Help Me Pick My Mods

[Devjiro]

Warning! Wall of Text follows.

 

Hellow everyone. I am new to PC gaming and Modding. I recently bought Oblivion GoTY edition, that includes Shivering Isles, and Knight of the Nine. I have a list of mods that follow, and I just wanted to know which mods I should add, replace, or remove to make a good final list to download once I receive the game.

 

I am a bit of a graphic enthuthiast, but do not have a good enough computer to be as picky as I like. I have 2GB of DDR3 memory, an ATI Radeon HD5670, and a dual core AMD Athlon II 2.8GHZ CPU. I understand that there are probably some things listed below that I will not be able to implement, but what should I do instead to get the best graphics I can while keeping the game playable?

 

Do any of these mods interfere with each other? Is there a limit to the amount of mods I can have (I have a pretty big list), and is there any other blatantly obvious thing that would make these not work correctly?

 

Also, what are your opinions and experiences with these mods. Are some of them crap and I should just forget about them?

 

If you do not know what the specific mod is, then just google it, because I used the official names.

 

I am not really seeking technical help right now, I will get into the complicated stuff later. ;)

 

Thank you in advance for any answers and hope this post is not too much of an eye sore.

 

Base Mod:

Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul

 

Graphic Mods:

Natural Environments v2.1

Qarl's Texture Pack III

Visually Realistic Lava

Improved Signs

Alluring Potion Bottles v2

Clocks of Cyrodiil

Bananasplit better cities

Book Jackets

Improved Fruits Vegetables and Meats

Illumination Within Revived (Optimized)

Badder Spell FX

Borderless Icon (Map Icons)

Old Map

Dark UI Supplemental Pack

 

 

What should I use as a body replacer?

What should I use to improve the looks of peoples faces?

Any other recommended mods to improve graphics, or any mods that I should use instead of the ones listed above?

 

 

Realism/ Immersion/ Quest Mods:

The Lost Spires

Blood and Mud Dirt Deluxe Anglais

Enhanced Daedric Invasion

Kobus' Character Advancement System

Anywhere Sittable

Cyrodiil Transportation Networks

Dungeon Actors Have Torches

Exterior Actors Have Torches

Imperial Horse Armor

Keychain

moDem's City Life

At Home Alchemy

Better Letters

Char-Gen With Numbers

Combat Sounds

Custom Race Fix

More Merchant Money Balanced

No Fast Travel

Oblivion Stereo Sound Overhaul

Real Lights

Persuasion Overhaul

Realistic Persuasion

Adonnay's Classical Weaponry

Adonnay's Elven Weaponry

Honami Daito

Real Swords Argonian

Real Swords Khajiit

Real Swords Orc

Real Swords Redguard

Vagabonds Real Katanas

 

What should I add/replace/remove from the list above to get the most realist and immersive experience out of Oblivion, and get the best quests?

 

Performance Optimization and Patches/Tweaks:

Low Poly Grass

Short Grass

Operation Optimization

Streamline

 

Any other mods that increase performance without decreasing gaming experience?

 

Once again thank you. :)

[David Brasher]

My advice would be for you to play the game without any mods until you have beaten it once. Then you will know what you want to change or improve and will know what sort of mods to download.

 

If you install all those mods at once, you are going to wreck your game and come back here asking for tech support. The safest thing is to install them one by one, very slowly and with lots of play-testing. Perhaps install one mod each evening. Then when your game is suddenly wrecked and unusable, it will be a safe bet that the last mod you installed is the problem, and you can either remove it, change its load order, or remove the mod it conflicts with.

 

If you slowly grow your mod collection in an organic fashion, you can eventually end up with a very large mod list that works excellent and doesn't give you problems.

 

P.S. Streamline stinks. It is for people with old junky computers. People who really don't care about graphics and playability. (You cannot see enemies who are 10 meters away. Everyone ambushes you or kills you with ranged attacks while you can't even see them.) It does not make sense to install Streamline if you are also thinking about installing mods to improve your graphics. Streamline's main function is to decrease your graphic quality to increase framerate.

[SaintAnon]

Look into

 

Better Oblivion Sorting Software

Oblivion Mod Manager

Wrye Bash (and Wrye Python for support programs)

Oblivion Stutter Remover

Oblivion Script Extender

Wisdom Earl's Crash Prevention System

Fast Exit 2

Elven Colored Maps for Cyrodill and SI

 

Most the mods on your list are pretty stable popular mods, as long as you BOSS it, use Bashed Patch and backup your save folder you shouldn't have any problem installing a few mods at a time off your list.

 

You have assembled a pretty good list btw, I use most of those myself. :thumbsup:

 

 

My advice would be for you to play the game without any mods until you have beaten it once. Then you will know what you want to change or improve and will know what sort of mods to download.

 

If you install all those mods at once, you are going to wreck your game and come back here asking for tech support. The safest thing is to install them one by one, very slowly and with lots of play-testing. Perhaps install one mod each evening. Then when your game is suddenly wrecked and unusable, it will be a safe bet that the last mod you installed is the problem, and you can either remove it, change its load order, or remove the mod it conflicts with.

 

If you slowly grow your mod collection in an organic fashion, you can eventually end up with a very large mod list that works excellent and doesn't give you problems.

 

 

P.S. Streamline stinks. It is for people with old junky computers. People who really don't care about graphics and playability. (You cannot see enemies who are 10 meters away. Everyone ambushes you or kills you with ranged attacks while you can't even see them.) It does not make sense to install Streamline if you are also thinking about installing mods to improve your graphics. Streamline's main function is to decrease your graphic quality to increase framerate.

 

If you leave the Streamline ini in its default state perhaps, if you tweak the .ini to match your needs and computer build it can be rather effective and still visually pleasing. Its just the defaults are set for the lower end computer, its rather customizable though.

[Devjiro]

Thanks for the replies. I have done some more research today and reviewed my list, and think I got a little carried away at first. (Perhaps because there are so many great looking mods).

I will do like you said and do it slowly, and thanks for the recommendations SaintAnon.

Something that I tried looking into though is body/face mods. I think the most popular mod is Bab's right?

And, do you know any websites that list EVERYTHING that is included in FCOM? I think I am probably going to use that, but have not been able to find out exactly what they do, just the general stuff, even while looking them up individually.

 

Just trying to get some prior knowledge. I will learn a lot more when I receive the game and start messing around with things, but for now this will help immensely.

 

And again, thank you for the responses.

[SaintAnon]

I personalty use EyeCandy for my Females and Roberts Males v5 for my Males and Better Faces for the head replacers.

 

Do a bit of searching on the Nexus for "faces" and your sure to come up with a few.

 

and for FCOM check out these, I recommend you forget the FCOM until you got some experience under your belt. Its about as user friendly as a bear trap to the first time modder :laugh:

 

http://devnull.sweetdanger.net/convergence.html

http://devnull.sweetdanger.net/fcominstall.html

http://forums.bethsoft.com/index.php?/topic/1079933-50-steps-to-ctd-almost-free-fcom-game/

[Megatarius]

Allow me to present my top 25 Oblivion fix mods. These are mods that improve the game itself, make changes that should have been there in the first place, and might have been, if they hadn't rushed it for the XBOX 360 launch date.

 

 

1. Better Music System http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=26892

The crown jewel of Oblivion mods. People say Deadly Reflex, with very good reason, but this is something much more subtle and awesome. Music is so important. The quality of the music in the game is very good. But whoever programmed it didn't have nearly the inspiration that Soule did. If you haven't gotten it, get it. The first thing it does is vastly improve how battle music works. Do we really need epic trumpets and battle drums for every f'ing wolf in the forest and crab on the beach? Really? It's a much more improved system now. Also, do we actually even need battle music at all? How can it not get annoying and immersion breaking after a while? Well, now you can completely disable it!! You can add your own music to other locations as well. Each different kind of ruin. Each guild. Inns, Homes, Castles. It's a travesty that the namesake of the game, the Oblivion Realm, gets the standard dungeon music. :rolleyes: Not anymore. This mod changes the game in ways not obvious at first glance.

 

2. Automatic Difficulty Increaser http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=28589

This little gem forces the difficulty slider to remain in a certain position that changes as you level up. Customizable in an .ini, but no longer can you break immersion by divinely affecting how strong everyone else is. Those Orc vampires in the Azura Shrine Quest are some bad-ass Samuel L. Jackson m---f---ers. Where's the satisfaction in defeating them if you weren't actually scared to death to face them? Also, cranking it up for 100 hits on a mudcrab just so you can farm your blade skill? Come on. Just use the console to raise your skill at the start if you're character was already a bad-ass before getting arrested. There's no shame in it then.

 

3. Let there be Darkness http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=22819

Torches practically burn forever, they're all over the place and free, and you never even need them! Maybe for Namira's Shrine, but I wouldn't know because I was already using this mod before that. It's just plain more fun when everything you find has a real purpose, you know?

 

4. Actors have Torches http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=11169

This adds a lot to dungeons.

 

5. Enhanced Quest Roleplaying http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=12828

Doesn't affect every quest, but basically you have more options now. No longer will your Thieve's Guild character who wants nothing more than to be the Gray Fox jump at the opportunity to help the nice honest working shopkeeps get rid of Thoronir. Now you can select "Maybe Later", instead of "Start from the beginning!", like you actually care :rolleyes: . It's a dog eat dog world you guys. Deal. This is just one example. It makes a lot of difference if you like role playing.

 

6. Stolen Horse Ownership http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=4243

Stealing a horse in Chorrol, riding it to Cheydinhal, getting off in front of the stable and guards, changing your mind, and getting back on, will no longer result in everyone psychically knowing you stole it.

 

7. Merchants Buy Stolen Goods http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=7983

One of the most unrealistic parts of the game, merchants somehow knowing that you stole something. There is no explanation, short of magic, that would make stealing a silver jug from a basement in Leyawiin and not being able to sell it in Bruma believable. The fences in the Thieves' Guild can still be useful in a world where merchants aren't psychic, simply because the Thieves' Guild is an organization that controls a black market and if you want to rise in the ranks, you better chip in.

 

8. Actors Can Miss Now http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=17706

Just a nice little mod that makes anyone shooting at you actually miss sometimes.

 

9. Denock Arrows http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=9670

Canceling your bow attack? Oh yeah, of course you'd be able to do that! It makes so much sense! This seems to be a German version, but it doesn't matter. It's just pressing the grab key. Nothing to read.

 

10. Reneer's Name Mod http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=26369

The man who fixed the guards also fixed NPC interaction in a very nice way. I can't remember the last time I knew somebody on the street's name before introducing myself to them.

 

11. Spell Delete and Item Remove http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=23069

Get rid of those unwanted old spells and quest items just cluttering up your inventory.

 

12. Nirnroot Quest Mod http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=2322

Changes the standard Nirnroot quest reward into something much more interesting, I think. However, I am willing to admit the regular reward is good too. It depends on your playing style really, and I personally think this is a vast improvement.

 

13. Rowboats http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=6690

Actually use the rowboats on the shore. It's a little clunky. Maybe could have been done better, but it's still very nice. But why use them though, when you can just swim across the bay with all your heavy armor?

 

14. No Encumbered Swimming http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=3331

I love this mod. It unfortunately does not affect NPC's, but it's still leagues better. Water is almost like lava now, to certain characters. Now you have to locate a rowboat to get across, or even better, use a walk on water spell that actually means something now. Changing the value at which you sink is kind of a pain, but I posted in the comments section how to do it. The readme is misleading.

 

15. More Staffs at Rendir http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16716

You know that shop in IC Market that sells staffs? Me neither.

 

16. A Bloody Mess http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=11182

Really adds to the game. It has some limitations due to the game's design, so read all the documentation carefully. This is one of those mods you need to educate yourself on backwards and front, but it's worth it. Also, the cleaning rags are very hard to find. They aren't at nearly enough vendors. Just so you know.

 

17. Keychain http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=3409

Just something nice to reduce inventory clutter.

 

18. Natural Rings Limit http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=8635

Of course you don't want to wear all rings and become a god, but only one on each hand?

 

19. Third Person Animations in First Person View http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=18617

One of my favorites. I grew up with Doom and Duke Nukem 3D and all those old 3D games had way better first person. Oblivion's first person looks like a floating camera with a sword and shield glued to it. Combine that with the crosshair and I feel like I'm in an editor, not the game. Buggy, but works with Deadly Reflex. The Shield Bash move breaks the skeleton, and the duck move makes the camera go below the ground. None of these are a problem if you fight in 3rd person. Why use this mod then? Well, for all the times you do want first person, it still makes a world of difference.

 

20. Improved No Crosshair http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=2260

If you turn off the crosshair, you can't see the other icons. This keeps those icons, but gets rid of the immersion breaking crosshair. I don't need it to aim a bow, and I certainly don't need it when walking around town or using a sword. It works with DARNified UI and Immersive Interface as long as you load this crosshair after installing those.

 

21. Hand to Hand Idle Stance http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=24587

Ever get tired of seeing your dainty female mage in an elegant silk dress putting up her dukes in the menu like she's spoiling for a bar brawl? This mod fixes the hand to hand "weapon drawn" pose to be the regular idle so you don't roll your eyes every time you press tab. As for actual hand to hand combat, your character will be standing normally after you raise your fists, but it's a small price to pay since any character that looks silly like this in the menu isn't likely to be engaging in fistfights anyway.

 

22. Perfect Working No Quest Markers http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=8680

The simplest of the No Quest Marker mods. Just a straight file replacer. It gets rid of the purple custom marker too, which is kind of a pain, but in a good way I think. There are other mods, but this is the one I use. The less .esp's the better. Now God will no longer tell you where to go.

 

23. Running Revised http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=7484

Nice little mod that allows you to sprint for short periods, as well as modify how the fatigue bar reacts to all running. I've tested it with two different fatigue mods, Tejon's Fatigue Effects, and Loup Sombre's Fatigue and Sleeping.

 

24. Cancel Attack http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=25316

Press Block in the middle of your attack animation to cancel it. It's of course realistic that you're wide open and defenseless while attacking, but combine that with Besthesda's oftentimes laughably slow attack animations and what do you get? Crappy fights, that's what. Well, no longer! Works with Deadly Reflex!

 

25. Side's Backpacks http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=29120

Where am I actually storing all these swords and cuirasses and ingredients if I only have two hands? Why do they suddenly appear out of nowhere when I equip them? If they're appearing out of nowhere, why am I being affected by this arbitrary and unrealistic encumbrance limit? Oh I know! They're in this awesome backpack I'm wearing! From the maker of Better Music System himself, no less. What really makes this mod great is not that it adds a backpack so you can pretend your items are in it. No, they actually are in it. You can drop them all at once before entering the water so you don't drown, and best of all, you can store more items in the backpack then you would normally be able to carry outside of it. Carrying too much outside of it can result in not being able to run or fight, sort of like your minor encumbrance limit. The newest version is practically perfect thanks to his attention to comments despite a busy schedule. :thumbsup:

[Devjiro]

What is a small mod you recommend I install first, that is easy to install, and hard to screw up, so I can get some practice?

 

I know it is possible to change the stats of some races, this seems like it would be simple, but is it?

And, if I change the stats of my character, does it change them all? (For example, if I make myself an imperial, and make it so he has 100% resistance to magic, does it make it so every imperial has 100% resistance to magic?

 

Thanks for all the info, really helps. ;)

[Beefyh]

The keychain one :)

Other "easy ones" are basically anything you can get your hands on that aren't deadly reflex or something in the top 20 files maybe? Sometimes the higher up they are the more user friendly they are.

No it does not change them all. Only your unique ID.

[Devjiro]

Ok, thank you.

 

That is pretty much all I want to know. Thanks for the info, and I will be back after I get the game and start doing some modding. :)

 

There is actually one more thing though. Is there any official or unofficial patch that makes it so oblivion can utilize multiple cpu cores? Because I do not have a very beefy cpu, so if I could spread the stress out between it's two cores that would be great.

 

Thanks.

[Beefyh]

I think it does this automatically. Correct me if I am wrong.

 

... Now that I think about it, there is no performance hit when I take one of my cores offline for Oblivion. Maybe it doesn't?