MarkInMKUK

Firstly - if you are on Windows 7, you could be having sporadic UAC (User Account Control) problems - things apparently unarchiving but vanishing sounds typical. Use Bben46's guide HERE to uninstall Oblivion abnd reinstall it at C:\Games\Oblivion (NOT repeat NOT "My Games/Oblivion"). You may find 99% of the problems vanish. Generic cut'n'paste follows: If you have Windows Vista or Windows 7and are thinking of modding, do yourself (and us, because you'd no doubt be asking for help with it later) a BIG favour and use Bben46's guide here to move the game from the default install position to C:\Games\Oblivion. That stops the UAC from mucking up just about every mod you try to use, including (sometimes) official patches. Many mods will require you to be patched to version 1.2.0416, and a lot will require the Shivering Isles expansion - if you don't already have Shivering Isles, buy it and add it to the game, THEN patch it (otherwise you'll need to uninstall and reinstall from scratch to add Shivering Isles later). I strongly suggest adding the Unofficial Oblivion Patch (UOP), the Unofficial Shivering Isles Patch (UOSP), and (if you have Knights of the Nine and/or any of the official downloadable content files, the Unofficial Official Mods Patch (UOMP), plus the Unofficial Patch Supplementals and the UOP Dark Sister Voice Fix. They between them bugfix several thousand bugs and errors, and make the game much better to play. Other "essential" mods are Oblivion Script Extender (OBSE), and then Fast Exit and Windom Earle's Oblivion Crash Prevention System (weOCPS) - the pair of those greatly aid stability and stop many of the more common crash scenarios from wrecking your game.

I believe it's in the order of $20-$25 or thereabouts. If you are using Windows Vista or 7, if you DO get the Steam version, read Bben46's guide HERE first, and uninstall what you already have then install the new version to someplace other than C:\Program files\Steam\Oblivion - we usually recommend C:\Games\Steam\Oblivion. If you get the disk-based version, the same applies - uninstall what you have and reinstall it in C:\Games\Oblivion.

Opening with word may well break files IF you make the mistake of saving them instead of quitting. If so, you need to re-download the mods and reinstall them. As for sorting out the link to Word, your best bet is to download paint.NET (it's a free program), and then right click a .dds file you HAVEN'T opened in Word, select "Open With..." and choose Paint.NET, then CLOSE it don't SAVE it. That will, at least, stop you ruining any more .dds files accidentally. But you probably can't repair the broken ones, they will have probably been chopped short at the first ASCII character 26 in the file (which is used by Word as an "end of file" marker.

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Colourwheel has a sexy dance club mod. Not sure about night-time vendors/merchants though.

It's more that the Desktop PC is expandable. Laptops are very difficult to impossible to upgrade, while a PC upgrade can be done bit by bit. The motherboard will take at least an AMD Anthlon 5000+ (2.6GHz per core) as there's a forum post from a guy running one IN that board as supplied by the PC maker. Pick the fastest memory which the motherboard can take when upgrading - that will ensure that no matter which processor you manage to upgrade to, you'll be able to handle it. Crucial list THIS page for memory upgrades for a system based on that motherboard, so you should be able to upgrade it to 4GB eventually (XP32 will show about 3.2 GB maximum anyway as a 32 bit OS can't address more than that). Buy the DDR2 PC2-8500 memory as that's the fastest - get 2GB to replace what you have (you MAY be lucky and find it'll work alongside the existing memory but you won't get the full speed advantage until ALL of the memory is DDR2 PC2-8500) If the soundcard is already a separate one, stick with it - that'll be fine. If not, start saving to replace it eventually.

Neither will give you a happy gaming experience as they stand, but... Yes, install it on computer #1, having read the following. Computer 1 will need some extra RAM before it is going to run Oblivion happily - I recently bought 4GB of RAM for £36 so it's not a terribly expensive upgrade. I'd also suggest Googling for the Omega video drivers, they're optimised for ganing use and will help a little. I assume the GC is integrated on Computer 1 - if so, try and find a second-hand separate card of similar or better spec (I personally favour nVidia but there's little difference), along with a separate sound card. Again, I recently bought a second-hand GeForce GT430 card for £48, and a cheap sound card should be under £20 brand new... Finally, look at getting a faster processor - save for the fastest your motherboard will support. A fast single core will beat a slower dual core for Oblivion. Then there's optimising the game to reduce the load on the system: (1) Use PYFFI to optimise the meshes and it makes one heck of a performance change on a lower-end system. (2) Run the "Quiet feet" mod to reduce processor load when in combat especially. (3) Keep an eye open for any mod with phrases like "simplfied meshes" or "smaller textures" and try them out.

If you have a "No CD" patch that will also stop OBSE running...

You could try messaging the mod author ... it may well be easy to alter the trigger settings

Something like Spell Deflection ?

Short answer - yes. Longer answer - time to do some serious reading - the mod which does just about everything you ask is RAEVWD - Really Almost Everything Visible When Distant. However, unless you have a VERY powerful gaming setup (3GHx+ multicore processor, loads of free RAM and a graphics card with at lease 2GB of VRAM), you are probably going to end up with something closer to a slide show than a game. However, once it IS installed, you can then begin to throttle it back until it is playable. Hopefully someplace between slideshow and where you are now, there's a compromise you can live with.

A couple of points: (1) CPU speed - Oblivion is originally a single core program. While a few ini file tweaks CAN help, you still can't beat a fast single core processor with a slow multi-core. Later games which use multicore processing are going to run better. (2) OBGE v3 has one HECK of a performance hit with some shaders. It may get optimised more later, but currently it's more use for static "eye candy" shots than for gameing for some settings. OverclockersUK have a forum which covers a "massively eye-candy" version os Oblivion and they're bringing top-notch gaming rigs to their knees with it. Yes, you may have to cut back your expectations.

Armies are out - Oblivion tops out at moving 20 or so characters total at any one time. More characters and you end up with loads of "dummies" that just stand there.

Using OBGE you are doing more processing - MUCH more. Therefore you WILL slow down. Solution? Try a pair of very expensive linked graphics cards with 2GB RAM each, to handle all the eye candy you are trying to run. OR... ... how about admitting that your PC is not up to running everything all at once, and stop asking it to do the impossible. Remember, most people who make pictures of that resolution and quality are NOT taking "action shots" - they are using pose mods if there is even a character visible. They are NOT playing the game at the same settings - probably because they can't.

(1) Don't bump - you'll get banned. Have some patience. (2) Having re-read the thread and seen how polite you are when someone DOES help, I'll give you a hint and leave you to work it out yourself, rather than tell you more clearly. Hint: When you leave the sewer, it's the first time your game actually has to work hard at the graphics. Second hint because I'm feeling kind: Eye Candy mods are not part of a basic FCOM install.

There are a few sites with full graphical overhaul walkthroughs around. The most recent I've seen is on the "Overclockers UK" forum. It takes you through the full process of using Wrye Bash to install stuff too. However, it IS for the "power gamer" - the end result is almost crippling multicore 3.2GHz machines with 8GB of RAM and 2GB graphics cards until it is "de-tuned" a bit. Five year old game, and still brings modern PCs to their knees - now THAT is impressive.

Drake - you could probably simplify things and only consider weapons which have a hotkey defined. That'll limit the options and the processing when people have the umpteen loot items described in my earlier post.

The problem is - you don't EQUIP weapons you are not using - they just are in your inventory. Therefore if you are carrying 14 daggers, 5 swords, 3 bows and 6 types of arrows, along with a staff and mace, you'd need to display them all - OR have a way to say which ones were equipped. Once you sort THAT out, then the rest of the mod might be possible.

Why are you altering the Oblivion_default.ini? You should make user changes to the main Oblivion.ini in your "My Documents/Games/Oblivion" folder. Also, you are obviously having problems with User Account Control (UAC) - you need to move your copy of Oblivion to C:\Games\Oblivion (NOT repeat NOT "My Games/Oblivion") Generic cut'n'paste setup advice with links follows If you have Windows Vista or Windows 7and are thinking of modding, do yourself (and us, because you'd no doubt be asking for help with it later) a BIG favour and use Bben46's guide here to move the game from the default install position to C:\Games\Oblivion. That stops the UAC from mucking up just about every mod you try to use, including (sometimes) official patches. Many mods will require you to be patched to version 1.2.0416, and a lot will require the Shivering Isles expansion - if you don't already have Shivering Isles, buy it and add it to the game, THEN patch it (otherwise you'll need to uninstall and reinstall from scratch to add Shivering Isles later). I strongly suggest adding the Unofficial Oblivion Patch (UOP), the Unofficial Shivering Isles Patch (UOSP), and (if you have Knights of the Nine and/or any of the official downloadable content files, the Unofficial Official Mods Patch (UOMP), plus the Unofficial Patch Supplementals and the UOP Dark Sister Voice Fix. They between them bugfix several thousand bugs and errors, and make the game much better to play. Other "essential" mods are Oblivion Script Extender (OBSE), and then Fast Exit and Windom Earle's Oblivion Crash Prevention System (weOCPS) - the pair of those greatly aid stability and stop many of the more common crash scenarios from wrecking your game.

Windows 7 or Vista? Oblivion installed in c:\Program Files\Oblivion or c:\Program Files (x86)\Oblivion ? If so, it's probably a UAC interference problem. Use Bben46's guide to shift the installation to C:\Games\Oblivion (NOT repeat NOT "My games/Oblivion"). Then try my basic walkthrough - "The Pain of BAIN (is mainly in my brain)". That should (hopefully) get you up and running, and then you can try the mods you wanted to add.

If that fails, try SM Plugin Refurbish which changes the start conditions for the quests, for example the Horse armor one starts with finding a note on a table in an inn in the Imperial City... Much more immersive anyway :)

Removing the Invisible Border Wall: In oblivion.ini (the one in your My Documents/My Games/Oblivion folder), find bBorderRegionsEnabled=1 just change the 1 to 0. I'd have thought sleeping IN a church would be a little inappropriate - maybe what would be better is a small Priory someplace?

Thanks for the info - I'll have a look. Of course, I've yet to see a really busy pub in the Imperial City - they always look half-empty

I'd go with the basic fixits - the unofficial patches to fix the bugged bits of the vanilla game. If you have Windows Vista or Windows 7and are thinking of modding, do yourself (and us, because you'd no doubt be asking for help with it later) a BIG favour and use Bben46's guide here to move the game from the default install position to C:\Games\Oblivion. That stops the UAC from mucking up just about every mod you try to use, including (sometimes) official patches. Many mods will require you to be patched to version 1.2.0416, and a lot will require the Shivering Isles expansion - if you don't already have Shivering Isles, buy it and add it to the game, THEN patch it (otherwise you'll need to uninstall and reinstall from scratch to add Shivering Isles later). I strongly suggest adding the Unofficial Oblivion Patch (UOP), the Unofficial Shivering Isles Patch (UOSP), and (if you have Knights of the Nine and/or any of the official downloadable content files, the Unofficial Official Mods Patch (UOMP), plus the Unofficial Patch Supplementals and the UOP Dark Sister Voice Fix. They between them bugfix several thousand bugs and errors, and make the game much better to play. Other "essential" mods are Oblivion Script Extender (OBSE), and then Fast Exit and Windom Earle's Oblivion Crash Prevention System (weOCPS) - the pair of those greatly aid stability and stop many of the more common crash scenarios from wrecking your game.

Thanks for the answer, Cliffworms. I'll give the mod a try, but it may almost be more immersion breaking to hear a loud pub and enter to find just the barman, than to have it quiet when full. Maybe a later update can look at some kind of scaling of sound effects?