Lanceor's turn to have crash problems!

[Lanceor]

Oblivion and Skyrim both crash when any but the simplest of mods are installed. The computer is hardly taxed at all when it crashes, and could theoretically handle a lot more mods if it didn't keep crashing.

 

I know for a fact that I was able to run a very hefty list of mods on Oblivion when the computer was new two years ago, so I'll concentrate on getting Oblivion working first.

 

Load Order:

 

 

Oblivion.esm

DLCShiveringIsles.esp

RAEVWD Cities.esp Version 1.9

RAEVWD Imperial City.esp Version 1.9

 

...that's it! For testing, there's no texture or mesh replacers (yet).

 

 

It seems to run fine with just Oblivion.esm and DLCShiveringIsles.esp. As soon as I add RAEVWD, it crashes in all outdoor areas, sometimes while loading the cell, sometimes up to half a minute later. Frame rates get progressively worse before the crash occurs. Just for comparison, it used to be able to run RAEVWD + QTP3 Redimized + Unique Landscapes Compilation + Better Cities + 72 followers from Knights of the Nine Revelation without crashing! Also, no other games seem to be struggling, not even Crysis 2, though none of the others games are modded.

 

Things I've tried:

• Deleted Oblivion.ini.
• Removed all mods including DLC.
• Started brand new character.
• Full Oblivion reinstall including registry wipe.
• Installed Oblivion on a different drive.
• Removed overclocking.
• Moved pagefile to a different drive, or ran with no pagefile.
• Updated to latest video drivers / rolled back to old drivers known to be stable.
• Disabled SLI (Thanks to Flintlockecole for the suggestion)

System Specs

 

 

Windows 7 64 Bit

Intel Core i7 2600K

8 GB DDR3 RAM

2 x nVidia GeForce GTX 580, 1.5 GB VRAM, SLI

Resolution: 1920 x 1080

Corsair Force 3 SSD

 

Tests / Benchmarks

 

 

Prime95 - Runs overnight with no errors

IntelBurnTest - Runs High Stress Level test with no errors

Memtest - Runs to 200% coverage with no errors

Ungine Heaven - Runs for an hour with no problems

Ungine Valley - Runs for an hour with no problems

SpeedFan 4.49 S.M.A.R.T. analysis - no errors

sfc /scannow - no errors

chkdsk /r - no errors for any drive

 

Could there be some sort of I/O issue? It's consistent with the fact that both the CPU and GPU's are hardly taxed, and both Oblivion and Skyrim require a lot of realtime disk access.

 

Please throw at me any suggestions you can think of, no matter how ridiculous they may sound! The only thing that I haven't tried is a full reformat of the primary hard drive / reinstallation of Windows, and I'd rather avoid that if I can.

[Flintlockecole]

Might be due to both of those games not liking SLI/Crossfire. I had to disable one of my cards due to a crashing problem.

[Lanceor]

Hmmmm... I've heard of SLI problems before, but it's odd that they would only begin a week ago. Anyway, I disabled SLI for Oblivion... and it still crashes. Thanks for the suggestion though!

[Werne]

This may seem like a dumb question, but did you activate ArchiveInvalidation?

 

When I last reinstalled FO3 and it took me three hours to figure out why my game crashes if I add mods, until I realized it's AII that is missing.

[Lanceor]

This may seem like a dumb question, but did you activate ArchiveInvalidation?

It's a question worth asking. I'm using Wrye Bash to install stuff and it has BSA Redirection checked so Archive Invalidation shouldn't be needed.

[Werne]

ArchiveInvalidation shouldn't be a problem then, the BSA redirection is basically AII.

 

And one thing bugs me, you said that prior to the crash the game's performance becomes progressively worse, which is interesting cause it feels as if something is "smothering" the process while it's running.

 

It might be possible that something gets to use up all the CPU cycles once the games are ran, could be the antivirus or UAC/firewall that is messing with them. Not 100% certain about it, but it sure feels that way. Do you have the games installed in C:\Program Files? And have you tried monitoring background process activities while running the game?

[Striker879]

I'll admit I haven't been keeping up to date on the latest concerning SSD drives, but there was a problem with early generation drives not utilizing space that had been written to once and then freed up when the file was deleted. Newer drives may take care of this automatically (as well as newer operating systems) but if I recall correctly the drive manufacturers had an external utility that took care of it (I believe the command was called the 'trim command').

[Lanceor]

It seems to have stopped crashing... and I'm not 100% sure why.

 

I fiddled around with the driver settings and set them all back to default before overriding them with my custom settings. In particular, I forced the SLI GPU count and SLI mode settings to "Autoselect" instead of whatever it was on.

 

I also noticed sound problems and found that a recently installed application had installed a bunch of codecs that seemed to be messing with Oblivion.

 

Fingers crossed that the stability problems are fixed now... I'm going to move my Oblivion install back to the SSD and start re-adding the mods one at a time.

[ElderScrollsFan001]

have you tried thIs Animation Fixer.

 

http://oblivion.nexusmods.com/mods/5127//?

[Lanceor]

And one thing bugs me, you said that prior to the crash the game's performance becomes progressively worse, which is interesting cause it feels as if something is "smothering" the process while it's running.

I got that feeling too... I couldn't find any errant processes hogging up processor cycles, but removing that media program with the codecs seems to have helped.

 

I'll admit I haven't been keeping up to date on the latest concerning SSD drives, but there was a problem with early generation drives not utilizing space that had been written to once and then freed up when the file was deleted. Newer drives may take care of this automatically (as well as newer operating systems) but if I recall correctly the drive manufacturers had an external utility that took care of it (I believe the command was called the 'trim command').

SSD hardware is actually very reliable, having been used in mobile phones for years. The firmware lagged a bit behind though, as SSDs have only been used in PCs for a few years. When I first got the SSD, it did indeed have a firmware problem causing crashes, but a later update fixed it. :smile:

 

have you tried thIs Animation Fixer.

I repaired the A bomb with Wrye Bash... it wasn't it unfortunately.