"Failed To Initialize Renderer" - HELP!

[veearrell]

Hi all. I have a Lenovo laptop with an Intel i7 processor and a Nvidia GeForce graphics card. Up til now, it's been running Oblivion fine but today it won't run it at all, giving me the error message "Failed To Initialize Renderer. NiXAdapaterDesc::GetDeviceCaps()Failed". I've never seen this error message before and I need help figuring out what's wrong. I checked the display drivers in Device Manager and it told me that everything's up to date and I already have the best drivers available, so it can't be that.If it's not that, though, what is it? I tried running Morrowind and it started up just fine like it always does, so the problem has to be with Oblivion specifically. The only thing I can think of is that I edited the ini file yesterday to turn off borders so I could try the Dragon's Blood Castle mod, but if that were the issue, it should have given me the error message yesterday, no? Any help would be appreciated.

 

EDIT: I should probably add that while the game was running fine before, the screen would occasionally flicker like the display drivers were having issues, but again, Morrowind and Skyrim both work just fine so it has to be something about Oblivion specifically.

 

SECOND EDIT: This morning I edited a small personal mod I made (just a chest in the starting cell with some custom clothing) and OBMM moved it to the end of the load order when previously it had been somewhere in the middle. Could that be the issue? If it is, how do I fix it?

 

THIRD EDIT: I think I've pinpointed the problem. Looking at the Nvidia Control Panel just now, the window that's supposed to show you a preview of your 3d settings isn't displaying anything. It's been over two weeks since I updated the drivers last, so I don't think that's the issue. For some reason, it just plain isn't working. Any idea what to do about this?

 

FOURTH EDIT: Problem fixed itself with a simple reboot. Huh. Weird. In any case, After talking with Nvidia support, I now have detailed instructions for uninstalling and reinstalling drivers if they ever go for real (it's complicated).

 

Thanks for anyone who looked at this anyway, even if no one responded. Perhaps my trouble shooting log here might help someone else in the future.

Edited July 29, 2016 by veearrell