Trying to troubleshoot annoying crash

[Marius42]

The title says it all. I'm not quite sure if it is a mod problem, because I had the same issues with FO3 and I (sorta) recall the same thing happening in vanilla Oblivion (although I played that for about 3 hours before I modded it to kingdom come).

 

Basically, I am a fast-travel-a-haulic, so I change zones a lot to completely different areas. I think it has something to do with all the stuff being loaded up, because it can also happen if I fast travel to a new location, then enter into a building. Something about the building just pushing Oblivion over the edge, and it crashes.

 

Loading screen pops up, bar goes about halfway across, then freezes for 1 or 2 seconds, and screen goes black with a tiny streak of color right across the top. Some sort of graphical artifact I assume.

 

I've changed my preload cache and cell buffer (interior and exterior buffer limits) and I have 4 gb RAM. I keep everything shut down while I play, esp. firefox because it can use 500-800 MB of RAM the way I have my browser setup.

 

Basically, I THINK I know what's causing it but I have no clue what to do to fix it. Anybody who has had this problem, heard of it, or knows something that I could try to help fix it should post! Please and thank you.

 

 

 

Additional info: The crash rarely happens in SI, but I also fast travel a lot less in SI and a lot of the environment is the same and shares stuff. I can play for 2-3 hours in SI, doing quests and everything, without a crash, but in Oblivion it is an hour, MAYBE hour and a half. If I load up my save-game and start fast traveling around everywhere for a quest that needs me to travel, it can be as short as 30 minutes before a crash.

 

EDIT : Also, autosaves are off.

[Valkyrie]

Hmmm... could be a few things. Heres what I would do.

 

1) De fragment drives. The drives speed is normally the bottleneck when loading new areas.

 

2) Before you start playing open the task manager. Click the performance tab. Let this run whilst you play. If ya get a crash check the manager and see if you maxed out the memory or cpu.

 

3) Get a utility that checks cpu and videocards temp. Depending on which card ya have and which Windows ya have I might be able to find one.

 

4) If your not overheating or maxing out resources then I would update drivers accross the board. If that doesn't do it start looking at your mods.

 

Are you using any Oblivion utilities? OBMM, BOSS, etc.

[Marius42]

2) Before you start playing open the task manager. Click the performance tab. Let this run whilst you play. If ya get a crash check the manager and see if you maxed out the memory or cpu.

 

3) Get a utility that checks cpu and videocards temp. Depending on which card ya have and which Windows ya have I might be able to find one.

 

4) If your not overheating or maxing out resources then I would update drivers accross the board. If that doesn't do it start looking at your mods.

 

Are you using any Oblivion utilities? OBMM, BOSS, etc.

 

I defragment regularly, just to keep load times down, so that shouldn't be a problem.

 

I don't know about resources being maxxed, but I assume that my CPU might be getting maxed out, but I know memory isn't. I have over 3 GB free with nothing else running, because I shut down everything that I don't need before I start oblivion.

 

And I have a temperature panel on my case, it gets warm but it isn't overheating.

'

And I use OBMM, BOSS, Wyre, and occasionally tes4edit to troubleshoot. and tes4lodgen, ofc. I have my Bashed patch properly set up and everything, and I use BOSS for my load order.

[Valkyrie]

If you start your task manager before playing you'll be able see if it maxes out. You'll see something like this. I have a quad core so theres 4 cpu's at the top:

 

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v283/Valkyrie-Krazo/Dwm2010-08-0421-58-10-28.jpg

[Marius42]

I'll start up task manager and take a screenshot of what happens. Should be getting around to playing sometime tonight, and a crash is inevitable, so we'll see. (I did make some .ini tweaks, but I doubt it'll be a magic fix to this issue.)

 

P.S. I have 4 gb of ram, so I made my preload cache 250 mb max. I also increased exterior cells and interior cells buffer. If I further increase the preload cache, or if I decrease the cell buffers, would that help? Since there would be more room to play with, or less data to load.

 

Or should I increase my cell buffers to what is reccomended in the Tweak Guide for Oblivion?

 

EDIT : What's the deal with your UI? I remember looking into the boxing thing for your icons, but where did you get the icons? Is that Win7? WinBlinds or..?

[Marius42]

Here is my test.

 

 

http://i395.photobucket.com/albums/pp36/Vexarana/taskmanager.jpg

 

 

Resources were nowhere near maxxed. I think oblivion was taking up somewhere around 1.8 gb of RAM, that's what I usually see it at when I accidentally tab out and have to close it down.

[Valkyrie]

: What's the deal with your UI? I remember looking into the boxing thing for your icons, but where did you get the icons? Is that Win7? WinBlinds or..?

 

The boxing thing is called "fences". The icons I found all over and just replaced the default ones. Windows 7

 

Actually your cpu looks like it maxed out for a sec before the crash. The last one. Oblivion is only capable of using one cpu. Looks like it was that one.

 

Lemme do some research and I'll check back.

[Valkyrie]

Might be worth reading thu this. Especially the second page:

 

link

 

You game is patched to current right?

[Valkyrie]

I've read thru a couple post I've found.

 

Make sure you have the latest videocard drivers then turn the driver settings to max performance ensuring that v-sync and triple buffering are off.

[Marius42]

I've read thru a couple post I've found.

 

Make sure you have the latest videocard drivers then turn the driver settings to max performance ensuring that v-sync and triple buffering are off.

 

Game is patched. I run 197.45 WHQL with nHancer, but all my Oblivion settings are default. I'll set it to a lower quality mode and get back to you on that. ( 197 isn't the latest and greatest but it's the last one that works with nHancer )

 

And yes, game patched! Of course. Official and unofficial, for all DLC's and expansion and regular game.