Need help, im at my wits end.

[keitarou15]

Well, in that case, get ready to get pretty familiar ;)

 

Let's start with TES4Edit. Have you found it on the Nexus yet? Pretty simple find, if you for some reason can't then I can provide you with a link if necessary.

 

Although I have never had to use this program for cleaning dirty mods, that is one of it's many functions. Perhaps someone following this thread can provide a bit more proper insight into cleaning dirty mods (such as striker)

Yeah sorry for the delay, i found it and i have Wyre bash installed and already ran BOSS like i said.

[bben46]

Ventrillo is a communications program. I am not really familiar with it, however if it tends to suspend the game for a few clock cycles when it checks for messages it could be a possible problem. Try disabling it for testing.

 

The Imperial City Market is one place I use for testing FPS. At around noon - game time it can really load down the CPU and GPU making the game more vulnerable to being crashed by background processes.

 

One possible solution is a FREE program called Game Booster. it can disable quite a few of the known background services, then re-enable them without a reboot when you are finished playing.

 

Be sure to uncheck and decline all of the other junk it will try to get you to install. :pinch: - unless you really want that stuff.

 

Link: http://majorgeeks.co...ad.php?det=5952

 

Even if you don't like the program, you can use it to see what services and background processes can be shut down safely when you play.

[keitarou15]

Ventrillo is a communications program. I am not really familiar with it, however if it tends to suspend the game for a few clock cycles when it checks for messages it could be a possible problem. Try disabling it for testing.

 

The Imperial City Market is one place I use for testing FPS. At around noon - game time it can really load down the CPU and GPU making the game more vulnerable to being crashed by background processes.

 

One possible solution is a FREE program called Game Booster. it can disable quite a few of the known background services, then re-enable them without a reboot when you are finished playing.

 

Be sure to uncheck and decline all of the other junk it will try to get you to install. :pinch: - unless you really want that stuff.

 

Link: http://majorgeeks.co...ad.php?det=5952

 

Even if you don't like the program, you can use it to see what services and background processes can be shut down safely when you play.

 

Well i get the CTDs with or without Vent running, and even so its more of a voice chat program, not like Skype and it is much lighter, as for gamebooster i already had that in my PC i just honestly never saw a real, or even noticeable increase of performance, i used it first for WoW and it really didn't do much for me, but the IC market testing is indeed a great idea, specially since i have populated cities so that only ads up to the load, thanks for the help.

 

Edit* Also, another quick question, i get a message saying that Salmo the Baker mod is known to cause CTDs, now my question is, could those CTDs present themselves just when i talk to the guy or could it be that it can cause random CTDs no matter whether you have met him or not? just curious, probably it's a dumb question but i need to know, are the CTD caused my mod present during the game or do the appear when that particular npc, weapon or whatever the mod does is used?

Edited March 8, 2012 by keitarou15

[Striker879]

That Salmo the Baker is a known problem causer I know the answer ... yes. The question that you ask about whether or not you need to talk to him for the problems to surface is a very good question, one I wish I knew the answer to. You could always disable the mod (even better, uninstall it during the test) and see if it helps. You should rebuild your bashed patch any time you add or delete a mod (so that it isn't becoming part of the problem). Sometimes troubleshooting is a series of educated (and uneducated) guesses. There's always the tried and true disable half your mods method. If the first half has the problem mod in it you start enabling groups until the game breaks again. If the first half doesn't help, you go after the mods in the second half.

 

There are no dumb questions save the one you don't ask. Dumb answers?? Well I could probably scrounge up one or two of those if you insist ... hehe, I have plenty of them. One of the 'features' of the game is a rather abundance of ways it can crash. Nailing down any particular reason is the tricky part.

Edited March 8, 2012 by Striker879

[keitarou15]

Well, would you look at that, BOSS never detected a problem with the load order of Crowded cities for OPR and Open cities Reborn, and TS4Edit did, so maybe that will reduce the number of crashes, apart from the bash patch, which i still don't know how to do, using BOSS, plugins and cleaning dirty edits, which I'm looking on how to do so right now.

[Striker879]

Have a look at the first seven pictures on the picture tab for the Wrye Bash Pictorial Guide. That's the bashed patch section.

[keitarou15]

Have a look at the first seven pictures on the picture tab for the Wrye Bash Pictorial Guide. That's the bashed patch section.

Ok thank you for that, I'll look into that as soon as I finish this, I just started on the whole cleaning dirty edits thing, and I found out that the official oblivion plugins have dirty edits, now am I right to think that those edits are fixed by the unofficial oblivion mods patch so I shouldn't bother cleaning them? because the only one I have installed is the vanilla unofficial patch.

 

Edit* Also, just out of curiosity, can you start on the modding path with TS4Edit, I mean, Is that how most people start modding?

Edited March 8, 2012 by keitarou15

[Striker879]

TES4Edit is more a tool to use for specific tasks, like cleaning up 'dirty edits' in mods (what they are is something that the modder touched but didn't change when they were creating their mod, among other things). The game will run without cleaning any mods (my own game has never had any mods cleaned using TES4Edit), but cleaning mods can also help getting lots of mods working more smoothly together. Be aware that there are some mods that won't work correctly after you've cleaned them though (they need those 'dirty edits' to work correctly). Your BOSS log will identify those, providing they've been registered with the BOSS team. I'm not sure about whether or not it's advisable to clean the DLCs (official Oblivion plugins) ... perhaps someone who knows will chime in. Same goes for the unofficial patches ... I'm not sure if they should be cleaned, and the game will run without them (I don't use them for example). The main benefit from using the UOP is all the quest bugs that are fixed. If you don't mind reading the UESP Wiki walkthroughs for the quests most of those bugs can be avoided without the UOP.

 

If you're thinking of creating your own mods the official Construction Set is what you're after (for a start at least).

[keitarou15]

Well, reporting the CTDs, I did not know that Oblivion can go crazy for having from 300 and more mods in the data folder, even if they're not activated, so I used the auto-ghost option, rearranged the load order the way BOSS and TES4edit told me to and that mostly go rid of the CTDs, I also have been saving from the menu, no more quicksaving for me, and every save in a new file, which btw i have a question about that, is it true that it is better to do that than overwrite files every time?

I still plan to do the bash patch of course and clean dirty edits just to be safe.

So i wanted to say thank you all for the help, tons of other modding communities could learn a lot from the oblivion one (I'm looking at you Minecraft) you guys helped me a lot to start to really understand how mods work and troubleshooting, I wish I could give you all more than one kudos, so all I can do now is thank you again.

 

Edit* Another quick question, on a somehow related note, I've been reading about the mod http://tes.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=34673, what I've been reading about is that it is somehow an ovehaul and it's incompatible with other ovehauls, like Francescos, which I'm using, but i really like the idea of the new weapons, armor, items and dungeons, now my question is, is there a way to install the mod but disable the feature i don't want, even though it only has 2 or 3 esps i will be using?

Edited March 8, 2012 by keitarou15

[Striker879]

I don't have any experience with any of the overhauls myself. One of my criteria for any mod is I look in the mod comments to see what types of problems people have been having with it, determine if I understand the problems and solutions offered, but most importantly whether or not the mod author is still actively supporting the mod. In Oblivion War Cry's favour it looks like eddy kaschinski is actively supporting the mod (last posted on Feb 27 2012). You could try asking there.

 

As you get experience with the Construction Set it is possible to use the assets from a mod in your own personal mod (you couldn't release that mod to the public without getting permission from the original mod authors, but what you have on your own machine is your business). So if you liked the sword from mod A and the shield from mod B but not any of the other stuff in either mod you'd make your own mod C that included just the sword and shield. It's not difficult, so you don't need to be an expert ... it's actually a good step up in the learning curve once you have the basics down pat.

 

I can tell you've been busy doing your own research into some of your problems (which invariably leads to other things to find out about). Good stuff. :thumbsup: On the subject of overwriting saves, I never overwrite ... always save in a new slot from the Esc menu or a new sequential number on my named saves (e.g. my new guy is up to 'CustomClass483.ess'). When I start to get a lot of saves in the saves folder I move most to a backup folder (I have multiple hard drives on my machine, so I move them to a backup folder on a different drive). You can tell it's time to move some when the game starts getting slower and slower opening the save menu (it has to read all those saves).

 

I'm not sure if I've given you the link to the TES4Edit Cleaning Guide, so there it is.

 

While I do appreciate kudos, what really makes helping worthwhile is people like you keitarou15. I enjoy watching a new Oblivion player get up to speed and blossom (plus it's good that other people let me 'borrow' their problems ... that way I don't need to break my game just for something to keep my mind occupied).

Edited March 8, 2012 by Striker879