Oblivion - Crashes/Lockups/Freezes

[MrCooper2006]

LONG POST - BUT WORTH READING IF YOUR GAME CRASHES / LOCKS UP WITH MODS!!!

 

I have a preivous post similar to this, however the content of this differs. This is not a guide on stopping crashes/lockups. Its more of a request for people to post there advice / known fixes etc for crashes or offer advice on why they occur.

 

Im sure im not the only person with lots of mods but who also suffers from frequent crashes stopping the true immersion the mods provide.

 

Basicly, I have 255 mods all active and about 300 in total. My graphics are on maximum possible and average FPS in game is anywhere from 10-50fps. Playable. The game crashes very frequently, mainly CTD (Crash to desktop) on switching cells, mainly interior to exterior. And very frequent lockups outside. Hardly ever a CTD outside.

 

 

Now iv scoured the forums as to why this happens but to no positive end. I initially thought, must be all the mods, some are conflcting and causing the crashes. I have many including FCOM, Qarls, Better Cities, basicly every huge mod all running parrarel. However, after de-activating all mods except FCOM, the crases/lockups were still there just not as frequent. So it cant have JUST been conflicting mods. I also tried with FCOM disabled, but crashes did still occur as i sped through the landscape.

 

Now iv realized it isnt linked to the mods, althought they can cause occasional crashes they are not the cause of the frequent lockups. So what else can it be?

 

Now i also have an edited INI file with lots of tweaks for better/graphics/performance/loading times. So, in a last ditch attempt to fix the game before completely reinstalling 20gigs of mods. I backed up my INI file and let Oblivion create a new one. This obviously screwed up my inventory and texts etc from the mods.

 

But immediately loading times were better, performance was better overall, and after 30mins of fast gameplay (fast travelling everywhere, bombing thru landscape at super speeds and fighting everything i saw) I didnt have one crash, until i dived off a mountain about 100feet in the air and it eventually crashed). That one crash i put down to down to messing around to much.

 

Now this was only last night so i havent had time to test this properly as im now at work. But no crashes was better than crashing every 5mins before i switched the INI file.

 

The tweaks i had in the ini were: Ones made by MODS which i couldnt keep track off, texts/fonts etc. But the main ones that i changed were the preload size limits, shadows, background loading, harddrive caching. And many others, basicly every tweak off the TWEAKOBLIVION guide.

 

Now most importantly, the lockups outside, which are the most frequent annoyancies only seem to appear at certain times. I can be anywhere in the worldscape doing anything and they can occur, so they dont seem to be lnked to any specific thing in the game. They seem to occur only when im moving, so when the cell/grid im in has loaded, it doesnt crash.

 

When im moving around and it loads up things in the direction im moving, this seems to be when it crashes,

 

So i can only imagine that the crashes are caused by either bad INI tweaks (changing loading properties) OR its just when oblivion tries to load a certain thing in the game, it cant. SO it gives up and dies. But since the lockups occur at so many different times in the game. I cant imagine how it can be one object, or even just a few that are causing it.

 

If anyone has any experiance with this or knows of any INI options that would cause lockups on certain configs please share them,

 

I have also been informed that setting the NVIDIA control panel to defaults, and then performance options can stop lockups. I havent tried this yet, but all my optioins are set to max, except of course AA, which is unavailable.

 

 

Super long post I know but i hope this will keep going with lots of advice to help others, I cant be the only person suffering with this. And i cant go back to one or two or NO mods. Not now!

 

Thanks for reading and look forward to hearing the reponses.

 

 

My spec: AMD PHENOM 9500

NVIDIA GTX280 1GB RAM

4GB RAM

1900x1200 resolution

VISTA ULTIMATE 64 BIT

#

 

 

Mr Cooper

[tyreil829]

things like that can occur if something isn't right IE a Major Conflict or load order not set right what mods are you using?

 

ah i seen you have Vista it really doesn't work well with Oblivion it might explain why it crashes or locks up are you using old-oblivion? or just normal Oblivion?

 

 

Col John Sheppard

[MrCooper2006]

Thats the thing. All the mods i have I originally put in a load order myself. Crashes were constant.

 

So i downloaded FCOM Helper, crashes have greatly reduced but are still there.

 

I cant see any major conflicts, ones i have found were obvious but didnt actually cause crashes.

 

The main crashes seem to occur when the mods arent actually being "used" ie just strolling thru empty countryside. (see above post). FCOM is still obivoulsy being used but when im in the Market District for example, which in that place alone is using 25+ mods. It has never crashed. Only occasionly when i come back out of a shop into the market.

 

 

But yes i have Vista 64bit, but as i mentioned i played on Vista64bit fully patched with no crashes aftter playing for 4-5hrs at a time (with vanilla oblivion 1.2), so it cant be just the OS. It may contribute but it cant be the only cause.

 

 

I will also add that even aunder extremely heavy loads (Market District - 25+ mods running, 50+ NPC walking around, Dogs, Cats, Rats, Better Cities, and Weather/SOund mods. It has never crashed,.

 

Then i can be stood in a forest, running at 75fps, nothing around me, and when i start a slow stroll it will randomly crash. This is why i dont think its performance related. It seem to be when it tries to load things up as im moving.

 

Thanks for reply

[tyreil829]

if you got Oblvion Mod Manager look for conflicts but overall i believe that the problem is manly to do with Vista the OS has never been Oblivion Friendly

 

Col John Sheppard

[MrCooper2006]

if you got Oblvion Mod Manager look for conflicts but overall i believe that the problem is manly to do with Vista the OS has never been Oblivion Friendly

 

Col John Sheppard

 

 

 

Yeah i have OBBM, OBSE, Wrye Bash etc. FCOM Helper..

 

Do you know of any specific things Vista causes ie crashes or anything? Or it just not optimized? Cos i would happily switch back to XP to play crash free.

 

Iv never heard of any mods that need a specific OS to function properly however, never seems to even be mentioned.

 

It does say on the official site that none of the DLC is supported by Vista OR any 64bit OS. But they all work perfectly, including SI.

 

So im guesing they just mean its not optimized and tested, not that it doesnt actually work.

 

Thanks for help mate

[Michlo]

It isn't Vista.

 

Mine works fine on both 32 and 64 bit.

 

It DOES sound like it is your mods. You were right up (and possibly over) the limit. Just deactivating a mod isn't necessarily going to undo the changes it made unless they were all omods.

 

I would recommend a clean install, all patched up and then slowly add in your mods.

 

Good luck.

[MrCooper2006]

Yeah lol, i was hoping somebody wouldnt say that.

 

 

Well for anyone that was interested - the new INI file didnt stop the crashes, only reduced them. Performance/loading times were better but it DID still crash. I removed all mods including FCOM but obviously some remnants of it remained, and it only crashed once, after about 30 fast travels. But at least i could go back to "main menu" without a crash, and i could actually quit without another CTD!

 

But once is enough to know something obviously isnt right.

 

Anyway i spent most of last night downloading everything again. Although this time im going to be a lot more careful.

 

 

Start from scratch with patched Oblivion, then SI, then DLC. Then the Unofficial patches. Then Qarls. Then Open Better Cities. Then Hopefully FCOM.

 

Then if i can get THAT all working ok with no crashes, i might start to slowly add the rest! *crosses fingers*

[LFact]

By the way, '255 mods all active'? The maximum allowed mods are 253 or 254(FF is reserved for in-game spawned objects).

[MrCooper2006]

Dont know why ppl keep picking up on this....

 

When i say that basically i mean that in Wrye Bash, my mod List is 255/350. So 255 esp/esm files are all active. (Yes including the Oblivion.esm and the DLC files) There is probably over 400 altogether.

 

Not including texture packs - Looked at my Oblivion folder just before I uninstalled it and it was 30gig...... 30gig!!!!!

 

No wonder it was hanging all the time.

[giskarduk]

I just wanted to point out that

 

A) Vista works better than XP does for oblivion on my computer. 64 bit all the way, nice and fast.

B) He disabled all this mods and still had the problem. So its not load order

 

Disabling a mod does not turn that mod off completely unless they are only esps. There are usually files left behind that change the game that remain active even if the mod that uses them is not active. This is why my mods always change those resources to something unique so once my mods are disabled, those files become dead unused files that cannot effect the game because they are unique to my mod and no other. They only share files with each other so you only need to worry about my other mods and that just means reinstalling them if your unsure.

 

But many mods replace stuff in the game freely, its the nature of modding and they do effect other mods and can cause crashing even if they are disabled. The only fix is a clean install.

 

Omods help make sure you can add and remove entire mods and be fairly sure you got all the files and that helps stop those sort of crashes.

 

But Omods can often remove files from other mods need too so you often need to reinstall the other mods to be sure all the files they need are still there.

 

But if you about that and do reinstall all your other omods, then the oblivion mod manager will make solving these problems very easy.

 

For example my only crashes I ever suffer with when not testing stuff is loading a save related and thats caused by OMG and some strange bug in Oblivion that I believe may be due to resource locking of custom items but im guessing. Its not something I can fix anyway, i know that but i keep looking just in case.

 

For the record, I do not use Fcom, Unique landscapes or better cities.

 

Giskard