Persistent CTDs.

[Praseodymi]

Since this morning, for no apparent reason, after about two minutes of play I get a crash to desktop with the "illegal operation" message. However, if I try to restart Oblivion it crashes before I even get to the main menu and I have to restart my computer to get it to work. I have tried numerous re-installs to no avail. Even when I disable all mods and start a new game it still crashes. Does TESNexus have any advice, or will I have to go Oblivion-less for ever?

[bben46]

If you have already tried a reinstall, then troubleshooting your CTD is no longer an option, you problem now is no longer being able to run after a reinstall.

 

When you uninstall Oblivion it doesn't really uninstall everything.

 

It does not remove your mods, save games or Oblivion.ini. It also does not remove helper programs such as OBSE, OBMM, Wrye Bash, The construction set or any other programs you have installed in the \Oblivion folder or the save game folder. I recommend that you go ahead and delete them, then re download and install the latest version of them again later. After you have verified that the game works.

 

Then when you start adding mods before you have started the game, some things may not get initialized properly. Here is my recommended procedure for uninstalling and reinstalling.

 

I would appreciate any feedback on this as it is something I expect to post often and I hate to give bogus or useless information.

 

Uninstalling Oblivion

 

My instructions assume you are using Windows XP and have installed Oblivion into the default location. If you are using Vista or Linux, the file locations may be different, however, the procedure will be the same.

 

For a full reinstall, first you can try to preserve your mods and save games. I recommend that you save them in a new folder with a new name. Create the new folder in C:\Program files\Bethesda Softewrks. Name it Old Files. So it will be C:\Program Files\Bethesda softworks\Old files.

 

Then copy the data folder where your mods are to the new folder - do not erase them, copy them. And in the new folder, rename the \data folder to \olddata. Then copy and rename the folder that has your saved games and Oblivion.ini, C:\documents and settings\your user name\my documents\My Games\oblivion to something like \My games\Old Oblivion - this saves your saved games and the oblivion.ini file.

 

Then, using the original CD, NOT the Launcher on your Hard drive. Select uninstall.

 

After it completes the uninstall, reboot your computer - this is important as it allows Windows to remove some references to the original Oblivion.

 

This would be the time to erase all of the helper programs you have in the \Oblivion folder. Such as OBMM, OBSE and some others. The simplest way is to erase the folder completely. The new install will re create the folder for you along with a fresh oblivion.ini and when you start the game and make a save, a new save folder and new \data folder.

 

This would also be a good time to do a file clean up and defragment your hard drive.

 

If you are worried about the registry entries that were left behind. There are several good programs for removing left behind entries. The one I use is ccleaner. Be sure to reboot before using it, and again after. It is available here: http://majorgeeks.com/download4191.html

 

 

Now to Reinstall.

 

Again using the original CD, install Oblivion.

 

Before adding any mods, patches, helper programs, Shivering Isles or anything else, start the game and make a save. This initializes some stuff that needs to be initialized.

 

If you are using the Game of the Year version of Oblivion you should not need any patches, skip the patching part.

 

Now, If you DO NOT use Shivering Isles, patch the game using ONLY the latest Oblivion patch. All of the stuff from the earlier patches is included.

 

Be sure you use the proper language patch. If you use the wrong one it may work, but with a strange mixture of languages. (Germanglish?) Or it may crash.

 

NOTE: there are two English Patches UK & US and they are different. (Some people actually think we speak the same language) Use the one that matches your original disk.

 

If you use Shivering Isles, Install it now. DO NOT install the Oblivion patch. Install Shivering Isles, then ONLY the latest Shivering Isles patch. All of the updates for Oblivion are included. There is only one Shivering Isles patch for both US & UK English

 

Now, again start the game and make a save. Test to be sure everything is working right (No purple objects or yellow blocks)

 

Before adding any mods, back up both your \data folder and the save game folder. Copy them, don't move or rename them, to a different folder - such as \Bethesda\Clean Oblivion\data and \Bethesda\clean Oblivion\saves. Note that this is a different folder than the one used for your old data and saves.

 

Note, Your Oblivion.ini file is in the same folder, but separate from, the save game folder.

 

Now, if you want to try to run with your old mods, first rename the original folders. The \data folder to \newdata and the \oldata back to \data. this restores all of your mods. You should now have 2 data folders \data, and \newdata in your \oblivion folder

 

To restore your original saves and ini file, rename the new My Games\Oblivion to something like \New Oblivion. and the \Old oblivion to \oblivion - this restores all of your saved games and your original Oblivion.ini file.

 

DO NOT erase the files you renamed. These are your backup files in case the original mods do not work or give you the same problem.

 

If you have the same problem, it is most likely caused by a mod. However, you now have a clean install to fall back on. You can rename the files back to what they were and be back to your clean install without having to reinstall again.

 

Sounds like lots of work, but you will have a clean install and a back up clean install when you are finished.

[Praseodymi]

No luck. It doesn't crash any more but now I get lots of yellow objects and missing meshes, occasionally leaving my character looking like this:

 

http://img.printfection.com/14/119868/hu3OC.jpg

 

It scares me.

[dezdimona]

your missing meshes,you can try to hunt down the culprits in your data file.The easiest way would be to use nifscope to check your mods,if you don't mod,then DL replacements for your mods and install the new mods,they'll overwrite the old meshes and textures and esp,and then see if your problem persists

[Shadowcran]

To enhance performance I designed this guide:

Enhancing your Oblivion Performance.

 

What this attempts to do:

1- Limit CTD's(crashes to desktop) as much as possible.

2- Limit corrupted Saves as much as possible.

3- Limit in game freezes as much as possible.

4- Limit the "black screen" as much as possible.

 

 

You are an Oblivion player seeking to make a great game even greater through mods. However, problems in Vanilla Oblivion will follow into the mods if not addressed. CTD's, corrupted saves, game freezes, These and more are almost standard in any PC game and are completely unpreventable from ever happening. This means they will happen no matter what. The goal of this information contained herein is to cut down on them as much as possible and keep Oblivion a great playing experience, if not a perfect one.

 

The following additions take into account low end machines as well. The advice I'm going to give is designed to help ALL the different computers and their Oblivion playing.

 

Step 1: DL and Install The Latest Oblivion patches. If you are playing with Shivering Isles(SI) then download the patches for this as well.You get these OFFICIAL patches off of the Bethesda site.

 

Step 2: DL and Install the Latest Unofficial patches. If you use Shivering Isles and Knights of the Nine, get the unofficial patches for these as well.

 

 

Unofficial Oblivion Patch v3.2

http://www.strategyinformer.com/pc/theelde.../mod/27022.html

 

Unofficial Shivering Isles Patch

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=10739

 

Unofficial Knights of The Nine Patch

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=12146

 

Step 3: For load order, Dl and install FCOM helper with the LATEST database for it. This is a small mod that fixes your load order in mere seconds.

FCOM Helper. Download the 1st and 4th file on the link.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/download.php?id=31497

 

Step 4: DL and install Wrye Bash. Seriously, I can't stress using this utility enough. Learn to use it slowly if it seems too complex. Before long, you'll master the use of it and realize all it's benefits.Wrye Bash contains some utilities to "clean up" your saves. It contains ways to look at your mods in detail. It has a NVIDIA fog fix that you can use on all your mods and thus prevent that. It has a ton of useful utilities.

Wrye Bash requires the DL of 3 small mods. Don't forget to get Python and wxPython so that Wrye bash will work.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/User:Wrye

 

http://www.python.org/download/releases/2.5/

 

http://sourceforge.net/project/downloading...se_mirror=voxel

 

Step 5: Dl and install the latest OBSE(Oblivion Script Extender)

http://obse.silverlock.org

 

Step 6: DL and install the latest OBMM(Oblivion Mod Manager) when you first start playing with mods, you may mistakenly think that only this is needed to add mods. I cannot stress getting out of dependance of this mod as soon as you can and get used to Wrye Bash. Wrye Bash does a ton of things that help out in fixing later on that OBMM doesn't. Plus Obmm reads conflicts where there are none.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=2097

 

Step 7: DL and install Streamline 3.0. Do not get the 3.1 version as it has too many problems that will NOT be addressed or fixed in the future. Streamline also has an alternative to Quick and auto saves. Quick and auto eventually lead into CORRUPTED SAVES, so I stress not using them and instead use manual or streamlined saves instead.

 

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=10400

 

Step 8: Learn to make BSA files for the textures, sounds, and mesh folders that come with most mods. I've been doing this for the past few weeks and not only do I have almost no "missing textures or meshes" I also seem to have better performance. It's actually simpler than it looks. The Oblivion Mod Manager has utilities that do this better than the BSA commander.

 

Step 9: The following mods will help performance by usually getting rid of a component you truly don't need in the game or one that is a resource hog like the high polyed grass that Vanilla Oblivion contains.

 

Low Poly Trees:

http://oblivionmodgods.de/rpg-blackdragons...trees-t245.html

 

Low Poly Grass:

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=12280

 

No lights flicker:

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=6150

 

No Wind:

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=2578

 

Quiet Feet:

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=13016

 

Oblivion Poly Overhaul:

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=6981

 

Optimized Illumination:

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=6331

 

Operation Optimization:

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=6331

 

Hrmns Oblivion Script Optimization:

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=13092

 

Duke Patricks Script Effect Silencer:

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=15677

 

OAF (Oblivion Animation Fixer)

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=5127

 

Step 10: Avoid the major texture mods if you have a low end machine. You may have "the best looking Oblivion ever" but that's small comfort if you can only see it for 5 seconds before it crashes.

 

There is a few mods that are all great mods, but you should never have both of them running at the same time due to occupying the same or too near the world space. I recommend getting both mods I list of these, but of course not running them together.

Save one for another game.

 

Cybiades and Abacean Pirates. Cybiades is an awesome quest mod, Pirates a good faction mod. However, the boat to Cybiades is too close to the Pirates base of operations.

 

Haunted House(The dungeon mod, not the quest one) and Tumbderdon. These mods are almost right on top of each other. Use only one at a time.

 

Mithril Island and The Dragon Citadel. Believe it or not, you can actually run these 2 at the same time, but it'll look and act goofy. They occupy basically the same world space but since the Citadel is accessible by magic ring, this is negated. The citadel will appear OVER the mithril Island mod. You'll notice odd occurances because of this like fish spawning on land, but except for a few minor things, they both work....wierd, I know.

 

If you know of any more PERFORMANCE enhancing mods, please feel free to list them. I can't have possibly covered them all. Your help will be appreciated by me and probably by anyone who reads this and wants to boost their game.

[Praseodymi]

Dezdimona: It's not the meshes that are missing, because it still loads them, but the objects are coloured yellow.

 

Shadowcran: I already saw your post and tried those, but none of them worked. :(

[Shadowcran]

Mesh mistakes, eh?

 

The best way to figure out which mods are missing the meshes is to disable about 5-10 mods at a time, starting at the bottom of the load order and see if things change when you log back on. I know this sounds tedious, but it's the best suggestion I can come up with on short notice.

 

There IS a form ID finder mod out there that helps identify what mods are missing, but I'm not proficient in it's use yet. One sec and I'll get you the link:

 

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16704

 

Hope this helps.

 

BTW, some mods put all their Textures, sound, meshes, ...everything but esp's, into BSA files. You have to have these BSA files in your data folder so they can be used. See if one or two of these are missing. Depending on what you're using they can look like extra read me's when you unzip the folder and can be missed and not added. I too try to limit the amount of piled up readme's in my data folder.