MichikoUnknownFox

Actually all of those have manual installation versions. Well, except EVE. o_O Check the files section for each of those carefully. You may also want to check whether your download is finishing through and through or not. You can do that by trying to open it in WinRAR (a very paranoid program that won't let you open corrupted files). Hiccups in connection might cause it to time out, and make your browser auto-complete the file without actually downloading all of the data necessary. It's more common in larger files, but it happens sometimes in smaller files like images, text files and webpages (if you sometimes get stuck with a webpage not fully loading, or images being incomplete, you definitely have this problem).

Might as well check that out too. That wasn't around yet when I stopped playing last year. :dance:

Are you, by chance, overclocking your card? I suddenly remember that happened to me when I went overboard with overclocking. I didn't think that was the cause at first (not 100% sure even now), but as soon as I toned the OC down a little, this anomaly (and other anomalies, such as weird black objects floating stationary in the sky, lines stretching from weighted objects, etc.) all disappeared. -edit: To clarify, it's not really broken textures or anything, but my guess it's your card not handling either AF or Mip Map detail (or both) properly. This seems to happen when you have the wrong settings (too much/too little AF, GPU too hot, too many textures loaded into memory). Try adjusting your settings in Catalyst or ATI Tray Tools (or whatever else you may be using), and see if that resolves anything.

I'm composing new music for Oblivion. I'll think of it as practice for my work. I may end up doing a variety of themes (ranging from game ambience to rock/metal influence). I used to listen to iTunes in the background though for practically all games I ever played. That being said, my playlist was different each time, depending on my mood. D:

o_O But there's already quite a few magic overhauls in fact. One that I can vouch for is Supreme Magicka. It handles pretty much every aspect of magic, from actual combat to enchantments. It's compatible with DR too (freeze/burn and other such effects). I'm sure there's more out there, but Supreme Magicka has worked well for me for years.

Yeah once you get the hang of it and pay attention to what you're doing, it becomes really easy. I barely even think whenever I add a new mod and rebuild my bashed patch lol. Apparently I have 203 mods active right now, excluding the mods that you don't need to activate like texture replacers. Many of them would've had conflicts and otherwise broken my Oblivion, but Wrye Bash, the useful little tool it is, keeps them all in check. It's definitely worth it to learn to use Wrye Bash. Don't let yourself get intimidated. It just looks scary at first, and reading that extremely nerdy official website layout, kinda like something from 1996, doesn't help. Go look for those picture guides on installation. :D

On that note, it may be because you naturally have different mesh and textures installed for your male and female characters, which could have affected how shadows work on them (normal maps? I dunno lol). Anyway it's good that you got it fixed. That OBGE Liquid Water was buggy for me too.

On my machine, with Enayla's face textures installed, I noticed that it doesn't work immediately during chargen. I have to tweak the character face shape a little (or wait a bit without doing anything maybe) and the textures suddenly change into the smoother textures I expected. It may not be the same issue as yours, but it could be related. I'm thinking that maybe one or more mods (or even game settings?) are hindering the better textures from showing up.

Nah. I have Cobl and the Saram hairs. I doubt that's the problem. But if it is, try removing the Saram hairs anyway. Mods, especially textures, unless installed on a physically damaged HD, shouldn't really affect your system like that. At most it would probably CTD or black/blank screen. Check your HD? There might be something wrong with it. Bad sector, almost full, I/O error, etc.?

Yeah I think he's trying to make a mod with some other people, and they want to be working with the same master file. He probably wants to use the changes he made in his esp and let the other guys work with the same changes as well, hence merging into the esm. At least, that's how I understand it. D:

Yeah I guess it's a good idea to learn to use Wrye Bash even as a new player. It's not really hard to learn (anymore). There's plenty of documentation and lots of help. And it'll definitely cut your headaches from installing a lot of mods down.

I'm stumped lol. Though you could be right about the bashed patch rebuilding. Try importing graphics from Robert's. I don't have Robert's so I don't even know if that's an option. Maybe somebody else could shed some light.

Yeah could be an Oblivion shader issue. Make sure that when you uninstall Oblivion, you clean out the folder you're installing to as well. Just delete the whole Oblivion folder to be safe. A mod may have added custom shaders, and left it there even after Oblivion was uninstalled.

That's not a simple question to answer. Most of us that run a "heavily modded" Oblivion have at least 100 mods. I myself often reach the 200 mark and beyond, though a lot of those are clothing mods that I'm too lazy to merge into one (to save space, since the limit is 254 if I'm not mistaken). It's not a matter of "order of activation", but rather the order at which the game loads it, also known as "Load Order". However, the default Oblivion Launcher, which you normally use to activate mods doesn't allow you to adjust the Load Order. So you would need a 3rd party program such as Oblivion Mod Manager (OBMM). However, I highly recommend that if you do plan to mod your game and eventually "heavily mod" it, you should learn to use this very simple program called BOSS. Simply put, it adjusts the Load Order for you, based on a database put together by people who know what they're doing. It's almost always right (it just doesn't recognize some new/less popular/custom mods yet), and you can trust it to adjust the load order for you. I suggest you read whatever BOSS displays on your browser, too. It won't activate or deactivate mods for you; it'll only put them in the right order. I also recommend that you get the necessary unofficial patches, if you haven't yet. You can search them out at TESNexus of course. Read the instructions properly, and only install the patches for stuff you actually have (like if you don't have Shivering Isles, don't get the Unofficial Shivering Isles Patch). I hope this helps. :)

In that case, you should make your plugin dependent on whatever it needs to be dependent on. It doesn't always have to be dependent on an esm (example: patch mods), but it depends on what you're trying to do really. :dance:

It changes your Oblivion.ini naturally and without alerting you. That's why the readme tells you to back up your Oblivion.ini before even touching Streamline. Streamline is not really about boosting FPS (even if it claims it does), but rather, attempting to get it to a stable playable level. It tries to reduce graphics and loading lag spikes. I noticed before it actually lowered my FPS when I was going too fast (120 FPS staring at a wall), and kept it there, much like what you experienced. Bottom line, if you're gonna use Streamline on a decent gaming machine, you should probably only use the Streampurge function if you ask me. You won't actually get graphics lag on any decent gaming card, with the right graphics adjustment. Heck I'm only using an 8600 GT, and vanilla Oblivion (as in no "optimized" meshes, textures, and any other performance enhancements yet) was still running on a good 40-60 FPS in the forest. Loading/pre-loading lag is more of your problem, the main cause of stuttering (for me), because the game handles that stuff inefficiently (rendering even stuff you're not supposed to see yet and whatnot), and Streampurge can help smooth that out.

Could you post a screenshot of what it looks like? I have a feeling it's not really in a loaded plugin, but rather some weird texture. I could be wrong of course, but I'm curious as to what you mean.

Wait, why are you trying to merge an .esp with an .esm? More likely than not, you're going to end up with a very buggy mod. Or if you're modifying an .esm that's a master of other mods, you could break those mods as well. But you shouldn't really merge an .esp into an .esm by yourself. It doesn't even make sense. Loading the .esp after the .esm, which is the only way you can do it anyway since you can't load an .esp before .esm files, will make it automatically override any values it changes, so there's no need to merge. The most you should be doing is making a new .esm, which will be reliant on the other .esm. Explain what you're trying to do and we may come up with alternatives that will solve your problem.

@David: Tertullian, Sergius and Cicero.

Who said that? lol I'd have to disagree. Don't get me wrong, Oblivion is obviously a very good game (otherwise I wouldn't even play it after all these years). And its popularity is a testament to its success as a game. But if you ask me, the real charm of Oblivion isn't really the graphics, which are not only poorly optimized but by now are actually already outdated, nor in the storyline (though good as it is). The charm is that it's more like a sandbox game. All the mods, the wide open world, the lots of places to explore, all the mods, messing with NPCs, all the mods, etc., are kinda like unleashing a very imaginative kid in a large roomful of Play-Doh or Legos. Nice. :o It's one of the cards I'm looking at for a possible CrossFire set up. In my opinion, there aren't many good 3rd person mods out yet. There's a few you might like, but the truth of the mater is that Oblivion (particularly the camera) gets a bit buggy especially in crowded areas. It doesn't have smart camera control in 3rd person, so even the camera mods will still subject you to the camera clipping into walls at times. Actually, there are only a few mods that deal with camera or 3rd person. I warn you though, most of them are really buggy. Your card should be able to handle pretty much all the high res textures and LOD stuff. Just search around and look at the screenshots. There's a few choices and you can make a good decision. Read the comments for reviews too. Oblivion tends to get stuttery sometimes, even with a good machine, because of its inefficient engine. Try running around the the forest or something, and see if it ever stutters for you. If it does, don't feel bad or think your system sucks (cuz it doesn't); it's just really an inefficient program. You may want those mods that reduce the unnecessarily huge amount of polygons the game uses. Operation Optimization is the one that first comes to mind. It doesn't really reduce visual quality or anything, so you can still enjoy the scenery. You can also try Streamline. You don't need to bother with stuff that boosts FPS. Read the documentation on how to turn those off. What you really need is the stuff that keeps your FPS fairly constant and "smooth". Heck, my machine is dust compared to yours, and I still get a very stable 60 FPS even in combat in a very foggy dungeon, and a very stable 40 FPS when outdoors with my view distance pretty good. Again, read the documentation on how to accomplish that. DMC Stylish + Deadly Reflex (DR5) are a very good combination for 3rd person, if you like over-the-top animations that is. Vanilla animations are pretty dorky to begin with anyway. To install them properly, start off with DR5. Then install the individual animation replacements from DMC Stylish. I don't recommend installing DR6 just yet. It's pretty buggy and requires some extra plugins that are also buggy for me. The last straw for me was when DR6 messed up my first-person skeleton so that my view was like a foot above where my head actually should've been. But there are a few other bugs that can really frustrate you. It's still in its testing phase, so don't expect it to be something you'll stick with and actually play for a while. DR5, on the other hand, is already pretty stable. It's still buggy, but not so much. You kinda learn to live with or counter some of its bugs and other quirks. Unnecessary Violence is another combat mod. It's actually compatible with DR5, but it's actually a pain in the butt to install, has a lot of bugs too, and tends to be overly ambitious in some of its stuff. It's not a full final version yet either, but may be fun to try out if you're looking for a fun combat mod. If you like fast-paced action and danger, I highly recommend this mod made by my favorite immersion/realism modder, Phitt (actually he's my favorite primarily because of this mod lol). It actually changes a lot of things, but the most notable one is the extra damage. It's the best damage calculation mod out there (and I've tried a lot) because it doesn't simply add x6 damage, like all the other damage mods do, but it actually has some simple and dynamic calculations based on your settings. In vanilla Oblivion, as you gain levels, you'll notice that combat will start to drag out, like it takes 3 minutes of slashing an armored enemy. Meanwhile, you yourself can also take your time and do a few attacks here and there, learn the minor heal spell and have some basic potions and you'd be pretty safe. Phitt's mod will make the game dangerous, so that you can kill in a few hits, but you can also get killed in a few hits. Very good if you're the type that likes real life skills in combat rather than just relying purely on stats and equipment.

That's pretty impressive really. :dance: With reasonably lowered settings that's definitely playable. Also I noticed that your card is fairly cool in furmark. Mine (8600 GT) goes all the way up to 75° with its stock fan ramped up to full power (using MSI Afterburner), though I do get better FPS (about 5-6) with the same furry test. That could only mean that your improvised cooling system really is working lol. Do you have an improvised cooling system for your CPU casing too, or do you just do the normal remove-the-side-panel thing?

Yeah it got so much that I started to look for it in other games, which is wrong and unfair to other games lol. I was playing Assassin's Creed II and I kept thinking, "I wish I could mod some stuff here."

Hmm, to start off you may want to uninstall and reinstall it in a different location other than default. Later on you'll want to mod the game, and modding gets difficult if you install it in the Program Files folder in Windows Vista/7. Install it to C:/Games/ or any other location. Just now the C:/Program Files/ one.

I like your mods, David lol. I especially love your mods that deal with NPC behavior and adding NPCs, and dungeons/new places to explore. I like a populated world. :D That's why most of the mods I add deal with that, really. I like having lots of NPCs doing stuff. Like that old Goblin Wars mod. Even if I don't actually play with them, just the idea that I can if I wanted, and that maybe they're playing with each other even without me (maybe not but it's the thought!), that's what I'm looking for in Oblivion. :D -edit: I see you have a new mod that does exactly the kind of thing I like! (Battle Between Two Forts) Awwright time to install that and mess around with some NPCs. :dance:

Oh there's mods to fix that. I think the old "No Psychic Guards" mod is enough to solve that problem. I know it works for attacking somebody, no reason it won't work for stealing too.