Oblivion Win7 64bit CTD

[vader134]

Hey guys,

Running on the following system;

AMD Phenom II X4 955 3.65 Ghz CPU
6870 2GB XFX Black Edition GPU
620w Antec HCG PSU
G.Skill 1600 MHz 8GB ripjaws RAM
1TB Samsung Spinpoint F3 HDD
Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit OS

I installed oblivion the other day (not into program files, into C:Games\Oblivion , modded it up (quite a few mods, OOO, Better Cities, XUL, Darnified, QTP3, UOP, few more), and it would CTD after Valen started talking in the jail cell... Took off all the mods, tried launching Vanilla, same thing happened, Valen opens his mouth, bam, CTD... Deleted the whole game after uninstalling via the launcher from my original CD. all the registry files for it were deleted via Ccleaner, the oblivion folder in my documents/my games was deleted, restarted, de fragged my PC, restarted, installed the game via CD, ran it, set the affinity to only two cores, and it was working fine vanilla. After a short while, I decided to add two mods to it (Darnified UI and Unique Landscapes). I played with those enabled for a good while, no problems. I install QTP3, UOP, and the compatibility patch for those, as well as Duke Patrick's Archery mod, and then the game crashes every 5 minutes. I, again, uninstalled completely, registry files, etc, the whole sha-bang, re-installed, and even vanilla, affinity set to two cores, the game crashes after about 15 minutes of game play. I've tried clean installing a few times, installing on my (D:) drive, changing the affinity to only two cores, deleting video files, deleting the .ini files (both the Oblivion_default.ini and the ini located in my documents\my games\oblivion), and modifying a few lines in the config file located in my documents/my games/oblivion (The lines were:

 

bUseRefractionShader=0

bDoImageSpaceEffects=0

bUseWaterShader=0

bUseFaceGenLOD=0

bUseMultiThreadedFaceGen=1) The only line I didn't modify was the very last one about multi-threaded face gen, couldn't find that line and wasn't sure where to add it, if I should have.

Nothing is working! This is very disheartening as I've recently acquired an extremely strong desire to play Oblivion after reading Shakespeare's Macbeth. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you all.

-Vader134

EDIT:

Forgot to mention, I have also tried setting compatibility mode to Windows XP Service Pack 2, checked run as admin, and changed the security level to "Full Control" for myself and my system on every possible file that could be launching the game. I did that on Obse_loader.exe, Oblivion.exe, oblivionlauncher.exe, and on the shortcuts. It still does not work...

Edited March 17, 2013 by vader134

[Hickory]

vader134, on 17 Mar 2013 - 06:56, said:

deleting the .ini files (both the Oblivion_default.ini and the ini located in my documents\my games\oblivion)

If you deleted your Oblivion_default.ini, then you are going to have to re-install. That file should never, ever be edited or deleted -- it's what the game falls back on to reinstate Oblivion.ini in the Documents folder. It's why it's called Oblivion_default.

[discovery1]

Also, not a good idea to add mods untill you ready to exit the sewer. You should always have a clean vanilla save at that point to establish the game in its most vanilla form is actually working properly before adding mods. Strongly recomend using the 4 gb patch on a 64 bit machine.

The more mods you add especially ones like qtp3 and the like mean your game will sooner than later hit the 2 gig byte memory ceiling and ctd. The patch will help prevent this, works like a charm for me.

http://wiki.tesnexus.com/index.php/4GB_memory_patcher

[bben46]

First, there is absolutely no problem running Oblivion on a 64 bit Win7 system many people - including me have been doing it for a long time with no changes , no compatibility mode and no problems.

 

DO NOT start installing mods until after you make the first save. That first save - usually made in the cell saves your Oblivion.ini which is needed for many other things. If you want, after that first save, you can then start a new game - the ini will not be touched after that first one. You can still make changes in the ini - but use the one in the same folder as the saved games and NOT the one in the game folder.

 

Other stuff you may need to do. Be sure the game is patched to the latest version - many mods will crash if it is not

Be sure you have OBSE installed (It's required for many mods) - and are starting using the OBSE every time.

 

A lot of this is covered in my complete uninstall/reinstall article - you may not need all of it, just the reinstall part.

Here is a link to my complete uninstall/reinstall procedure located in the WIKI section of the Nexus

http://wiki.tesnexus.com/index.php/Oblivion_reinstall_procedure

 

It allows you to preserve any saves and mods, or remove them completely - your choice.

 

When you play, be sure to make a permanent save at the place just before you exit the sewer. That is the end of the tutorial and the beginning of the real game - lots of video stuff is not even enabled until you exit that sewer. Beth did this on purpose to overawe players when they first enter the real game world. There is also a major fps hit on low power video cards at that point.

 

You can add most mods before you leave the cell. But after that first save. If you are not using a vanilla race, the game will stall because Valen will not talk unless you have the mod that allows him to talk with other races. - And Valen Dreth's rant is the trigger that starts the next action. The fix is included in the unofficial patch (which is technically NOT an actual patch, but a mod)

[vader134]

First off, thank you all for the help.

 

Hickory, on 17 Mar 2013 - 05:45, said:

Hickory, on 17 Mar 2013 - 05:45, said:

vader134, on 17 Mar 2013 - 02:01, said:

vader134, on 17 Mar 2013 - 02:01, said:
vader134, on 17 Mar 2013 - 06:56, said:
deleting the .ini files (both the Oblivion_default.ini and the ini located in my documents\my games\oblivion)

If you deleted your Oblivion_default.ini, then you are going to have to re-install. That file should never, ever be edited or deleted -- it's what the game falls back on to reinstate Oblivion.ini in the Documents folder. It's why it's called Oblivion_default.

I did this because some one mentioned that an Oblivion_default.ini left over from a previous game could cause problems. And you don't necessarily have to re-install. To fix it with out reinstalling, one could copy and paste the Oblivion.ini from my docs/my games/oblivion into the oblivion install directory and rename it to Oblivion_default.ini. That's how I fixed that problem with out re installing, but I reinstalled after I did that anyways lol

discovery1, on 17 Mar 2013 - 06:57, said:
discovery1, on 17 Mar 2013 - 06:57, said:
Also, not a good idea to add mods untill you ready to exit the sewer. You should always have a clean vanilla save at that point to establish the game in its most vanilla form is actually working properly before adding mods. Strongly recomend using the 4 gb patch on a 64 bit machine.
The more mods you add especially ones like qtp3 and the like mean your game will sooner than later hit the 2 gig byte memory ceiling and ctd. The patch will help prevent this, works like a charm for me.
http://wiki.tesnexus.com/index.php/4GB_memory_patcher

I didn't think the 4GB patch would make a huge difference, so I didn't bother with it. I also did not think it mattered when the mods were added, so the fact I was adding them before I exited the sewers could be the problem, but here's what worries me the most... I loaded XUL and Darnified before I exited the sewers the first time I had it working well, got all the way out of the sewers, halfway down Vilverin, and then added 3 more mods (Duke Patrick's Archery, QTP3, UOP) and then the game started crashing. So I'm worried because I added a couple mods before the sewers, it worked, and then started crashing after I added mods well past the sewers...

bben46, on 17 Mar 2013 - 09:31, said:
bben46, on 17 Mar 2013 - 09:31, said:
First, there is absolutely no problem running Oblivion on a 64 bit Win7 system many people - including me have been doing it for a long time with no changes , no compatibility mode and no problems. I didn't really think so. A couple years ago I ran the game fine with absolutely no problems on this very same machine.

DO NOT start installing mods until after you make the first save. That first save - usually made in the cell saves your Oblivion.ini which is needed for many other things. If you want, after that first save, you can then start a new game - the ini will not be touched after that first one. You can still make changes in the ini - but use the one in the same folder as the saved games and NOT the one in the game folder. Alright, will do, Captain.

Other stuff you may need to do. Be sure the game is patched to the latest version - many mods will crash if it is not
Be sure you have OBSE installed (It's required for many mods) - and are starting using the OBSE every time. I have always used OBSE, and I have the 2 disc GOTY edition, so the game gets patched after I install Shivering Isles.

A lot of this is covered in my complete uninstall/reinstall article - you may not need all of it, just the reinstall part.
Here is a link to my complete uninstall/reinstall procedure located in the WIKI section of the Nexus
http://wiki.tesnexus.com/index.php/Oblivion_reinstall_procedure - I followed that procedure 4 or 5 times, just not the "don't add mods until you're past the sewers" part of it, if that was in there, because I didn't notice that section (again, if that was even in there, that could be your own knowledge for all I'm aware of)

It allows you to preserve any saves and mods, or remove them completely - your choice.

When you play, be sure to make a permanent save at the place just before you exit the sewer. That is the end of the tutorial and the beginning of the real game - lots of video stuff is not even enabled until you exit that sewer. Beth did this on purpose to overawe players when they first enter the real game world. There is also a major fps hit on low power video cards at that point.

You can add most mods before you leave the cell. But after that first save. If you are not using a vanilla race, the game will stall because Valen will not talk unless you have the mod that allows him to talk with other races. - And Valen Dreth's rant is the trigger that starts the next action. The fix is included in the unofficial patch (which is technically NOT an actual patch, but a mod) I definitely don't like using added races. I've only had problems adding and using them from mods like COBL, never really benefit, never really got them to work well. I just stick with the vanilla races, I think those are just fine untouched.

Ok, so this is what I'm going to do;

Ensure I've deleted all traces of Oblivion
Make sure I used Ccleaner to clear the registry last night when I uninstalled again
Restart the machine
Install Oblivion via Disc One of the GOTY Edition
Update and install Shivering Isles via Disc Two of the GOTY Edition
Play Vanilla oblivion until I leave the Sewers and clear out Vilverin
Then begin adding a couple mods here and there

Does that sound good?

Two other questions;

Should I enable compatibility for Windows XP SP2 and run as admin in the Compatibility tab on the Oblivion.exe/Oblivionlauncher.exe?

Should I set the affinity to only two cores, or can oblivion work fine with four cores?

Thank you all again for the replies.

EDIT:

Ok, so when I went to install Oblivion by inserting Disc One in my optical drive, the game, instead of immediately initiating the installation process, brought up the launcher with "Uninstall" as an option still, so the disc detected Oblivion on my PC... Turns out I forgot to uninstall via the disc last night, just deleted all the folders and files in my blind rage. So anyways, I uninstalled, cleared the registry files again using Ccleaner, restarted, installed the game, installed shivering isles and patched to 1.2.0.416, played the game completely Vanilla, no mods, no compatibility mode, not running as administrator, just pure, Vanilla Oblivion. I got to the point where you are about to reunite with the blades for the first time after the rats break through the wall and you get the whole little archery tutorial after you pick up the bow, and then the game CTD. I have a feeling it has something to do with the fact I did not uninstall properly last time. So I am about to do the following process;

1. Uninstall Oblivion using Disc One GOTY edition and restart the PC
2. Delete the Oblivion install folder because it never gets fully deleted after being uninstalled
3. Delete the oblivion folder located in my docs/my games
4. Run Ccleaner and clean my registry files up
5. Restart PC
6. Fresh Install again
7. Play Vanilla Oblivion on a brand new character and see if I can get all the way through the sewers with out compatibility or run as admin checked, and I'm going to do this before I patch or install Shivering isles using disc two
8a. If I did, continue to clear out Vilverin and see if I can get that done with out compatibility or run as admin
8b. If I did not, I will enable compatibility for XP SP2 and run the program as an admin and see how far that gets me
9a. If I clear out Vilverin with no compatibility mode and run as admin unchecked, I'll assume I'm clear
9b. If I restarted the game using compatibility mode and run as admin checked and cleared out Vilverin, I'll assume I'm clear
9c. If the Vanilla game still does not work using compatibility mode/run as admin checked, I'm all out of freaking ideas.

EDIT 2:

This is unbelievable...

I got through the first 6 steps I listed above just fine... I played the game before I patched it or installed Shivering Isles... I let Valen finish his little speech, I made a save game, I let the guards open the secret passage way in the cell, I saved again, a new save game, didn't over write the last one, and then I exit the game to make sure oblivion was able to initialize everything and what not... Then I start the game from the Launcher on my hard drive, continue from my last save game, and it crashes immediately after loading... So I'm going to restart to eliminate the pesky sound that continues in an infinite loop after Oblivion crashes and then try the game with compatibility mode and run as admin checked.

EDIT 3:

I think I'm going out on a limb here with this question, but do you guys think there's a problem with Rocketdock and Oblivion? Are there any known issues there? I am using RocketDock to avoid having any shortcuts on my desktop, and I didn't really like the taskbar for that purpose because it can't hold all the icons I want it to. I hope Oblivion doesn't have any issues with any kind of docks...

EDIT 4:

Turns out compatibility mode and run as admin were already checked in the oblivion compatibility tab... And same for the Oblivion Launcher... I'll try running with out that checked.

EDIT 5:

With the compatibility mode and run as admin unchecked, it crashed even quicker after attempting to load my game, however, it prevented the game from having a sound loop infinitely after it crashed. That's nice of the system... I am going to go ahead and install disc two, delete my character, and start a new game again. See what happens.

EDIT 6:

I installed disc two, started a new character, and as soon as Valen opened his mouth, boom, CTD. That's with no compatibility mode and run as admin checked. Again, no sound was looping this time either.

On a side note, when I did have Oblivion working for a short while, when I was exploring the caves, sometimes I could hear things twice, at the same time... It's hard to explain, but for example, if I drew my sword, sometimes I would hear the sound just fine, and other times, the sound would play twice and one of the two instances of the sound playing would be delayed just slightly after the first... If you've ever played the classic Thief game from 1998, you might know what I'm talking about. It's like when the mages would speak in the level where you're stealing the Earth Talisman, it sounded like there were two mages speaking any time there was only one speaking... When I draw my sword, sometimes it sounds like I drew it twice... However, that problem also occurred with my foot steps occasionally. I'd hear 4 foot steps when I only took two. It was strange...

Edited March 17, 2013 by vader134

[Hickory]

I did this because some one mentioned that an Oblivion_default.ini left over from a previous game could cause problems. And you don't necessarily have to re-install. To fix it with out reinstalling, one could copy and paste the Oblivion.ini from my docs/my games/oblivion into the oblivion install directory and rename it to Oblivion_default.ini.

 

No, that Oblivion_default (left over) can *not* cause problems, and you absolutely *can not* replace it with Oblivion.ini from the Documents folder safely. The Documents file is always altered by the game for hardware purposes, and most likely tweaked by you also. Whoever told you that was speaking out of their posterior.

 

<rest of wall of text snipped>

 

[vader134]

 

I did this because some one mentioned that an Oblivion_default.ini left over from a previous game could cause problems. And you don't necessarily have to re-install. To fix it with out reinstalling, one could copy and paste the Oblivion.ini from my docs/my games/oblivion into the oblivion install directory and rename it to Oblivion_default.ini.

 

No, that Oblivion_default (left over) can *not* cause problems, and you absolutely *can not* replace it with Oblivion.ini from the Documents folder safely. The Documents file is always altered by the game for hardware purposes, and most likely tweaked by you also. Whoever told you that was speaking out of their posterior.

 

<rest of wall of text snipped>

 

Thanks for the info, I'll be sure to keep that in mind. Regardless, that's not the problem currently as I've performed a multitude of clean installs following Bben's method between now and the time I deleted the default.ini

 

EDIT:

 

Ok. So, I just completely removed Oblivion from my PC, yet again. This is how I did it this time;

 

I went into control panel to uninstall programs and saw that I still had the DLC installed from a few days back, so it's quite a few installs old. I uninstalled all that DLC via the control panel

Restarted my PC

Inserted GOTY disc one

Exited Launcher

Explored the disc in windows explorer and launched setup.exe from the disc

Uninstalled Oblivion

Restarted PC

Deleted the game folder and the oblivion folder located in my docs/my games/

Ran Ccleaner to clean my registry files again

Restarted again

 

And that's where I am at. I am sitting with a clean uninstall of Oblivion. Now, there's one thing I'm questioning before I go ahead with another install... I've heard from multiple sources that Oblivion can have some problems with any Codecs installed on your system that didn't originally come with Windows. IIRC, a while back I had to install one small audio codec to get a different games audio to work... That's when I went into control panel to check for any codecs and saw I had that DLC still (like Vile Lair, Wizard's Tower, Orrery, horse armor, spell tomes, and mehrunes razor). I didn't find any codecs, so I went ahead and just uninstalled all that DLC. I'm thinking codecs aren't going to show up in that list of programs that can be uninstalled or changed via control panel, so I'm looking for a way to remove any codecs that didn't come with windows when I first got the game...

 

Any ideas?

 

After that's done, could some one give me instructions on how exactly I should go about a clean install?

 

This is what I am thinking;

 

1. Install via Oblivion GOTY disc one

2. Install Shiv Isles/Patch using disc two

3. Launch the game, make a save, beat the sewers, exit the game

4. Personally, I'll go ahead and relaunch at that point and beat Vilverin for my own personal peace of mind

5. Begin modding slowly

 

Does that sound good? Yay or nay? Should I try launching and beating the sewers before I install shiv isles and patch?

 

Anyways, thanks again for the help gentlemen.

 

EDIT 2:

 

I remembered that I use the Nero AAC Encoder codec for Foobar2000 to help get it working with my iPod so I could quit using iTunes completely. I created a restore point before deleting the codec, just deleted the codec and cleaned the registry, about to restart and do another install and hope it works.

Edited March 18, 2013 by vader134

[vader134]

This is with out a doubt the most frustrating thing I've ever encountered. Never has my desire to play Oblivion been stronger, yet never have I encountered such a difficult time attempting to get this piece of software working.

I Deleted the AAC Encoder as I mentioned above, removed Nvidia physx (I have an ATI card, forgot to delete that from a while back I suppose when I had my old 9800 GT), removed a couple other useless programs, deleted the registry files, restarted, fresh install, completely vanilla oblivion still did not work. I re-enabled compatibility mode and run as admin as well as the options in the security tab in the application files that I did before, and that did not get it to work. I installed DirectX 9.0 off the oblivion disc and that did not get it work. I got this nifty little program called CPU control that will allow me to set a programs affinity before it launches, I set oblivion to only two cores, and that only delayed the crashing by 10 minutes... I crashed shortly after I walked past the cracked wall that the rats break through in the Sewers.

Any help would be appreciated... I am so desperate to get this working...

Edited March 18, 2013 by vader134

[Striker879]

What happens if you turn off sound completely?

To do that you'd edit Oblivion.ini (located in 'Users\[username]\Documents\My Games\Oblivion' NOT Oblivion_default.ini located in your game's 'Oblivion' folder). Find 'bDSoundHWAcceleration' and change it to 'bDSoundHWAcceleration=0' (that's a zero after the equals) and then do the same with 'bMusicEnabled' and 'bSoundEnabled' (so they would then be 'bMusicEnabled=0' and 'bSoundEnabled=0').

[vader134]

Do you believe that would stop the CTD? I'm not interested in preventing the sound from looping after a CTD, I'm interested in bringing the CTD's to as a low of a rate as possible. Back up to something around 10-20 hours of play then a crash (at least with Vanilla Oblivion, not expecting that much time with mods installed)

I appreciate the reply though

Edited March 19, 2013 by vader134