CTD frustration

[vegtabill]

Greetings all,

 

I love this game. I really do. And when I discovered the wonderful world of mods, I loved it even more.

 

But now the love is gone, or at least it is fading fast, because now I spend all my time trying to get it to work, as opposed to actually playing it.

 

Please, before going ballistic or taking offense, just hear me out for a minute. I am not blaming anyone for anything... including myself. I mean, let's face it, unless you can show that a modder intended to screw up your installation, the worst you could blame them for is negligence, possibly irresponsibility. And as for the users of mods, like myself, how can you blame us for trying to get all these really cool things to work together? That's why they are there, right?

 

So you go out there, find cool stuff you like, and get just enough of a taste of it to make vanilla Oblivion much less appealing and, well, downright boring... and then things start going wrong. Is it this mod... or that one? Or maybe this one doesn't work with that one when this third one is running. Maybe you need a patch? Or maybe you need some optimization software... there are a number of them. But then the CTDs just get worse. So you uninstall it all and start over again. Everything in the right order, conflicts resolved.... but still, CTDs.

 

OK, this is getting pretentious, I know. I'll stop. But you get the idea. I really am finding myself at a point where I'm like, damn, I really don't want to go through this again... I just want to play the game!

 

So why post here? What exactly am I looking for, right? Well, I don't know. Kindred spirits maybe? A silver bullet? (well, yeah, actually that would be cool). I suppose that if there were people out there that had persistent CTD problems, and then found ways to solve them, it would be cool to hear how they did it. But even there, you quickly get into a situation where this fix for this person doesn't work for this other person with (essentially) the same config. It is pretty frustrating.

 

I apologize if this is a waste of bandwidth, or if it's in the wrong place. But for what it's worth, if you have had problems with CTDs that you just can't figure out, I'd be interested in hearing what you have to say...

 

Thanks, and good evening,

veg

[dezdimona]

try reading this and then add to your post!

 

http://thenexusforums.com/index.php?showtopic=135726

[AncientSpaceAeon]

Well crashes is a part of Oblivion. It happens frequently, but you can lower the frequence. (somehow)

[vegtabill]

try reading this and then add to your post!

 

http://thenexusforums.com/index.php?showtopic=135726

OK, thanks for the link. I am going down the list before I say anything else, but I'll have to pick it back up again after work, so bear with me. I'll post back here when I've gone through everything.

 

FWIW, I was really more lamenting than anything (not trerribly helpful or productive, I know). I know you need info to help solve problems... in other words, I really didn't mean for this to come across as a "My game is broken! Someone fix it!" kind of post. I really do get a lot of this stuff...

 

But, I am always happy to accept help from some one willing to listen! I do feel rather foolish for not finding that sticky myself first. But again, FWIW, you could spend days reading about troubleshooting mods without even knowing of this site's existence, let alone all the individual posts in here. I guess I'm just saying there is so much info out there, it's hard to know where to start.

 

Thanks again for the help. I'll provide more info later tonight.

veg

[vegtabill]

OK, I have had some time to go down the list and take care of a couple of things, so here goes....

 

1. I am not asking about any particular mod.

 

2. I am running "original" Oblivion with Shivering Isles expansion, patched to 1.2.0416, and the unofficial patches for both (MOBS version of USIP).

 

3. I am running all of the DLCs EXCEPT KotN and the last one (Fighter's Stronghold, I think?). I am running the unofficial patches for them as well.

 

4. I'm not asking for help with a body mod, but for completeness: I have HGEC Body v1.21 installed with Hi Res Skin Textures (2048x2048 version, plus face textures to match). I also have IFT for better age mapping, and TNR (merged into the bashed patch).

 

5. I am running OBSE (with pluggy), and I use BOSS, OBMM, Wrye Bash, and the Construction Set.

 

6. I am not asking about an FPS problem. Lag is certainly an issue I am dealing with, but CTDs occur regardless of lag.

 

7. I am running Win XP SP3. Everything is completely updated.

 

8. The defrag was what i needed to wait for. I was pretty sure that was not the issue, but I had not done it, so before going any further I let it run twice today. Once completed, I loaded up Oblivion again, but there was no change whatsoever. Still, until I tried I didn't want to say it wouldn't work.

 

9. No malware, no viruses.

 

Besides the mods and load order (see below), I don't think I can address the other items directly, except to say that I have tried really hard to follow everything in the readmes, and to follow the advice of others when resolving conflicts. I have read everything I could to understand how the tools work (Wrye Bash, OBMM, etc), but it is entirely possible that I missed something somewhere along the way.

 

Anyway, here's the load order (items marked with * are "virtually active" via the bashed patch):

 

Oblivion.esm

Francesco's Leveled Creatures-Items Mod.esm

Francesco's Optional New Items Add-On.esm

Cobl Main.esm

Oscuro's_Oblivion_Overhaul.esm

Mart's Monster Mod.esm

FCOM_Convergence.esm

Cobl Races.esp

*Cobl Races TNR.esp

*Cobl Races TNR SI.esp

Unofficial Oblivion Patch.esp

UOP Vampire Aging & Face Fix.esp

Oblivion Citadel Door Fix.esp

DLCShiveringIsles.esp

Unofficial Shivering Isles Patch.esp

Francesco's Optional Chance of Stronger Bosses.esp

Francesco's Optional Chance of Stronger Enemies.esp

Francesco's Optional Chance of More Enemies.esp

Francesco's Optional Leveled Quests-SI only.esp

Francesco's Optional Leveled Guards.esp

*Francesco's Dark Seducer Weapons Patch.esp

*FCOM_Francescos.esp

*FCOM_FrancescosItemsAddOn.esp

FCOM_FrancescosNamedBosses.esp

Fran Armor Add-on.esp

Fran_Lv30Item_Maltz.esp

WindowLightingSystem.esp

Akatosh Mount By Saiden Storm.esp

*Item interchange - Extraction.esp

Luchaire's Neck Seam Concealer.esp

Reznod_Mannequin.esp

Expanded Hotkeys and Spell Delete v1.0.esp

Expanded Hotkeys Brief Equip Message.esp

DLCHorseArmor.esp

DLCHorseArmor - Unofficial Patch.esp

DLCOrrery.esp

DLCOrrery - Unofficial Patch.esp

DLCVileLair.esp

DLCVileLair - Unofficial Patch.esp

DLCMehrunesRazor.esp

DLCMehrunesRazor - Unofficial Patch.esp

DLCSpellTomes.esp

*DLCSpellTomes - Unofficial Patch.esp

*EVE_StockEquipmentReplacer.esp

*HGEC_special_armor_repl.esp

Morrowind Robes and Dresses for HGEC.esp

Ice Gowns for HGEC.esp

DLCThievesDen.esp

DLCThievesDen - Unofficial Patch.esp

DLCThievesDen - Unofficial Patch - SSSB.esp

KDCircletsOOOOptimized - NPC Equip.esp

*FCOM_KDCircletsOOOOptimizedNPCEquip.esp

ExnemRuneskulls.esp

*FCOM_ExnemRuneskulls.esp

Slof's Oblivion Robe Trader.esp

Cobl Glue.esp

Cobl Si.esp

OOO 1.32-Cobl.esp

*FCOM_Cobl.esp

Bob's Armory Oblivion.esp

FCOM_BobsArmory.esp

Loth's Blunt Weapons for NPCs.esp

*FCOM_LothsBluntWeapons.esp

Oblivion WarCry EV.esp

FCOM_WarCry.esp

Oscuro's_Oblivion_Overhaul.esp

FCOM_Convergence.esp

*FCOM_EntropicOrderRebalance.esp

FCOM_RealSwords.esp

FCOM_DurabilityAndDamage.esp

*FCOM_SaferRoads.esp

*Mart's Monster Mod - Looting NPCs & Creatures.esp

Mart's Monster Mod - Vindasel.esp

Mart's Monster Mod - Dungeons of MMM.esp

Mart's Monster Mod - Hunting & Crafting.esp

*FCOM_DiverseGuardUnity.esp

*FCOM_BobsGuardUnity.esp

*FCOM_HungersUnitySI.esp

*FCOM_Archery.esp

OOO-WaterFish.esp

*MMM-Cobl.esp

DLCFrostcrag.esp

FrostcragRebornCobl.esp

*FCOM_slofsrobetrader.esp

*FCOM_UnofficialFranArmorAddon.esp

Quest Award Leveller.esp

Quest Award Leveller - Vile Lair.esp

*Quest Award Leveller - Mehrunes Razor.esp

Mighty Magick - Core.esp

Mighty Magick - Skills.esp

Mighty Magick - Magicka Pool Progression.esp

Mighty Magick - Side Effects.esp

*Mighty Magick - Sigil Stones.esp

Mighty Magick - Restore Magicka Potions [OOO].esp

*Item interchange - Placement for FCOM.esp

*Item interchange - Placement for Frostcrag Reborn.esp

*EVE_KhajiitFix.esp

Bashed Patch, 0.esp

Streamline 3.1.esp

 

And I think that's it. The only other thing I might add is that I had tried using TES4LODGen, but with all the other issues I decided this was probably something I could do without until the rest was working. So, I renamed the DistantLOD folder in Oblivion/Data to keep it from loading. The only other change is that I tried running Open Cities, but reverted for the same reasons as TES4LODGen.

 

And I really think that's it.

 

If you (or anyone really) see anything that I have screwed up, please let me know. I am pretty receptive, generally speaking. But in all likelihood i will be re-installing once more this weekend. I really would like to get back to enjoying this thing...

 

TIA,

veg

[vegtabill]

Well, I think 24 hours has passed, but i don't plan on making this a habit. It being Sunday and all, I thought I'd make one more attempt before another week started. I did do the re-install. Everything is essentially the same, except that I never ran TES4LODGen this time. I did not install Open Cities this time either. Oh, and since I did not install Open Cities, I did install Armory Lab.

 

Posted Jul 24 2009, 06:51 AM

Well crashes is a part of Oblivion. It happens frequently, but you can lower the frequence. (somehow)

While I definitely appreciate what you're saying here, I think that not being able to travel* from one city to another without the very high likelihood of a CTD occurring is a little too severe, and for my money, pretty much unplayable. (* by "travel", I mean just running... not fast travelling, not even riding a horse or flying on a dragon... just running).

 

Streamline seems to help some of the stutters, but the CTDs keep coming. And since I don't really care for the way it manipulates my video settings, I am only using its streamsave feature now (I'd probably be more accepting of its changes if the CTDs stopped, or were at least siginificantly reduced. Otherwise I really don't see the point in reduced quality AND frequent crashes). weOCPS is not helping either. Occasionally I will hear the sound indicating it stopped a crash, but the CTDs are just as frequent, and do not seem to be associated with the weOCPS recoveries. (To clarify, I may hear the windows alert in the background, indicating weOCPS stopped what likely would have been a CTD. Then nothing for maybe several minutes... no stutter, no nothing... then out of the blue, CTD.)

 

Like I said, I wasn't necessarily looking for an "answer" before... but darn it all, after yet another weekend pretty much wasted on this, I guess I really would like to hear from anyone that might be able to help. This is extremely frustrating.

 

Thanks again,

veg

[David Brasher]

I have an ugly answer. It is not the answer you want. Disable half your mods and don't re-enable them. Vanilla Oblivion is a tolerably stable game. Think of Thoreau and Emerson and the other Transcendentalists. If you can remove enough mods, you will get back to where the game runs nicely. You might try removing all your mods and installing them one at a time with a one hour play-test between each installation.

 

One option you could use to experience all the amazing stuff out there is to play a mod once, and then disable it so it won't conflict with everything else. This does not work for the "keepers" that you always want active on every character you ever play. With those you will have to experiment to find a combination which does not crash, and then write it down once you have found it.

 

I feel your pain. There is so much really cool stuff out there! And so much of it does not work, does not work reliably, or does not work with other popular mods. Once you have glimpsed Eden, it is painful to tarry in the wilderness.

[vegtabill]

I have an ugly answer. It is not the answer you want. Disable half your mods and don't re-enable them. Vanilla Oblivion is a tolerably stable game...

 

... There is so much really cool stuff out there! And so much of it does not work, does not work reliably, or does not work with other popular mods. Once you have glimpsed Eden, it is painful to tarry in the wilderness.

Thank you. You are right, in that this isn't what I want, but it is what I suspected... Occam's Razor and all. And FWIW, when I said something about kindred spirits, this is exactly what I meant. Thank you again!

 

Vanilla Oblivion was indeed stable. I wish it held some allure for me still; I really would consider going back to playing without any mods. But it doesn't, so I probably won't. Oh well, there are certainly worse things in life... and other things to do.

 

Thanks again. I do appreciate the reply,

veg

[Khet]

Might not solve all your problems be weOCPS has helped me -wonders- since finding it not too long ago. It doesn't work all the time but I hear that "ding" quite often and it makes me smile inside knowing I can keep playing.

 

http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=22282

 

Nothing is guaranteed, might not help you at all, but I've only had about three or four CTDs since getting it a week or so ago.

[vegtabill]

Might not solve all your problems be weOCPS has helped me -wonders- since finding it not too long ago. It doesn't work all the time but I hear that "ding" quite often and it makes me smile inside knowing I can keep playing.

 

http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=22282

 

Nothing is guaranteed, might not help you at all, but I've only had about three or four CTDs since getting it a week or so ago.

Hey, I appreciate the input Khet. Unfortunately, weOCPS is a part of my mix already...

weOCPS is not helping either. Occasionally I will hear the sound indicating it stopped a crash, but the CTDs are just as frequent, and do not seem to be associated with the weOCPS recoveries. (To clarify, I may hear the windows alert in the background, indicating weOCPS stopped what likely would have been a CTD. Then nothing for maybe several minutes... no stutter, no nothing... then out of the blue, CTD.)

Still, I do appreciate any input I can get, so thanks again. If you have any other ideas, please let me know!