Stuttering and Crashing

[AnubisRaven]

Currently, I'm getting a lot of stuttering a crashing in my game. I use BOSS to organize my load order, but I'm pretty sure there's a conflict somewhere. My current mod list is thus (not in any order. Sorted with BOSS, all updated to current version)

 

Alive Waters

Alternative Start-Arrive by Ship

Crowded Cities improved

Crowded Roads Revamped

High Resolution Faces for Robert's Male and Female

MD Natural Faces

Natural Environments

Passive Mudcrabs

Quiet Feet

Francesco's Leveled Creatures and Items mod

Martigen's Monster Mod

Unofficial Oblivion Patch

Unofficial Shivering Isles Patch

HGEC Body

Unique Landscapes Compilation

 

The problem is that it keeps stuttering, sometimes severely, and then at occasional points it will start stuttering, and then just freeze, crash, and say "Oblivion has stopped working". Often when this happens, my mouse will have dissappeared and I'll have to Ctrl Alt Delete out and close it with task manager.

 

It's just kind of annoying and I'd like to not have to save my game every five seconds.

[mechatech]

My 2 cents.

 

Is your system up to the task?

 

In my experience, UL and Natural Env were graphically intensive. While MMM and Crowded puts a strain on the CPU because of the increased AIs for the extra spawns. Try turning off mods and playing the game. If the stuttering stops you found the culprit. You may need to back off your settings.

 

Another thought is a fragmented disk. Sometimes defragging fixes things.

 

There are mods here to help things run smoothly such as -

http://oblivion.nexusmods.com/mods/23208

 

Some auto savers to save you from pulling your hair out -

http://oblivion.nexusmods.com/mods/23627

http://oblivion.nexusmods.com/mods/2937

 

Look in the utilities section, there are many useful tools there.

 

 

 

-

Edited December 3, 2012 by mechatech

[Striker879]

Is this a save that has a lot of hours on it? Do you notice any graphical glitches with flames (e.g. torches used by NPCs) or animated doors and gates?

 

Those are signs of the 'A-Bomb'. If that's the case give OAF - Oblivion Animation fixer V1.2 a try. It's a small utility you run from Windows. If you look in the utility's window after you've loaded one of your saves you'll see a box labelled 'Byte' along the bottom row. If it's 47 or higher I recommend you click the 'FixMe' button. It will create a fixed copy of your save with the prefix 'OAF_'.

 

If you run OBSE you'll notice that for each save you have an '.ess' file and a matching '.obse' file. For example, I use named saves. I have a save called 'CustomClass710.ess' and a corresponding 'CustomClass710.obse'. After I run OAF on my 'CustomClass710.ess' I have a new file named 'OAF_CustomClass.ess' (the fixed copy). Because OBSE expects a '.obse' partner for 'OAF_CustomClass710.ess' I make a renamed copy of 'CustomClass710.obse' (which is named 'OAF_CustomClass710.obse naturally). Takes a lot longer to explain than to do.

[AnubisRaven]

Is this a save that has a lot of hours on it? Do you notice any graphical glitches with flames (e.g. torches used by NPCs) or animated doors and gates?

 

Those are signs of the 'A-Bomb'. If that's the case give OAF - Oblivion Animation fixer V1.2 a try. It's a small utility you run from Windows. If you look in the utility's window after you've loaded one of your saves you'll see a box labelled 'Byte' along the bottom row. If it's 47 or higher I recommend you click the 'FixMe' button. It will create a fixed copy of your save with the prefix 'OAF_'.

 

If you run OBSE you'll notice that for each save you have an '.ess' file and a matching '.obse' file. For example, I use named saves. I have a save called 'CustomClass710.ess' and a corresponding 'CustomClass710.obse'. After I run OAF on my 'CustomClass710.ess' I have a new file named 'OAF_CustomClass.ess' (the fixed copy). Because OBSE expects a '.obse' partner for 'OAF_CustomClass710.ess' I make a renamed copy of 'CustomClass710.obse' (which is named 'OAF_CustomClass710.obse naturally). Takes a lot longer to explain than to do.

 

This save is relatively new, and no, I have not noticed any glitches with flames.

[Striker879]

OK ... part of troubleshooting is discovering what it's not.

 

When you say you'd like to not need to save every five seconds I'd like to ask, when you save how do you do that? Do you use quicksave, or are you using save from the Esc menu or named saves from the console prompt?

 

- Edit - Also, are you overwriting saves or saving in a new slot each time?

Edited December 3, 2012 by Striker879

[AnubisRaven]

OK ... part of troubleshooting is discovering what it's not.

 

When you say you'd like to not need to save every five seconds I'd like to ask, when you save how do you do that? Do you use quicksave, or are you using save from the Esc menu or named saves from the console prompt?

 

- Edit - Also, are you overwriting saves or saving in a new slot each time?

 

Mostly I just quicksave. I don't do it too often, but probably 5 minutes or so, or whenever I remember, because it's crashed in the past and I've had to go back to saves I made hours ago.

 

I use hard saves only for when I go to different characters.

[Striker879]

Quicksave is a known corrupter of save files. Back when I first started playing Oblivion I was the same as you ... quicksaving regularly. As my game became more and more unstable and I started researching what could be the causes I ran across some info about saving in Wrye Musings.

 

I have since changed my saving habits and can tell you that unless I forget to follow my own advice or get too silly using console commands I rarely crash. Here's my advice:

 

1) Only use either save from the Esc menu (I call that manual save) or named console saves (open the console and then 'save <MySaveName>' without the quotes or brackets). Always save in a new slot, never overwrite.

2) Only load a save from restarting the game from the desktop. That means save, exit to the desktop, restart the game and then load a save.

3) Only load an autosave when you don't want to lose too much progress.

 

I make either a named save or manual save every hour or so, depending on if I'm playing my old guy (manual saves) or new guy (named saves). I make a save before entering any dungeon or Oblivion gate as well as before entering a city if it's been a while since the last save. Every three hours or so I save and exit the game, even if I'm going to continue playing right away. My level 17 new guy has 693 hours playtime and my old guy (level 45) has well over 1300 hours. When I play my old guy I tend to save more often than my new guy, but keep in mind his saves are the ones I corrupted with quicksave and have 'recovered' by using good saving practices. Also keep in mind that I couldn't wait and save every hour with my old guy when I was trying to 'recover' his saves (can't recall for certain, but I think that was around the 400 or 500 hour mark on his saves ... I'd already been through the A-Bomb with him). Back then it was probably more like save every five minutes, and I was still crashing to desktop often enough I didn't worry about the save/exit/reload stuff. It took time, but like I say I'm still playing him today.

 

Of course your mileage may vary, but that's been my experience.

[AnubisRaven]

Quicksave is a known corrupter of save files. Back when I first started playing Oblivion I was the same as you ... quicksaving regularly. As my game became more and more unstable and I started researching what could be the causes I ran across some info about saving in Wrye Musings.

 

I have since changed my saving habits and can tell you that unless I forget to follow my own advice or get too silly using console commands I rarely crash. Here's my advice:

 

1) Only use either save from the Esc menu (I call that manual save) or named console saves (open the console and then 'save <MySaveName>' without the quotes or brackets). Always save in a new slot, never overwrite.

2) Only load a save from restarting the game from the desktop. That means save, exit to the desktop, restart the game and then load a save.

3) Only load an autosave when you don't want to lose too much progress.

 

I make either a named save or manual save every hour or so, depending on if I'm playing my old guy (manual saves) or new guy (named saves). I make a save before entering any dungeon or Oblivion gate as well as before entering a city if it's been a while since the last save. Every three hours or so I save and exit the game, even if I'm going to continue playing right away. My level 17 new guy has 693 hours playtime and my old guy (level 45) has well over 1300 hours. When I play my old guy I tend to save more often than my new guy, but keep in mind his saves are the ones I corrupted with quicksave and have 'recovered' by using good saving practices. Also keep in mind that I couldn't wait and save every hour with my old guy when I was trying to 'recover' his saves (can't recall for certain, but I think that was around the 400 or 500 hour mark on his saves ... I'd already been through the A-Bomb with him). Back then it was probably more like save every five minutes, and I was still crashing to desktop often enough I didn't worry about the save/exit/reload stuff. It took time, but like I say I'm still playing him today.

 

Of course your mileage may vary, but that's been my experience.

 

Hmm... ok. That would all be well and good, but this happens pretty much from the moment I start the game, even if it's a new one. Also, I never used to have this problem with quicksaves and such.

 

I have about 200 hours in now, and the game was stable until I hit about the 120 mark.

Edited December 3, 2012 by AnubisRaven

[Striker879]

I'm afraid I don't have any experience with any of the mods in your list beyond HGEC ... maybe someone else will chime in with an idea. Did this start after you added anything in particular?

[AnubisRaven]

I'm afraid I don't have any experience with any of the mods in your list beyond HGEC ... maybe someone else will chime in with an idea. Did this start after you added anything in particular?

 

The stuttering has been going on for awhile, but it seemed to get worse after I added Mart's Monster Mod. I believe that, for some reason, it may be conflicting with Francesco's Leveled Creatures and Items mod, even though both mods are supposed to be compatible, and, in fact, I have the version of Mart's Monster Mod installed that's supposed to work with Fran's.

 

That's my only thought, but besides that, I can't think of anything.

 

Thanks for trying to help though, I really appreciate it.