Game crashes 2 minutes into a new game with no excuse for it

[djmehs]

I just finished my first PC build yesterday and got Oblivion GOTY from my friend. I installed it completely. Disk 1, disk 2, downloaded the unofficial patches from Nexus and started it up. It works fine till about 15 seconds into my new game. At that point, the screen goes black and I get an error message saying "A problem caused the program to stop working correctly. Windows will close the program and notify you if a solution is available" which is probably the least helpful error message in the history of the world. This is a brand new PC running WIndows 7 Ultimate. And the hardware I've got in it far surpasses what the game recommends. I've got:

 

- 8gb DDR3 Ram

- Intel i5 2500 processor running at 3.something ghz

- 1tb HDD

- Asus DVD drive

- Nvidia GeForce GTS 250 video card with fully updated drivers (a little old, but still more than enough to run Oblivion)

- Asus 23.6' HD 1080p monitor.

 

Why is this happening? I haven't even put any mods on my computer yet. I'm trying to run the program straight up like it should run without mods.

[MichikoUnknownFox]

Hmm, to start off you may want to uninstall and reinstall it in a different location other than default. Later on you'll want to mod the game, and modding gets difficult if you install it in the Program Files folder in Windows Vista/7. Install it to C:/Games/ or any other location. Just now the C:/Program Files/ one.

[Faivon]

Oblivion tends to CTD occasionally, does this happen frequently? If it does, maybe some background program is causing the problem. Try using Game Booster. It helped me and my friends a lot! If not, try to re-install Oblivion.

[bben46]

There is always an excuse. What we want to find is the reason it crashes, not some lame excuse.:rolleyes:

When you say you got the game from a friend. I hope you got a real version and not some bogus pirate copy of sombody elses copy. Complete with their problems but possibly missing some important parts or with some unwanted additions. :facepalm: if so, who knows what you really got.

 

Oblivion was designed to work on WinXp. MS added a new feature with Vista called UAC. It is an overzealous security feature meant to protect programs from being changed by unauthorized people (viruses, little brother etc.) Unfortunately, it considers mods as a threat and blocks them - witthout bothering to tell you. So, first Do what unknownymos suggested and reinstall it outside of the protected area prefered location is C:\Games\Oblivion ( from now on put ALL games there)

 

Here is a link to Bben's Crash Help

http://www.tesnexus....cle.php?id=298.

 

If you have problems reinstalling. 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.

[Faivon]

Quick question, bben..

 

If I disable UAC, does that solve the problem of reinstalling to another path?

[MarkInMKUK]

Disable UAC - get virus - result: Even more misery than usual.

 

Just move Oblivion with the guide - get virus - result: The usual level of happiness.

 

(With apologies to Mister Micawber)

[Mortrix927]

Quick question, bben..

 

If I disable UAC, does that solve the problem of reinstalling to another path?

 

Yes, it does. But there are risks. You can use a program like tweak vista to tone down the UAC a bit. I use medium-low security, so I can install things with out being overly bothered, yet still get a notification of changes to the root directory.

 

With respect to Mark, if you get a virus the extraction proceedure is exactly identical whether UAC is on or off.

[Mortrix927]

1. Probably.

2. The first time I installed Oblivion, I got all the way to the sewer gate (I had intended to install on my secondary partition) clicked on "open"- and then spent the next 45 minutes clicking on "cannot locate c:\program files\steam\etc\etc" before finally landing on desktop. So, for some people, anyway, reducing the security of the UAC is an option. "Off" is not highly recomended. So, I ended up redownloading and using the default folder; and reduced the security level on the UAC, so it only notifies in certain situations (medium-low is good enough for this purpose).

3. Another alternative (useful if little brother uses the computer) is to create your account as "administrator", set it (with password protection of course) to "always run as administrator" and be sure to right click on the mod installer (obmm, etc.) and "run as administrator". This will allow you to keep the UAC on for the other users and random program 57.