Just bought PC Oblivion

[Stemin]

So far I have everything almost mapped to where it works like Skyrim (using Xpadder), but unfortunately I still have to use the mouse to drop an item or change between inventory, quests, and map menus. I also can't scroll the map using the controller, I have to use the mouse for that. Like you, I've also noticed movement oddities. For me, my controller left stick seems like the speed works the reverse of the way it should. A light push of the stick and my character seems to run, while a full push of the controller slows down to barely moving. The only solution I found is to set the game to "always run" to where my character moves at the same speed no matter how much I push the stick. It annoyed me that pressing Capslock actually toggles it in Windows as well, so I mapped my controller's LB button to toggle "Always Run". Now the character moves as fast using the left stick as the keyboard in "always run" mode, which actually seems rather slow. Is there a "turbo run" mode, like pressing and holding LB in Skyrim? I also notice the character tends to drift, and changing direction seems quite awkward and not linear. It's as if the game internally only supports 4 directional movements of the character and nothing in between. Does my experience echo yours?

 

I didn't have too many issues with the speed until I started experimenting with movement on the keyboard and then I started getting issues with the character moving too slow. I have had problems running the xbox 360 controller on skyrim, but when I ran Transformers WFC using xpadder it worked well. I am also finding that there is little to no response from the controller if I move it in a diagonal direction and I can't help but think this might be the cause of the issue. If the control basically shuts down when you go diagonally, then this seems like it might give the perception of fighting your characters movement. However, I don't know a solution either. I have no experience with the "always run" mode. My character seems to normally move at the same rate as my XBox version. In short, I'm having a lot of the same problems you are, but some slight differences.

 

Other than that, I've also found Oblivion gameplay to be very difficult compared to Skyrim! I'm just on the 1st quest after escaping the prison. There doesn't seem to be any way for me to get past that Daedra at the lobby of the tower in Oblivion without health potion - which I can't afford. I ended up having to high-tail it out of there, I guess I'll need to go hunting for life potion elsewhere before I try that again.

 

I had a similar experience. I followed the main quest and entered the Oblivion Gate, where I promptly got lost as all the towers looked the same to me. I picked one and entered and the rooms looked similar as well. The Imps were very challenging, but I did finally find and defeat a Dremora, however the second defeated me and I had to start over way further back.

 

You mentioned not being bothered by the graphics, but I'm actually finding that the NPCs look so horrible compared to Skyrim that it's quite distracting. They're really cartooney and ugly, I'm sure they look bad even by 2006 standards. I'll definitely need to find a mod for this. Only problem I'm finding is a lot of these "better faces" mods don't look anything like the screenshots, which I've come to learn are often highly Photoshopped glamour shots. There ought to be a rule that visual mods require unmodified screenshots right out of the game.

 

I wouldn't say I'm not "bothered' by the graphics. It's just that I expect them not to meet Skyrim standards and they won't keep me from playing the game. I'm far more frustrated with UI and little things like not being able to move while encumbered.

 

I agree with you the character faces are crap, but if you look through this thread I discussed the possibility of mods in this regard and everyone seemed to indicate that these are tougher mods to create and therefore the selection choices are limited. To me, all the faces look like someone started with a template of Shrek and made modifications. I was equally frustrated trying to find a nice set of character models that didn't leave females with triple E boobs. The HGC mod I installed indicated this was possible, but didn't give a satisfying description of the choices offered. I picked one and went with it, and it seems "ok".

[Striker879]

The trick to knowing which tower is the Sigil tower is looking for the one that shows a bright red vertical window near the top. Your next problem will usually be how to I get there from here ... sometimes tunnels, sometimes open gates from the top of other towers, never a short distance or easy path. And when you get your athletics and acrobatics buffed up, sometimes just jump across the lava (i.e. shortcut).

 

Sounds like you're at least getting a bit of time in the game Stemin.

[Stemin]

Sounds like you're at least getting a bit of time in the game Stemin.

 

Yeah, but it's more xbox than PC. Then just when I start to get a little bit into the XBox version I think "Man this would be so much cooler with some graphics mods." and then the cycle starts all over.

[GnatGoSplat]

I didn't have too many issues with the speed until I started experimenting with movement on the keyboard and then I started getting issues with the character moving too slow. I have had problems running the xbox 360 controller on skyrim, but when I ran Transformers WFC using xpadder it worked well. I am also finding that there is little to no response from the controller if I move it in a diagonal direction and I can't help but think this might be the cause of the issue. If the control basically shuts down when you go diagonally, then this seems like it might give the perception of fighting your characters movement. However, I don't know a solution either. I have no experience with the "always run" mode. My character seems to normally move at the same rate as my XBox version. In short, I'm having a lot of the same problems you are, but some slight differences.

 

I think with my current oblivion.ini settings, I have the sticks working as well as they possibly could. The direction is not as smooth and linear as Skyrim, but I think that's as good as it will get considering it seems like there's only 8 fixed directions so if I'm going forward and let the stick move even a little bit off axis, the character will snap to the nearest diagonal direction. Probably no way to improve it and I'm kind of getting used to it. I do still occasionally have drift, where once I stop moving, my character is still moving very slowly. I'm okay with the speed and responsiveness of the sticks now, but I don't have the 360 version so I have nothing to compare to. I do find it odd that everyone else's ini settings don't work for me. I'm running a vanilla game, vanilla drivers, nothing really customized on my machine. I've also confirmed Xpadder has nothing to do with the sticks - all it's doing is letting me use the triggers for block and attack, and ability to use the left stick to navigate up and down menu items.

 

I had a similar experience. I followed the main quest and entered the Oblivion Gate, where I promptly got lost as all the towers looked the same to me. I picked one and entered and the rooms looked similar as well. The Imps were very challenging, but I did finally find and defeat a Dremora, however the second defeated me and I had to start over way further back.

 

I'm finding it not so bad now, just had to get the feel for things and figure out which weapons work best on which enemies. I've closed the one gate, joined the Blades, leveled up, and started a bunch of quests. Took me almost 6hrs of total playtime to get to this point. Probably what helped me most is to wait 1 hour to refill health between difficult enemies.

I did find that, at least at level 2, it seems impossible to kill guards. On one quest, I had to break into a house and I guess I got caught. I tried to kill the one guard who witnessed my crime, but I couldn't even ding his health.

 

I wouldn't say I'm not "bothered' by the graphics. It's just that I expect them not to meet Skyrim standards and they won't keep me from playing the game. I'm far more frustrated with UI and little things like not being able to move while encumbered.

 

Yes, the UI is definitely not controller-friendly. I have the inventory/journal menu set to pop up with the B button like Skyrim, but once that pops up, I have to switch to the mouse to pick up or drop anything. I do have A working to equip, I thought I had X working to drop, but it doesn't seem to. I thought I had A set to pick up items from object/corpse inventories as well, but it only works intermittently. I've got my left stick set to where it also works as arrow keys to navigate the menus which works well to select and exit from dialog with characters, but in the journal, I found no way to move the cursor to that bottom row in order to select between inventory, quests, map, etc. I have to do all that with the mouse, which is very annoying. How do you switch between those on the Xbox 360? Maybe if I knew how you switch between them on the 360, it might give me an idea on a way to make it work using Xpadder. Not being able to move while over-encumbered is definitely annoying. My solution is to only keep the best weapons and use light armor.

 

I agree with you the character faces are crap, but if you look through this thread I discussed the possibility of mods in this regard and everyone seemed to indicate that these are tougher mods to create and therefore the selection choices are limited. To me, all the faces look like someone started with a template of Shrek and made modifications. I was equally frustrated trying to find a nice set of character models that didn't leave females with triple E boobs. The HGC mod I installed indicated this was possible, but didn't give a satisfying description of the choices offered. I picked one and went with it, and it seems "ok".

 

Hahah, yeah, starting with Shrek describes them perfectly! I think it's probably made worse that in Oblivion, talking to an NPC zooms right into their ugly mugs so I can see every detail or lack thereof. Being zoomed in so close with the ugly, blurry textures, also tends to draw my eyes to their weird head tilts and facial expressions. It seems like the weird twitchy head tilts were thrown in to make them seem more natural, but only having the opposite effect of making them seem very robotic. I can definitely see why they decided not to zoom in on the character in Skyrim. This close-up also makes me notice their necks. There is at least a blurry texture applied to the face and body, but not the neck and it stands out. They look like smooth cylinders. It's probably more noticeable since they have fat necks to begin with. The more I play, the more I get used to it, but then I switch back to Skyrim and really appreciate how much work they put into making Skyrim look good.

 

I don't usually use body mods because they're global and I don't know if I want every female in the game having the body of a sexy porn actress. On the other hand, I'm playing a female character and when I was changing her armor, I noticed, "whoah, she's really packing quite a bod under that armor!" Then I remembered I had installed a custom race (and then uninstalled, since it looked nothing like the heavily Photoshopped pics). It had required HGEC female bodies and I still had the non-nude underwear body installed, so that explains it. I may try some HGEC default replacement armors so she can look good all the time, though it's not really the bodies that bother me so much as the NPC faces. Dunmer and orcs look extra silly in Oblivion (and it doesn't help that orcs are bright cartoon space-alien green). I would love a mod where Oblivion head meshes and textures are replaced with the ones from Skyrim, though I'm guessing it's not possible or it would have already been done.

[Striker879]

To help alleviate the 'in your face' look in the dialogue screen edit your Oblivion.ini 'fDlgFocus' (found in the [interface] section) to a larger number (mine is fDlgFocus=5.9500 which is almost completely unzoomed). Be aware that if you use the HGEC body without also using a stock clothing/armor replacement mod that converts the vanilla stuff to HGEC compatible you'll notice some weird effects (e.g skin on arms not matching hands, neck seam even more obvious etc.).

 

I wonder if the drifting you're experiencing is related to the way your character and NPCs slide when on uneven ground. The effect is most noticeable on steep slopes but you can get it some places you don't think are that steep (some cave floors for example).

 

Everyone has trouble with the Kvatch gate first time around. It's natural to want to get that amulet delivered and rush right off to Kvatch. Taking a bit of a circuitous route and finding a couple of spots for a 'level-up nap' on your way gives you a chance to buff up a couple of attributes and find some better gear. After my aborted 'all defaults' first swing at the game my first Dunmer character (aka my old guy) delivered the amulet and waited until he was level 6 or seven before going to Kvatch. After closing the Kvatch gate and delivering Martin to Cloud Ruler I didn't touch the main quest again until I was head of the Fighter's and Mage's guilds. That's the beauty of the game ... complete freedom on what you do next. When you leave an NPC character's quest hanging for a long time and then go back to it they're completely oblivious to the passage of time.

 

Sounds to me like the two of you should be poster guys for wireless keyboard and mouse setups ... lounging on the couch, controller in hand with keyboard and mouse next to you. "Honey, can you bring me a drink ... if I get up it will move the mouse!"

[Stemin]

I think with my current oblivion.ini settings, I have the sticks working as well as they possibly could. The direction is not as smooth and linear as Skyrim, but I think that's as good as it will get considering it seems like there's only 8 fixed directions so if I'm going forward and let the stick move even a little bit off axis, the character will snap to the nearest diagonal direction. Probably no way to improve it and I'm kind of getting used to it. I do still occasionally have drift, where once I stop moving, my character is still moving very slowly. I'm okay with the speed and responsiveness of the sticks now, but I don't have the 360 version so I have nothing to compare to. I do find it odd that everyone else's ini settings don't work for me. I'm running a vanilla game, vanilla drivers, nothing really customized on my machine. I've also confirmed Xpadder has nothing to do with the sticks - all it's doing is letting me use the triggers for block and attack, and ability to use the left stick to navigate up and down menu items.

 

Ok. I hope I'm not just getting your hopes up, but I think I might have found a fix for the movement issues. Another poster was trying to help me with my skyrim probs in another thread and I offhandedly mentioned my Oblivion issues since he wanted to know how my controller worked with other games. Long story short, he told me to adjust the dead zone settings. I had no idea what this meant, so I did a quick search. I guess what dead zone setting does is desensitizes your controller so that when you move from say north to west on the control pad it moves smoothly, without actually falling into the diagonal setting, which for Oblivion, being 4 way controls would be nothing. I tried adjusting it and I was very pleased with the results. I can actually strafe around the room now and I have no more clunkiness. I haven't played long enough to tell if the drifting is 100% gone, but I like what I'm seeing. I'm actually playing the game right now. Just playing, and not having to diagnose every little thing going on.

 

What you need to do is click on the little wrench icon next to your movement pad that brings up the menu with WASD, 8 way, etc. etc. and you should see "settings" at the top. Clicking on that should bring up a menu with a couple of sliders, one of which is dead zone settings. Mine was default at 25%, and I upped it to about 53%. I'm pretty happy with the results. I also bumped the dead zone setting up just slightly on the right stick.

 

Let me know if increasing the dead zone works for you as well.

 

Yes, the UI is definitely not controller-friendly. I have the inventory/journal menu set to pop up with the B button like Skyrim, but once that pops up, I have to switch to the mouse to pick up or drop anything. I do have A working to equip, I thought I had X working to drop, but it doesn't seem to. I thought I had A set to pick up items from object/corpse inventories as well, but it only works intermittently. I've got my left stick set to where it also works as arrow keys to navigate the menus which works well to select and exit from dialog with characters, but in the journal, I found no way to move the cursor to that bottom row in order to select between inventory, quests, map, etc. I have to do all that with the mouse, which is very annoying. How do you switch between those on the Xbox 360? Maybe if I knew how you switch between them on the 360, it might give me an idea on a way to make it work using Xpadder. Not being able to move while over-encumbered is definitely annoying. My solution is to only keep the best weapons and use light armor.

 

I don't know the exact buttons off the top of my head, but xbox 360 uses the bumpers and triggers for everything as far as navigating through all those menu folders. I can't think of a way to make xpadder do that because in PC Oblivion the cursor actually has to go down there. I think you'd have to edit the core code to make this work.

 

I love the stream lined menus in Skyrim. I want a full screen map and separate menu screens for everything so I don't have to cycle through 8 pages in one menu to find things.

 

I still have to use the keyboard to drop things which is annoying. If I could assign the shift key to something I might be able to avoid that. I don't ever have to use my mouse though. My gamepad operates the mouse cursor. Not knowing what setup you originally used, I don't know what you've got going on, but I tried to set mine up based on Oblivion XBox and not Skyrim. I followed this template: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Controls

 

I set attack to the M key, and changed activate and attack in the Oblivion game settings to M and Enter, respectively. I also assigned the left click to the A button in xpadder. I cleared all other joystick settings from Oblivion's game settings. The rest basically follows what's on that page.

 

I'm able to use my right stick to move my camera and work the mouse in the menus.

 

Hahah, yeah, starting with Shrek describes them perfectly! I think it's probably made worse that in Oblivion, talking to an NPC zooms right into their ugly mugs so I can see every detail or lack thereof. Being zoomed in so close with the ugly, blurry textures, also tends to draw my eyes to their weird head tilts and facial expressions. It seems like the weird twitchy head tilts were thrown in to make them seem more natural, but only having the opposite effect of making them seem very robotic. I can definitely see why they decided not to zoom in on the character in Skyrim. This close-up also makes me notice their necks. There is at least a blurry texture applied to the face and body, but not the neck and it stands out. They look like smooth cylinders. It's probably more noticeable since they have fat necks to begin with. The more I play, the more I get used to it, but then I switch back to Skyrim and really appreciate how much work they put into making Skyrim look good.

 

I don't usually use body mods because they're global and I don't know if I want every female in the game having the body of a sexy porn actress. On the other hand, I'm playing a female character and when I was changing her armor, I noticed, "whoah, she's really packing quite a bod under that armor!" Then I remembered I had installed a custom race (and then uninstalled, since it looked nothing like the heavily Photoshopped pics). It had required HGEC female bodies and I still had the non-nude underwear body installed, so that explains it. I may try some HGEC default replacement armors so she can look good all the time, though it's not really the bodies that bother me so much as the NPC faces. Dunmer and orcs look extra silly in Oblivion (and it doesn't help that orcs are bright cartoon space-alien green). I would love a mod where Oblivion head meshes and textures are replaced with the ones from Skyrim, though I'm guessing it's not possible or it would have already been done.

 

I think I was mislead from what I was hearing about the mods available. I kept hearing about how updating Morrowind and Oblivion with mods made it as good as Skyrim and how the modders were fixing everything Bethesda didn't.

 

I've seen a lot of game fixes, but very little actual core fixes, and the graphics are nowhere near as good as advertised. I'm not trying to put any modders down, just saying, Oblivion doesn't stack up to Skyrim, graphically and I've yet to see a mod that fixes that.

 

I REALLY wish I could get that Unofficial Official mod patch so I could get all the game fixes, but Fonger seems to have given up on me. I tried ommitting each package one by one to see if one was causing it to crash, but never found a culprit, which tells me it's probably a combination.

[Stemin]

Well, whatever was going on before was a total placebo effect. It's back to being just as bad as ever. I don't understand it. I think I see what the problem is, but I don't know how to fix it. When I go into the dead zone settings, or even under Win 7's controller test menu you can see what the gamepad is doing. The thing is super sensitive in the center of the stick where the slightest bump is drifting it off center. But when you move away from the center zone, the sensitivity drops to normal. I think that's what the problem is. It's almost as if the joystick is too loose. There's got to be a way to desensitize it. I think that slight movement in the center zone is what's causing the drifting and pulling.

[Stemin]

Found this vid this morning:

 

Here's a similar image to what he used in the video:

http://www.diedagain.com/sites/default/files/2011/08/Elder-Scrolls-Facial-Comparison.jpg

 

To me it really illustrates how Oblivion's faces went backwards in development.

[Striker879]

Do you have someone you could borrow the same make and model of controller from to test if their's shows the same characteristics? What I'm wondering is whether your controller is starting to show problems with it's potentiometers (I've had wheels in the past that started to show a similar symptom when they were ready to retire). Edited April 21, 2012 by Striker879

[Stemin]

Do you have someone you could borrow the same make and model of controller from to test if their's shows the same characteristics? What I'm wondering is whether your controller is starting to show problems with it's potentiometers (I've had wheels in the past that started to show a similar symptom when they were ready to retire).

 

I suppose I could synch the regular xbox controllers with my pc to check it out. I think I left out the fact that because of my skyrim issues I was having doubts that it might be wireless related. My buddy had to change the frequency of my mouse and keyboard to get my xbox controller to work. He says since I live in an apartment and have so many electronic items that my signal was getting too much interference. I don't know a thing about all this, but I thought maybe it was related to my problems so I went out and bought a wired controller. It gives me the same issues.

 

I dunno. Maybe I should try to get a screen capture of what I'm talking about, but it still wouldn't show the controller itself. Basically the calibration screens I'm talking about... the dead zone settings.. the win 7 calibration have test areas that share a basic resemblance to a dart board. The stuff inside the centermost circle is HIGHLY sensative on my setup to the point where it will move over just like a pixel width off center with the slightest bump. But when I push the stick hard, it goes where it's supposed to on the outter "rings".

 

I can't quite figure out if the skyrim problems I'm having are related to the oblivion problems I'm having or not, or if it's just a coincidence that it's controller related.

 

Someone in the other thread:

http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/647548-xbox-360-controller-wont-work-properly-long/page__st__10

 

Suggested I change my pre-rendered frames and my fps limit in skyrim and it really helped a lot. It's still not right, but it's better.

 

The short of it is I can't tell if my problems are controller related or video related.... or both.

 

I'm gonna plug the wired controller back in and stick with that to at least eliminate the possibility of wireless issues.

 

It's just so much nicer having wireless.

Edited April 21, 2012 by Stemin