modlist - only 45 plugins (OOO among them), so my game doesn't use very much RAM and doesn't need LAA Patch. It seems to me that after I removed this patch the game became more stable but not completely.

Thank you for the answers, guys. No, I do not use LAA patch anymore after I had read about that this patch can cause more harm than good. Here's the citation from related topic on steamcommunity: "The 4GB patch could cause an increase in insability as the game was not designed with being large address aware in mind, though I have not observed any increased instability from the patch myself but I have not used it through much of the game either. Some games and applications will totally bug out if the LAA flag is set". End of citation. I left typo in "insability" as is. After removing patched Oblivion.exe and reverting to original Oblivion.exe i've played about one month and there wasn't any decrease of stability of gameplay. Only one CTD has occured so far with error offset 0x0027425e in system log. CTD with this error happened five times in the past year (apart from CTDs with other errors), and every time it took place in the Great Forest. That's why my question about tree variables (iTreeClonesAllowed=?, bUseMultiThreadedTrees=?) in Oblivion.ini has arisen. As for Oblivion not really doing multi core threading and hence not benefiting from it - I know it but these multithreading variables are recommended to enable for better stability on multicore/multithreaded systems: https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Ini_Settings --> Multi-core CPU tweaks. But I'm not sure about accuracy of these tweaks since they contradict suggestions in other sources, in particular iNumHavokThreads=3 (5 in other sources), bUseBackgroundFileLoader=1 (0 in other sources as 1 can cause CTDs on some systems). So all in all my questions in OP are still viable. I'd be very grateful for some hints, dudes.

Good day to everyone. I want to ask about how to tune some parameters in Oblivion.ini for the most stable gameplay on modern multicore PCs. In particular these lines (default in parentheses): bBackgroundPathing=0 bUseBackgroundPathing=1 bBackgroundLoadLipFiles=0 bLoadBackgroundFaceGen=0 Is it needed to change 1st, 3rd and 4th parameters to 1 for "locations smoother loading" or they are already set the best way? 2nd parameter appeared after official patch 1.2 and is set to 1 by default. The same question for multithreading variables by default: bUseThreadedBlood=0 bUseThreadedMorpher=0 bUseThreadedTempEffects=0 bUseThreadedParticleSystem=0 bUseMultiThreadedFaceGen=1 bUseMultiThreadedTrees=1 Separately worth mentioning parameter iNumHavokThreads=1 which in various sources is recommended to be changed to 3 or to 5. Which value is better for the game stability? Or is it better to leave it be 1 by default? And one more question: why odd values are recommended when all multicore/multithreaded CPUs have even number of cores/threads? And last question about two variables: iTreeClonesAllowed=1, bUseMultiThreadedTrees=1. These are default values. Should they be left like that or is it better to change them to some other value (0 for the second one)? The thing is that my game sometimes (rarely) CTDs in the Great Forest where there are many trees (your Captain Obvious). So I thought that maybe these CTDs are somehow related to trees and perhaps it's worth to change some corresponding parameters in Oblivion.ini. My PC specs: i7-4790K, GTX 770 (4 GB), 8 GB DDR3. Many thanks in advance for any help in this matter.

I uninstalled WB 295 and installed WB 307 beta3 (most recent version). Here a new question arises: is it safe for my modlist and BAIN installed packages to reinstall WB? Will the new version correctly identify all installed packages and will it be able to manage them as if WB weren't reinstalled? Say, if I'll have to uninstall some of these packages later in order to update them to more recent version, will WB properly make it as if it weren't reinstalled?

Thanks for hint about this mod. So do you think that OOO may be the cause of this randomly happening passive behavior of npcs in front of beasts?

Thank you for such a quick answer, Striker. So you think that this is because of Open Cities in case with Anvil? And I thought that it's OOO's fault, more exactly its advanced battle AI packages'. Or that it is because of importing AI Packages into the Bashed Patch. There were 74 of them imported into Oblivion.esm. But whatever what caused this AI bug is there some way to solve this problem so that all npcs (including guards) always reacted to enemy's approach?

I have another question or problem which cannot explain. Sometimes city guards or npcs don't attack monsters which are chasing me when I approach these npcs. One time this bug happened in Anvil to where I came with a wolf behind me - no one cared. I had to kill the wolf myself. Next time I came to Molag Bal's Shrine followed by a black bear - no one gives a f*#@. What does that mean and what is a cause of this indifference?

Thank you, Striker, that you've spent some of your time answering me. One last (I hope) and very important question. Isn't it late to rebuild Bashed Patch with different settings (if something in the game went wrong) during existing game? Won't I have to start a new game after rebuilding Bashed Patch? Say, if I'll later decide to add/remove some Import options to/from the game.

I didn't know that even opening menus in other categories, besides that category which is edited intentionally, will affect those other categories as well. But does it really matter? BOSS makes recommendations about imports based on tags that were manually written by the authors of these mods. And of course authors of these mods won't make tags which don't relate to intended edits in their mods hence BOSS will never know about those stray pokes. Then does it really matter whether there will be these unintended “changes” in other categories caused by a random tap? BTW, about cleaning. This is another problem which I do not know if it's worth worrying about. In my LO only official DLCs are recommended for cleaning (according to BOSS). But opinions differ about cleaning official DLCs. Some people say that they should be cleaned while others don't recommend to do it. I'm more inclined to believe those others because there are also unofficial patches in LO which fix all (or most of all) errors and flaws in DLCs (maybe those ITMs and UDRs as well?). And these unofficial patches (UOMP, to be more brief) rely on standard, uncleaned DLCs, don't they? So if you clean DLCs then wouldn't there be some problems with compliance and compatibility of these patches with DLCs? About Wrye Bash. I use older version 295 (Standalone), CBash v0.5.3: By default [sI], which (as it seems to me) is more fast and flawless than more recent versions (especially 300 and higher). I've read on one Oblivion imageboard about that and indeed this WB 295 works pretty well. I've also read that these older WB versions work better with Oblivion while 306, 307 (most recent, AFAIK) are better for Skyrim. The same goes for BOSS and LOOT. BOSS is better for Oblivion and LOOT is better for Skyrim.

Thanks for clarifying some things. But there are more of them that I still don't catch. How does Import function work? I've read on some other forum the following: "If you have mods that effect the same thing more than once then you need Bashed Patch. Say you have a NPC and 3 mods effecting that NPC Mod 1 = gives NPC a new hat Mod 2= gives NPC a new shirt Mod 3 = gives NPC new shoes With bashed patch NPC gets hat, shirt and shoes. Without the patch NPC only gets shoes. This is how it works for all things not just NPCs." End of citation. But this example relates to only one category - apparel (or appearance in a whole), so different mods which change things in this one category should conflict if I understand correctly. However, if there are several mods which change DIFFERENT categories in the SAME object (1st mod - AI Packages, 2nd mod - appearance, 3rd mod - Animations, 4th mod - Spells, 5th mod - DeathItems, etc.) - then what? Will all these different mods' changes be integrated in the game into the same object if loaded correctly? Or only changes from the last of these mods in LO would be applied to this object in the game, and in order to apply changes from all these mods Import function in Wrye Bash will be necessary?