Striker879 Posted March 19, 2013 Share Posted March 19, 2013 We have seen cases where sound problems have been the root cause of CTDs, which is why I suggested the experiment. If disabling sound does in fact stop the CTDs then your sound card (or more likely your on-board sound and or sound drivers) are at the bottom of this. If it doesn't make any difference one of the possible causes is stricken from the list. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vader134 Posted March 19, 2013 Author Share Posted March 19, 2013 I'll have to give that a shot soon. I am using the Asus Xonar DG and the latest drivers though, and I don't think I've ever heard of that causing an issue for some one... I am also currently trying to run Oblivion using Windows XP mode with the Windows Virtual Machine program, do you think that could work? I can't get past the "Failed to initialize renderer" error, I tried installing my video drivers as many before me had done to fix that problem but it was to no avail. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Striker879 Posted March 19, 2013 Share Posted March 19, 2013 Don't have a whole lot of experience with Win 7 or 8 ... Bben46 has far more to offer for advice around that part of it than I. You didn't list your sound card in the OP. Providing you have the correct 64 bit drivers I doubt that your problem is sound card related in light of that. Disabling those settings and then reversing the change is trivial, so you may want to try it just for the sake of crossing one more possibility off the list. Onboard sound solutions like Realtek have been the culprit in those other cases, not discrete sound cards. You could check to ensure you aren't using any effects like concert hall etc. (they can cause problems). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vader134 Posted March 19, 2013 Author Share Posted March 19, 2013 Yeah I'm definitely not using any effects like that, I didn't care to try any thing of the sort out. I'll have to give that a shot tomorrow afternoon as it's getting a little late for me. Do you have any other suggestions while we're at it? I could definitely use a couple more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Striker879 Posted March 19, 2013 Share Posted March 19, 2013 The only other input I can think of right now is just around the order you're talking about doing things. I would get the game installed including SI (which should have you patched to version 1.2.0416 after installing SI from the GotY edition). Complete the tutorial dungeon as far as the last section where you can see the sewer exit in the distance (right before the character finalization menu). Make either a named save using the console or a save from the Esc menu. You'll be able to use that save in the future if you ever start a new character and don't want to redo the whole tutorial. Exit the sewer and make another save. That one will be your continue the game after troubleshooting save. Go to the Market District when it's busy during the day and confirm game stability. Make another save (never overwriting the previous saves). This will be your testing save. Add mods, change game settings etc. and confirm proper operation using the outside the sewer save (which has you out in the world ... lots of tress and grass etc.) and the Market District save (lots of NPCs and AI packages running). I'd leave things like Vilverin until after confirming more basic stuff like 'yes it runs'. Troubleshooting isn't about enjoying the game, it's steps needed to get to that point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vader134 Posted March 19, 2013 Author Share Posted March 19, 2013 I figured clearing out Vilverin would help with the trouble shooting since it would give me the chance to ensure combat works stably as well as the rest of the game, plus all the trap mechanics and stuff could have been problem causing, but that's not very important since I've never been capable of even finishing the tutorial dungeon level... I'm on the verge of doing a wipe and re-install of Windows 7 Ultimate Edition to see if I can get this working... If that doesn't work, I'll be extremely upset... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Striker879 Posted March 19, 2013 Share Posted March 19, 2013 I'm certainly no Win 7 expert ... my experience with it is limited to initial set up of some netbooks and a laptop for the grandkids. A complete OS re-install is a rather extreme step though, and if not properly executed may lead to other problems (having all needed drivers backed up on install compatible media beforehand for example). The steps I've seen you document in this thread should have been sufficient in my opinion. Only thing I'm not sure about would be around issues with UAC's 'virtual store' and things that are specific to later versions of Windows (I'm primarily still just a Win XP dinosaur). I don't disagree about Viverin providing a convenient spot for testing combat ... I just think that combat testing is more 'running' speed testing before you've completed 'walking' speed testing. When certain problems arise can be useful troubleshooting information as well as what the types of problems are (an example would be no CTDs while your character is running around Cyrodiil but problems as soon as you are riding a horse or a wolf or other multi-footed creatures are around ... a classic symptom of sound related issues from on-board sound, fixable with mods that quiet creature's footfall sounds). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bben46 Posted March 19, 2013 Share Posted March 19, 2013 I'm wondering if your crashes aren't caused by something external to the game. Something running in the background - VOIP programs, Skype, IM, Xfire have all been known to cause random CTD when they do background checks for new messages. Anything that steals clock processes may cause a CTD if it doesn't return control to the game soon enough. I Once had a HP update that crashed mine when it tried - and failed to contact the HP update site to see if there were any updates for my printer - The program was using an old address that had been discontinued so it couldn't connect, then tried again every ten minutes. Disable any background programs and any services you know you don't need. And any scheduled updates (many programs install an auto update schedule in background when you install them - without bothering to tell you) Some antiviruses want to run continuous checks on every disk read and write - disable that if yours does it. On mine I can specify specific folders to not check like this.Disable the Windows indexing service - it likes to take up processor time re indexing everything. (This was more of a problem with XP - Win7 waits until it sees that nothing is happening)Defrag your hard drive, then Disable any defrag program that runs automatically or in the background. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vader134 Posted March 19, 2013 Author Share Posted March 19, 2013 (edited) I'm certainly no Win 7 expert ... my experience with it is limited to initial set up of some netbooks and a laptop for the grandkids. A complete OS re-install is a rather extreme step though, and if not properly executed may lead to other problems (having all needed drivers backed up on install compatible media beforehand for example). The steps I've seen you document in this thread should have been sufficient in my opinion. Only thing I'm not sure about would be around issues with UAC's 'virtual store' and things that are specific to later versions of Windows (I'm primarily still just a Win XP dinosaur). I don't disagree about Viverin providing a convenient spot for testing combat ... I just think that combat testing is more 'running' speed testing before you've completed 'walking' speed testing. When certain problems arise can be useful troubleshooting information as well as what the types of problems are (an example would be no CTDs while your character is running around Cyrodiil but problems as soon as you are riding a horse or a wolf or other multi-footed creatures are around ... a classic symptom of sound related issues from on-board sound, fixable with mods that quiet creature's footfall sounds). I wish the steps I took were sufficient, but they haven't been so far :/ I see what you're saying about Vilverin... I definitely can't say I've crashed as a result of riding a horse, I can't really obtain a horse in the tutorial :P I'm wondering if your crashes aren't caused by something external to the game. Something running in the background - VOIP programs, Skype, IM, Xfire have all been known to cause random CTD when they do background checks for new messages. Anything that steals clock processes may cause a CTD if it doesn't return control to the game soon enough. I Once had a HP update that crashed mine when it tried - and failed to contact the HP update site to see if there were any updates for my printer - The program was using an old address that had been discontinued so it couldn't connect, then tried again every ten minutes. Disable any background programs and any services you know you don't need. And any scheduled updates (many programs install an auto update schedule in background when you install them - without bothering to tell you) Some antiviruses want to run continuous checks on every disk read and write - disable that if yours does it. On mine I can specify specific folders to not check like this.Disable the Windows indexing service - it likes to take up processor time re indexing everything. (This was more of a problem with XP - Win7 waits until it sees that nothing is happening)Defrag your hard drive, then Disable any defrag program that runs automatically or in the background. I've had Skype running in the background with Oblivion before and it had worked just fine, I use it all the time to speak with my friends in California in voice calls. I do not use any other VOIP programs... Steam runs in the background... I only use MSE (microsoft security essentials) as an anti-virus program, and I've been using that since 2009 or so and had Oblivion run for hundreds of hours with it in the back ground.... Adobe Flash Player updates automatically but only once per start up and it usually updates right after start up, if it updates at all... I have this new program called Copy that is basically the same thing as Dropbox only it's faster and I get a ton more space for free... I also have Google Drive... Those are the only two programs I currently have installed that run in the background that I've never had with previous installations of Oblivion. I am about to restart with out these starting when windows starts and see if I can launch Oblivion and play all the way through the tutorial level... I've done a defrag and have no auto-defrag programs set up or anything of that sort. I'll try disabling the Windows Indexing Service too. If none of this works, I'm definitely doing a wipe and re-install. I know that's extreme, but for oblivion, totally worth it. I don't really have too many important items on my PC anyways, other than games. :P Thank you both for the replies and continued support! EDIT: I disabled anything that started up with windows and had the word "update" in it in msconfig, re-booted, didn't work, just disabled Windows Indexing, turned off real time virus protection, I'm about to disable Google Drive, Copy, and Dropbox from starting with windows, then I'm going to restart and see if Oblivion works with all that turned off. If it doesn't work, then I think it's time for a wipe and reinstall. Edited March 19, 2013 by vader134 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Striker879 Posted March 19, 2013 Share Posted March 19, 2013 Just curious, is your OS install one that's been on for quite a while (in other words has lived through lots of updates, program uninstalls, maybe some registry recoveries ... stuff like that)? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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