Game crashes when using mods

[sasuke24]

Dear Tesnexus community,

 

I am your youngest member here. I am also the youngest player of elder scroll. I have recently bought oblivion GOTY and installed it.

Now the graphics was just awful comparing to the videos I saw here on this community. So, I thought that I should use the mods here to enhance the graphics.

I downloaded the Deadly Reflex mod and the Natural environment mods. But when I try to run them as a data file the game crashes as soon as I click play. The game runs perfect if I do not tick the mods in data files but it crashes if I tick them.

 

[Note: I have copied the 4 ESP from natural environment and other esps from the DR]

 

I would be extremely grateful if somebody help me about this matter.

 

Thank you :laugh:

[chakaru11]

When you say "run them as a data file", you mean you ticked the little boxes in the mod list?

 

Usually when the game crashes on load it means that you are missing an esm (master file). So you need the esms and the esps to be ticked off in the list.

So my first advice would be to check the download sites for both mods and see if you did not only download updates, but the entire base files with the esms.

[sasuke24]

Well umm... I downloaded the entire files and checked the esm. But I am not pretty sure where to put other files except the ESP one. I just put the ESP on the data. I saw some DDS files but don't know where to put them. :sick:

[chakaru11]

Oh O.o Usually every mod comes with folders for "textures" and "meshes". Those need to go in your Oblivion Data directory. Without them the game only has the esps but not the files to work with.

 

But this thread: http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?/topic/382289-oblivion-mods-common-questions-and-problems/

 

can explain all this a lot better than I ever could :)

Edited August 5, 2011 by chakaru11

[sasuke24]

Thank you for helping.

However I just did some copy pasting in the Natural Environment mod and now when I try to play the game I see purple sky and water!

Also I did same thing for the DR but the game is crashing if I tick the esp from "Data File"

[LadyMilla]

Thank you for helping.

However I just did some copy pasting in the Natural Environment mod and now when I try to play the game I see purple sky and water!

Also I did same thing for the DR but the game is crashing if I tick the esp from "Data File"

 

Unfortunately it is a bit more complicated. You will also need to use Archive Invalidation (or Oblivion Mod Manager, which is a nice and handy tool, and easy to learn). If you don't use archive invalidation you will see a lot of pink textures and other quirks. (If Oblivion Mod Manager is a bit intimidating you can also look up Archive Invalidation Invalidated in the Oblivion files section, and use it).

 

Also, always check the description: modders - at least the modders who do it like a pro - indicate the requirements in the description, and you will need to installed those other mods first before you can use the mod in question.

[sasuke24]

I don't think that the modder has added any good requirement for the Natural Environemnt mod.Natural Environemtn

 

However can you elaborate the fact about Oblivion Mod manager or the Archive Invalidation one?

Edited August 5, 2011 by sasuke24

[bben46]

Deadly reflex is probably the worst mod to start your modding with. It is a complex mod with many possible conflicts not just with other mods, but with itself. Natural environments is another one with multiple variations that can conflict with a lot of things. Be sure to actually read all of the documentation on these mods, not just skim it and assume it will work. If I remember they both also requires OBSE and several other things to work and will crash without them being there.

 

Install only one mod at a time. Make sure it works properly before installing another. back up your data folder (copy it to another location) when you get that mod working. Then start on the next mod. again get it working properly with the other mods, then back up the working data folder again. This way you can always go back to a working game by copying the last working data folder back into the game data and start over with the new mod.

 

The crash you are getting looks like either you are trying to use multiple variations of one of the mods or are missing the esm from one of them. Posting a load order list might help us to identify the problem - NOTE - the data list in the game is NOT in load order and is nearly useless for troubleshooting.

 

How to post an Oblivion Load order list using OBMM

http://wiki.tesnexus.com/index.php/How_to_post_a_load_order_for_Oblivion

[LadyMilla]

Archive invalidation:

 

- the original, un-modded Oblivion game stores the meshes and textures that make up the things you see in the game in archive files called BSA archives. (If you open your Oblivion/Data folder, you will see a bunch of BSA files there).

 

- when a modder creates something (e.g. he replaces the textures of the game with high resolution ones), he or she should somehow tell the Game to ignore e.g. the original "graniterock" texture stored in the BSA archive, and use the new texture that was copied to the Data/textures folder.

 

- this process is known as archive invalidation: it tells the game to look for the newly supplied textures and ignore the original ones. If you ignore it, you will either see incorrect textures (probably the old ones) or pink surfaces (which means, the either the texture is missing, or the game is looking for it in the wrong place).

 

ArchiveInvalidationInvalidated.bsa is a small file that can be installed in your Data folder, and tells the game to prefer using new things copied into the Data/meshes, Data/textures, etc. folders, instead of those in the BSA archives. That's the gist of it.