Oblivion Crash Issues

[baumaxx1]

Hi,

 

I'll start with the system.

| Intel i7 920 | Gigabyte EX58-UD3R | G.skill NQ 6GB DDR3 | 2x WD SATA 640GB | Inno3D GTX260 Gold | Asus Xonar DX | Winfast DTV 1000T | Antec 300 |

 

The game is fully updated, and It's running in XP Home 32 bit SP 3 (The game has some rertarded issue with vista 64 and I have to delete a file to make it work... but that messes up my TV tuner so yeah...) The XP partition is only used for oblivion and scanning, and it wasn't installed long ago.

 

I'm just getting all these crashes, and one message comes up with a memory reference error. I'm not sure why this is happening, but could it be something to do with the engine not liking the tri-channel, 6gb memory setup? This game used to work fine on my e2180, 2GB single channel RAM and 9600GT setup, and I'm not sure why this and Fallout 3 hate the new rig so much on both operating systems =-S.

 

Ususally I can keep playing with these crashes, and just maximise the game again, but sometimes I have to reset because the audio locks up. It's a really annoying issue and it'll be good if anyone knows of a fix.

 

Thanks.

[Nexus Set]

Just covering bases here, just disregard any that aren't applicable.

 

Is your Windows XP up to date (patches)? How about hardware drivers, directx9 for your Windows XP? Have you installed the Unofficial Oblivion patch? Are you playing with mods?

 

As for your hardware specs, I find it more than adequate to run Oblivion.

[bben46]

I have seen many players using Vista 64 with no problems. I use Win7 x64 (very similar to Vista) And it works fine.

 

You don't give many specifics as to what you are doing when it crashes, or in what way (besides being able to maximize it and keep playing sometimes which sound like something else stealing focus. Here is my generic crash answer It may help.

 

Crashes are a part of the Oblivion experience. It's the game's way of telling you that you need to take a break. :whistling:

 

There will always be some crashes, all we can do is minimize them.

 

Save often, it will keep the frustration level down. :wallbash:

 

Anything running in the background can cause a crash. Especially a program that likes to call home, such as an antivirus program that updates without warning, or an instant messaging program trying to connect. :down:

 

Start by disabling everything that accesses the internet when you play. that includes the Vonage, Skype, IM, xfire and anything that calls in or out.

 

You might even disable internet access altogether.

 

Many programs use an auto update feature - such as HP printers (how often does your printer driver need updating?)

MS auto update can cause crashes. Some of these will even try to connect when the internet is disabled, and keep trying every ten minutes or so. If you can, disable the autoupdate function, at least while playing. :(

 

Then look for programs that run in the background, they are stealing time from the game and if they don't give control back quick enough - crash. MS indexing service, antivirus progs that scan everything in the background, Auto defrag programs, Scheduling programs all steal cycles from the game. Any of these can cause crashes. >:(

 

After you have cut down the crashes caused by external stuff, start looking at your mods. Some mods just don't play well with others. And for some the

 

load order is very important. BOSS works for most load order problems, but it can't set them all. There are over 15,000 mods on Tesnexus alone.

 

Another often overlooked source of crashes is removing a mod. If you remove a mod that affects game play, it can cause a crash when something from the missing mod is referenced in game. The most common is the unable to enter Bruma crash. This is caused when you complete a part of the main quest with one character, make a new character, load an old save and try to enter Bruma with the new character. There is something (spoiler) in Bruma that references your old character - which is no longer in the game.

 

Then there are the Nvidia black screen crashes. A quick way around them is to disable both AA and HDR in your video settings. Then after you are passed the point where the black screen occurs, re-enable whichever you use. There are many posts telling what has worked for some, and not worked for others, along with several mods that help.

 

Try this, Windom Earle_s Oblivion Crash Prevention System :thumbsup:

 

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

 

It completely eliminated my crash on exit as well as some others (but not all)

 

Note, it is not a mod and doesn't install like a mod, so be sure to read the instructions. :closedeyes:

 

New info. A lot of unused .exe files left in the /data folder can cause problems. It seems that Oblivion likes to look through all of the unused files and even the extra folders in the /oblivion folder. new recommendation, make a new folder - OUTSIDE of /oblivion to keep this unused stuff. such as Bethesda/Oblivion_Mods. Note that Later versions of Wrye bash already do this with the ghosting feature. If you have a folder for unused mods in your /Oblivion folder, move it into the new/Oblivion_Mods folder. :rolleyes:

 

Essentially, clean up your Oblivio/data folder and move everything not needed in /Oblivion and /Data to a new folder outside of /Oblivion.

 

If you are keeping your original or copies of zipped downloads inside of the /Oblivion folder, move them out too.

 

Also, if you can, empty the windows prefetch folder it may be keeping info on older now unused mods, and Oblivion will look for them if it sees that they are supposed to be there.

 

You probably won't be able to get rid of all of them, but you can minimize them. :thumbsup:

[XJDHDR]

First, have you tried any of the Vista fixes that are present here and there (eg, install Oblivion into any directory other than "Program Files", maybe "C:/Game Files").

 

As for the crashes, try the link in my signature and see if any of those fixes help.

[baumaxx1]

XP is more up to date on this PC than the old one. Drivers are all about a month old. Mod wise.. mainly official plugins, and the ones that I use were stable on the old PC. Not sure what DX9 updates I can make...

 

But this is the error: Application Error.

 

The instruction at 0x6a2a2fec referenced memory

 

at 0x0000000c could not be "read".

 

Click "OK" to end program

 

Click "Cancel" to debug.

 

I tried the crash prevention that was linked, and it did actually improve it. Still crashes occasionally. Should I try setting the affinity to 4/8 CPUs and making it a higher priority process? It's just annoying that it worked much better on an out of date and badly maintained system than on this rig I'm babying. It never crashed on the old one XD.

 

Also... the audio is a bit choppy when I move my head around ingame... is that normal... or doesn't that engine like the sound card or DS3D? Every other game loves my set-up -.-

 

About Vista... I turned off UAC straight away cos it got in the way. It's just a codec issue and I'm just better off booting in XP, which I need anyway for other things. Less fiddly.

[bben46]

Have you tried running a RAM diagnostic? It may be a flaky RAM chip.

Do You see the crashes at a certain time after starting the game? Or in a particular place? Or every ten minutes of play time? Or when you perform some particular action?

What about temperature? Is your video card staying cool enough? How about your processor?

 

As to priority. Oblivion should have the highest priority when it is running. It is not really optimized very well for more than one processor. It does have some dual core capability, but not much. Try running it on a single core just to see what happens. It will probably run slower, but then if the crashes stop increase to two cores and try it.

 

Let us know what you find as all information on this kind of problem adds to our knowledge base.

[XJDHDR]

About Vista, Bben46, one of the moderaters on this forum, has an article which perfectly sums up Vista's UAC problems. Maybe you should try find it sometime.

 

Microsoft released an update to DirectX9 recently (or I think it is an update). You can download it from here.

 

I don't think disabling Hyperthreading or giving Oblivion a higher priority will help but it is worth a try if you can't fix it in any other way.

 

Choppy sound while turning is not normal. Have you always had this problem on that PC or did it just start one day.

 

Lastly, are you sure you have tried everything on that website in my signature? I spent a good deal of time and research compiling those methods together and putting them in that site. If you don't find a solution there, there probably isn't much more that can be done. Also note that I am currently doing a few updates to the pages. Should be finished in an hour. Also, as Bben46 said above, crashes and bugs are a part of the Oblivion experience and the key is reducing those bugs and crashes, not completely eliminating them. Not everyone can manage that.

[baumaxx1]

I still need time to toy around with different things... but temperatures and all are in check.

 

It did happen at approximately the same time before I did the crash prevention mod, but it's more stable after. It seemed to do the exact same thing every time.

 

I'm not even running it on Vista anymore and can't be bothered really. XP should be fine.

 

About XJDHDR's page... there's the mods I can try, but need more time, lol.

 

About faulty RAM... what can I test that with? It is a new PC though and I only have these issues with games using the Oblivion engine. It is under a lifetime warranty at least being high end.

 

The choppy sound... not exactly sure when it started, but I think that some of the instability could be a result of my Sound Card (which has no issues with any other games >_<). I could also try updating the BIOS again as that was reset recently. Nothing much else changed otherwise. However, Fallout 3 was screwed before all that anyway and it uses the same engine I believe?

 

But yeah.. .RAM tests...

[bben46]

@XJDHDR

 

Is this the article you are referring to?

 

For Vista related problems such as UAC, Check here:

http://www.tesnexus.com/articles/article.php?id=262.

[XJDHDR]

@Bben46

That is exactly what I was referring to.