Crash on Startup

[orkdom]

Hey, really annoying problem here. I had a Steam copy of Oblivion, GOTY edition with Knights of the Nine and Shivering Isles and a number of mods (list to follow). I just got a new PC built and installed the game and all the mods, and at first (for about 2 hours of playtime) everything worked fine. Then, sort of suddenly, the game started CTDing whenever I tried to load it. It didn't even make it to the Main Menu screen (as stated in the topic description it only got as far as part-way through the Bethesda graphic that first shows when you start to load the game).

 

I uninstalled it, deleted all the extraneous/left over files, and re-installed it all. Same results.

I deleted the Oblivion_default.ini file, started the load sequence-- same results.

I uninstalled and reinstalled again, this time without any of the mods at all installed-- same results.

I tried just installing the basic game, without even Shivering Isles or Knights of the Nine-- same results.

 

I've tried installing it with a number of different combinations of the mods, I even picked up a physical copy of the game for $20 at a local store and tried using that, to no avail. All the stuff above I've done in various different orders repeatedly, and I can't think of anything else to do, and nothing I've found so far online seems to have solved the problem. I've never had this problem before, all the mods and the game have worked just fine on each of the previous two machines I installed it all on.

 

Here's the specs for my new PC:

 

Windows 7 Home Premium OS 64bit

8GB DDR3 RAM

3.6GHz Quad-core AMD Phenom II Processor

ATI Radeon 6950 graphics card with 1GB internal memory

2TB space

 

Mods I'm (making an attempt at) using:

 

OOO v1.33

KotN

Shivering Isles

Unofficial Patches (all the relevant ones)

Official Patches

Dark Brotherhood: Wrath of Sithis

Dark Brotherhood: Sanctuary Resurrected

Dark Brotherhood: Whispers of Death Extended

Assassin's Refuge

Unique Landscapes: Chorrol Hinterland

Unique Landscapes: Dark Forest

Unique Landscapes: Valley of Stendarr

Unique Landscapes: Lush Woodlands

Unique Landscapes:Beaches of Cyrodiil

300 Classes

Unique Landscapes: Entius Gorge

Unique Landscapes: River Ethe

House Map Markers

ImpeREAL City

ImpeREAL Forts

ImpeREAL Castles

Unique Landscapes: Imperial Isle

Louder Nirnroot Sounds

Lost Paladins of the Divine

Moriarcis City of the Dead

Heart of the Dead

Quest Award Leveling

StarX's Vampires

Ultimate Music

Wolf Packs

Niapet Friendly Wolves

Old School Artifacts

 

That's it. Of course it doesn't work even without any of these things installed. Don't really know what the problem could be. My other two builds had Vista and Win7, both 64bit, I was able to get things working on each of those just fine. Everything even worked at first on this computer, although I did still have to do some cleanup in TES4 Edit. Never got around to that because it just started crashing.

 

Help? Please? Oblivion is one of my favorite games period. I'd really hate it if I couldn't get it to work on my new PC, and I can't think of what could be preventing its operation.

[bben46]

Now that you are using a DVD version, you will need to co a complete uninstall of everything steam put on for the game. Just clicking on uninstall doesn't remove everything. :wallbash:

 

Here is a link to my complete uninstall/reinstall procedure located in the articles section of the Nexus

http://www.tesnexus....icle.php?id=240

 

It allows you to preserve any saves and mods, or remove them completely - your choice.

 

Then Get it working without mods first - test it after the sewers as there is a huge jump in graphics at that point.

Make sure you are patched to the latest patch BEFORE adding any mods or DLCs

NOTE: Shivering Isles is not a DLC, but an upgrade that makes changes to the actual game files that cannot be undone.

Bben's Patch Advice

http://www.tesnexus....icle.php?id=327

 

After you have made sure the game works with the official patch, add the unofficial patch and test again.

If any of your mods require it install OBSE - In fact go ahead and install OBSE anyway so it will be ready when you do add a mod that needs it.

 

Now, BACK UP your data folder - this will give you a baseline version that can be used for troubleshooting in the future. Make a new folder with a different name - such as original-data then COPY- do not move the contents of the data folder into it.

 

Now, you can start adding mods one or two at a time and testing between additions. After a few mods start running BOSS after each new mod to keep the load order sorted.

 

To use your baseline copy for troubleshooting

Rename the current data folder to something like oldata

DO NOT rename the original-data folder. Create a new folder named data, then copy the original-data contents into it.

Test!

Now add the mod you suspect of causing trouble - test. keep adding mods one at a time until you see the problem.

 

Once you have a stable game with mods, make another copy of the data folder with a new name - I use the date as the name - example: data4-18-11. if you have a lot of mods this can take a while.

 

All of these copies of the data folder will take up quite a bit of hard drive space. If you have a backup or second hard drive put them there so they will be out of the way. I have a folder on my second hard drive named Oblivion backups where I put them.

[orkdom]

Hey Ben, thanks! So far so good. I got the basic game running and presently will be going through the process of re-installing all the mods I want. Hopefully it all works out, with a little deliberation and diligence.