MarkInMKUK
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Posts posted by MarkInMKUK
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I'm only just beginning to come to grips with BAIN installers myseld - lots of files are now in "BAIN ready" format - the giveaway is the folders inside, which start off with 00 and 01, etc.
Beyond that, it'll need an expert - I'm about to start a new install using BAIN where possible. The advantage REALLY shows when you remove a mod - if it changed anything else that was already altered by a mod, Wrye Bash then puts the old file back, unlike OBMM which doesn't.
...and I'm in the UK - only online because the cats got me up demanding food.
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I found that the trickiest part of an FCOM install is the build options for the Bashed Patch. If you Google for "FCOM Superpack", browse through the forum til you find the installation and setup section, and use their walkthrough for the tickboxes. It worked fine for me.
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There are lots of knock-on effects to combining mods which are not instantly obvious.
The first is speed and stability. Every file that Oblivion has to open is another file access, and thus another thing slowing down the game, especially if you have not found out how to over-rule your antivirus trying to scan every file "on access". Granted, with only 20 mods it's very marginal, but it's amazing how fast they add up. If you install Better Cities and Unique Landscapes, that's at least 20 ESP files, maybe more, just in two "mods". An install of FCOM, which combines dozens of other mods, and you are up towards 100 ESP files.
Secondly, and where Wrye Bash begins to beat OBMM for use, is installing mods. Once you get to grips with BAIN installers as an alternative to OMODs, you have far more control over which mod "wins" if two or more mods change the same thing, and especially when uninstalling them.
Thirdly, some mods REQUIRE Wrye Bash to work. Anything with a "compatibility patch" with other mods may well need Wrye Bash to only use the chunks of the file which match your existing mods.
Fourthly - debugging. Erye Bash is far easier to use to identify which "parent" mods a file has, and check that they are already loaded.
Fifthly - sharing resources between mods, such as access to new cells for wandering npc's, or use of new items such as new food types, etc.
The list goes on and on - these are just the ones which occur to me at 5:30 in the morning :)
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Learning about OBSE, FastExit, weOCPS, OBMM, load orders, omods, all the various UOPs, and installing the ones I have listed above has help, but I realized last night that I had done something wrong when I encountered a few "invisible" rats & wolves near one of the ruined forts.....but when i finally killed them their dead bodies became visible.
Er ... that might not be "something wrong"
If the fort is Fort Caractacus, you have done nothing wrong. Find Aleswell village nearby.
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David Brasher said:
Wrye Bash has an important modding function in allowing you to perform the bitflip to create mastered patches in which one .esp is mastered to another .esp which is a virtual .esm.MarkInMKUK said:
Huh? That's pure technobabbble when aimed at someone who has, by their own admission, not understood what Wrye Bash is doing from reading the manual. It's also not what 99% of people use it for, or at least THINK they are using it for.@ MarkInMKUK
Wrye Bash is not just for gamers, it has a really important mod-making function as well. I bet if I looked at your load order, I would see mods that had been built with the aid of Wrye Bash.
@ David - maybe so, but just as you don't toss a maintenance manual at someone asking how to turn the key in the ignition of a car, you don't need to drown someone in the stuff which, to them, is pure gibberish. I mean ... "bitflip"? Sheesh!
@ mymee - Let me see if I can break it down a bit more. Please read the following along with the "basic use" pictorial guide for Wrye Bash.
Wrye Bash is not a totally "Stand alone" program, it uses another program (or set of programs) to work. The main bulk of the background work is done, currently, by "Python", which is what is called a scripting language interpreter. You write a series of instructions in a form Python can handle, and it uses those to automate various tasks. An example might be to tell Python to look through a list of files, and wherever the list told it to, change the file type from ".esp" to ".esp.ghost". You COULD go through several hundred files yourself to do that, but you'd be almost certain to make a mistake, whereas if you write the script it is to follow correctly, Python will not make any errors no matter how many times you do the job.
The upshot of this is, that running Wrye Bash at all relies on Python being correctly installed first.
OK, so, we will assume that you have a correct Python install, and have installed Wrye Bash, and BOSS as well. There SHOULD be a shortcut labelled "Wrye Bash Launcher" on your desktop if all went well. Double-click it as you would any other desktop shortcut, and Wrye Bash will pop up a small window while starting, then its main window.
At the top of the Wrye Bash window is a series of tabs labelled "Installers", "Mods", "Saves", etc. Make sure the one labelled "Mods" is selected - the others can be ignored for the moment.
Next, look right at the bottom of the window. You should see a series of icons, including a pale green and pale pink aquare, and the familiar Oblivion icon. Depending which other Oblivion-related programs you also have installed, you may see icons for paint.NET, Blender, Bink Video utilities, and plenty of programs which I also don't have installed. The one to look for is the word "Boss" in black lettering.
If you have both of those, you are well on your way to building a "Bashed Patch". Next - a little bit of setting up...
Firstly the second column on the screen currently shows something like "Lo...". In the same way you would if using a spreadsheet, hover your mouse next to that label until you find the vertical bar separating it from the next column (labelled "R"). Click and drag that to the right, until the header says "Load order". Once you can see that, release the mouse click, and then click ON the words "Load Order". The column below, and the associated mods, should organise themselves into numerical order, starting with "00" at the top, and increasing as you go down the column. With me so far?
Secondly, right-click anywhere on the bar with the "File" and "Load Order" labels in. A pop-up menu should appear. Remoce the tick from "Lock Times" if there is one, and make sure there are ticks in front of "BOSS disable lock times" and "Always update BOSS masterlist prior to running BOSS".
Now, click the BOSS icon at the bottom of the screen. There will be a small popup while the Masterlist updates, and BOSS runs, and then a window will open with the "Better Oblivion Sorting Software Log" in it. Read down it, and you should see familiar mod names, along with some arcane comments about "Bash tag suggestions". Check through the whole list for anything labelled "Error" or "Warning" - these need to be dealt with (or at the very least, understood) before trying to go further.
If you close the BOSS log and go back to the Wrye Bash window, you may well find that mods have changed order in the window. BOSS has used its Masterlist to determine what it thinks is the best load order, and adjusted the date and time stamps of the files so that they load in that order.
Now, left-click on ANY one of the mods, and press Ctrl+A to select all of the mods. They should all be highlighted. Right-click the highlight, and select "Mark Mergeable" from the Pop-up. After a few seconds, a window will pop up giving a list of the files that Wrye Bash believes can be merged, either partially or fully, into its Bashed Patch file. If they weren't alredy, you may now notice that the text has changed colour for some of the mod names, and the boxes to the left of the names may also have changed colour.
Scroll down towards the bottom of your mod list. Ideally right at the bottom, you should find a file marked "Bashed Patch, 0.esp". If this is not present, follow the instructions in the Wrye Bash readme to locate it and copy it (NOT move it) to the correct place, then re-run BOSS.
Once you have a Bashed Patch" file, the next stage is to USE it. Right-click the file, and select "Rebuild patch". Another popup will appear (unless you, for some reason, have no mergeable mods)...
"The following mods are mergeable. While it is not important to Wrye Bash functionality or the end contents of the bashed patch, it is suggest that they be deactivated and merged into the patch; this (helps) avoid the Oblivion maximum esp/m limit."
There will then be a list of mod files, followed by
"Automatically deactivate those mods now?"
Click "Yes".
The next popup has DOZENS of options in the left-hand window. The one we are interested in this first time through is the second item on the list, "Merge Patches". Put a tick in the box next to it, and then tick all of the files which appear in the right-hand window by selecting the "Select all" button. Now click the button marked "Build Patch". A popup will tell you that the program is working, and give you a progress bar.
Once completed, another popup will tell you what it did, so just hit "OK". It will probably prompt you to "Activate the Bashed patch" - do so by clicking the box next to it, and a tick will appear. The ticks in some of the other boxes will have disappeared now, or been replaced with + or dot marks. This tells you what their new status is.
You may now close Wrye Bash, and run Oblivion, and the whole things SHOULD work just as before, but with less files active, so a smaller load list.
There are lots of other options for building the Bashed patch, and (as David so rightly pointed out) there are myriad advanced functions in the program, but you have now performed the equivalent of turning the key in the ignition. The rest comes with practice and experimentation.
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For a slightly different style, McMuttons Hero Armor is a possibility
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Wrye Bash has an important modding function in allowing you to perform the bitflip to create mastered patches in which one .esp is mastered to another .esp which is a virtual .esm.
Huh? That's pure technobabbble when aimed at someone who has, by their own admission, not understood what Wrye Bash is doing from reading the manual. It's also not what 99% of people use it for, or at least THINK they are using it for.
Let me try and put it in something close to English.
Built into Oblivion is a limit to the number of active ESM and ESP files you can use at once - this is Oblivion.esm plus another 255 ESM and/or ESP files.
Wrye Bash can, in certain circumstances, combine parts of two different ESP files which alter the same category or thing, and put those combined changes into one single ESP file. You can then, still using Wrye Bash, disable those original ESP files and JUST use the newly created "everything-in-one" ESP file.
For example, you have one ESP which makes all of the mushrooms bright green, and another which makes all of the grass orange. Both of these can be combined into one file which makes all mushrooms bright green AND all the grass orange, thereby using just ONE ESP slot instead of two.
As Wrye Bash is very clever, it can combine several different bits of dozens of different ESP files, thereby freeing up lots of slots. If you run BOSS, you will see it reports suggested "tags" for the bashed Patch function - these tell Wrye Bash which bits it can combine.
Wrye Bash also has plenty of other functions, but the one I have described is probably the most common use for most modders. As you get more into advanced modding, or trying to make two incompatible mods behave together, then you may use some of the other functions.
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If a body has been looted, it should disappear once you have not visited the game cell it was left in for 36 hours. If you have not looted the body, it MAY persist - I never leave a body unlooted so I don't know.
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Mostly, yes - the SM Plugins tend to become closer to their relevant mods if you use BOSS, and there are a couple of mods I'd probably make diferent choices, but it looks mostly workable.
Living Economy is the one I'd suggest replacing with Enhanced Economy - EE does everything LE does, plus more, and the writer is still actively maintaining it.
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I suggest checking the readme for both mods, as it is likely that one of them also uses the spacebar for an action. You may need to redefine more than one key
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I suggest downloading and installing Wrye Bash (read the installation instructions AT LEAST twice before starting, especially the Python stuff), and installing and using BOSS to handle your load order - it operates by changing the file dates relative to each other and that in turn changes the order in which Oblivion loads the files. Be sure to update the masterlist.txt file before running it - it is regularly updated with new mods and suggestions for Bashed Patch settings. The Wrye Bash "Bashed Patch" merges the changes made by some of your mods, helping keep the game stable and reducing the number of ESP files you are trying to load.
You don't HAVE to download either just yet, but you're obviously in that initial burst of enthusiasm and that's a good time to get used to the more advanced modding utilities, before you suddenly NEED them.
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As a general thing, there's Inventory is a backpack - also lets you shed most of your load to run faster on those days when you get in WAY over your head. Not as stylish, but at least gives the idea that you are carrying loot, etc.
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Did anyone check the stuff included in Vvaedenfell Imports mod? They recreated a shedload of Morrowind clothing and armour, and have sice made an addon mod with even more
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You could of course look at the progress of the Middle-Earth Role Playing Project total conversion for Oblivion...
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Most regular modders use the Windom Earle's Oblivion Crash Prevention System and Fast Exit 2 OBSE Plugins - they greatly help system stability. I'm assuming that you've used BOSS and Wrye Bash to minimise conflicts between mods. Also, disable Salmo the Baker if you are using COBL - it's a known crash causer.
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Yes, you'll get framerate drops - with ANY system (depending on which mods you have installed). If you want to see how slow it can get, install Better Cities, Unique landscapes, any mods which add extra npc's , and something like QTP3. Then walk around Anvil Docks, or (worse) cut through the wheatfields in one of the UL mods. THAT will show you the slowest your system is likely to get in "normal" play.
For starters, REMOVE Streamline - on a high end system it actually adjusts everything in a way that reduces ALL the frame rates to handle the odd occasion when the framerate dips. It's designed to CUT framerate to a near constant level by dropping your graphics quality. Not a good mod for a power user system.
Secondly, you don't say whether you have a separate sound card? If you don't, fit one. The sound processing by the CPU for an onboard sound chip causes FPS problems when there are multiple feet in use - being attacked by a couple of wolves can make it stutter very badly.
Thirdly, apply the 3GB memory patch. You still won't use anything like all of the memory, but you WILL use a little more.
Oblivion is an old, nearly totally single-core game. Your base processor speed is great, but don't expect the game to use more than one core for very much.
Also, do a manual install of DirectX 9.0c, as well as the existing DirectX 11 (can make a noticeable difference) - and also see whether there is an EAX sound patch for the drivers for your sound card - Win7 doesn't handle EAX, and a few manufacturers have added the facility to their drivers to do so instead. Also keep tabs on the Omega drivers site for when he releases Win7 drivers - on XP the improvement using the drivers from there was startling.
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Remember that if you intend to post the mod here, it cannot contain any ripped content.
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If you track down a copy of the original "Knights of the Nine" expansion disc, that has most of the DLCs included - I found a copy on Amazon (UK site) but i expect there are other places too. Sadly the Game of the Year edition doesn't include them with its own KotN.
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Rather than formatting, have you tried Easeus Partition Master? It's a free program which allows you to clone partitions onto a second drive, delete partitions, resize partitions, etc. You can shrink any secondary partitons and enlarge the Win7 one, usually without rebooting! Alternatively you can move the other partitions to a second hard drive, and fill the whole of your boot drive with the Win7 one.
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Further to the above - OBMM will report the load order in Hexadecimal - that is, a two-digit number consisting of the usual numbers (0-9) or one of the first six letters letters (A-F). If the knights.esp is loaded twenty-ninth, the reported position will be 1C which is 1x16 + 13©. Just type the two digits given in place of the xx and it should all work.
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I'd suggest making the class-specific item appear in the inventory of one of the sewer inhabitants, or in one of the sewer chests. Alternatively, a new crate on the jetty right outside the sewer might make sense.
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Check your antivirus is not set to scan "on file access" - if a file on the game disc is causing it problems to read, it can lock the whole game up.
Of course, if this IS the problem, then you need a suitable work-around which won't leave your computer wide open for attacks.
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Try GetIsClass
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or #1000 - Oblivion players think 500 = 1000 :)
Strange resolution problem
in Mod troubleshooting
Posted · Edited by MarkInMKUK
And I bet you installed into the default location, in C:\Program Files (x86)\ ?
You're probably the latest victim of Windows 7's User account Control or UAC. It blocks Oblivion from making changes to your ini file, so it promptly loses the resolution change. Also causes massive problems when adding mods.
Move your Oblivion installation to c:\Games\Oblivion, using THIS guide, and things should hopefully improve.