Completely Unplayable

[musasabi]

So, my system is as follows:

Athlon Phenom2 X6 1075T

8GB DDR3-1333 RAM

2x EVGA GeForce GTX 460

Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit up-to-date with hotfixes and so forth

 

A while back, I bought Oblivion GOTY and started playing through again, enjoying myself with the slew of awesome mods available.

 

Since then, I've reinstalled Windows a few times and endeavored more in the academic realm than with the games I enjoy. Summer's here, though, so it's time to make it through Oblivion before Skyrim comes out.

 

Initially, I installed it, stepped through the mods I wanted procedurally and made sure everything was working. Then I played through the intro sequence, got out of the sewers, then saved and left it for another day. I came back to it a few days later, and got instantaneous CTD's upon loading, even when disabling all mods and loading the exe without OBSE/etc.

 

Tonight I sat down to reinstall it and work through these bugs, but I've not yet figured out how. I'll share my methods with you guys and hopefully someone can shed some light, because I really would love to play this again.

 

First, I tried installing the full GOTY package (SI and KotN). From there, the game will crash immediately and the official SI patch won't apply. claiming it can't find the old version of the file. The official Oblivion patch will apply, but that doesn't seem to help.

 

Next, I tried just Oblivion itself, installed from the disc and patched with the official patch. Still an instant CTD.

 

Finally, I tried the unofficial patches, both the original one and the supplementals. No luck again. I tried installing the OBSE plugins FastExit2 and the Oblivion Crash Prevention System, but neither yielded any new results.

 

The way it crashes, too, is odd. It's always the same with every solution I've listed. It'll skip the Bethesda/etc logos, go straight to a stock Oblivion "loading" screen, and pause for a brief second but crash before the loading bar moves. I found that if I adjust the system settings to the appropriate resolution, I get the first letter or two of the Bethesda logo, then CTD.

 

...Can anyone tell me what on Earth is going on? This is easily the most frustration I've ever had with this game, and what really trips me up is that I had it working a week ago!

 

Thanks in advance for any insight or assistance.

[eric31415]

This could be caused by not cleaning your Windows registry between reinstalls. Try it now and see if it helps.

You could also have a problem with your ini. Try renaming it so the game will generate a fresh one next time you start.

If these don't work, you likeky have a mod conflict. Post your load order.

[MarkInMKUK]

Windows 7 install - WHERE did you install Oblivion? If it's the default place, under c:\Program Files, that will stop many things working, possibly including patching the executable.

 

In any case, Look up bben46's uninstall/reinstall guide, use that as a guide to clear up any saved information like registry entries and ini files/save games, and move the installation to c:\Games\Oblivion before trying any other tinkering.

 

Generally, if the official patch for SI won't work, then you need to fix that before trying every other mod under the sun - if your car has a flat tyre, adding bolt-on spoilers and go-faster stripes won't help it move any better.

Edited May 23, 2011 by MarkInMKUK

[bben46]

There is absolutely no problem with playing Oblivion with Win7 x64. I, and many others have been doing it for quite a while. You DO NOT need any compatibility patches or anything else - It works better than the WinXP that Oblivion was designed for.

 

To save you from searching Here is a link to my complete uninstall/reinstall procedure located in the articles section of the Nexus

http://www.tesnexus.com/articles/article.php?id=240

 

It allows you to preserve any saves and mods, or remove them completely - your choice. As to why it crashes - the game included uninstaller does not really uninstall the game completely. :wallbash:it just removes the parts that the installer put on, leaving behind most of the data folder, game saves folder, any mods you had and worst, several entries in the Windows Registry.

 

You can get rid of everything except the registry entries by deleting the folders that have the game and save folders. (this can cause another install problem if you don't do it right) But you will still be burned by the registry. If you are comfortable editing the registry, you can spend an interesting 45 minutes searching the registry and deleting all of the entries (hopefully you find them all) or use the program I recommend in my procedure to do it in about 30 seconds with none missed. :thumbsup:

[GetOutOfBox]

This could be caused by not cleaning your Windows registry between reinstalls. Try it now and see if it helps.

You could also have a problem with your ini. Try renaming it so the game will generate a fresh one next time you start.

If these don't work, you likeky have a mod conflict. Post your load order.

 

Registry cleaning has been proven many times to be complete BS (at least in regards to real-world-performance). Unless the registry is taking up most of the hard drive (which it won't), there's no way it could be a performance bottleneck. Most programs use the registry merely for misc. information storage (i.e settings, program paths, etc), and hence make very little use of it.

[Telyn]

The issue with leftover registry entries is not performance bottlenecks. bben and others are advising a clean reinstall. That is also what most game companies advise when a reinstalled game malfuctions.