Oblivion + Crash = Normal?

[gumballthechewy]

Hello, Oblivion crashes A LOT for me. I have about ten to twenty mods. None conflict but Oblivion crashes every... twenty minutes or so. Well its very intermittent like it may crash after twenty minutes or it may crash after two hours but one thing you can always count on is it crashing. Any info would be helpful thanks a lot.

[Olurum]

Should post this in the Tech Support section.

 

Anyway, is your computer overheating? Or does your computer only crash when playing Oblivion specifically?

 

Also, when have these crashes started? Maybe try removing some of the mods that you installed around the time the crashing occured. Try to find it by process of elimination. Although this may be tedious if crashes only occur after 20mins+. Perhaps the crashes occur in a certain area? I once had a mod that crashed me whenever I entered a part around Bruma.

 

And by any chance are you running Deadly Reflex? Despite it being really popular, it causes more crashes for me.

 

Hopefully someone with more insight can help... you could perhaps post a list of your mods installed since you don't have too many.

[XanAlderon]

I've never expeirianced crashes but I get game breaking glitches from time to time. Like I see only textures, random places in funny colors etc. I have to turn the computer off at the power.

[dezdimona]

General Load-Order Guidelines

Here are the guidelines that I adhere to, personally.

 

~ Unofficial Oblivon Patch should always be first on the list. The fixes are great, but most aren't essential, so if a mod overwrites them its not a big deal, and the fixes have the potential for screwing up other mods if loaded later.

 

~ Offical Content (DLC's) should be loaded last, until you complete all quests associated with them (that includes buying all furniture for the houses and whatnot). Once they're complete, they can be safely moved up in the list. This is especially important for Knights of the Nine, which will have some fairly major problems unless loaded last (unless you get the UOP for KotN)

 

~ Major overhaul mods (OOO, Frans, MMM) should be loaded near the end. That gives you the most complete experience with any of those particular mods. It also lets you carefully choose which other mods to load afterwards... only move mods that you know will conflict and that you want the changes from. For example, I have Improved Soul Gems below OOO because I know that OOO changes the icons of some of the SG's, and ISG needs to be below to show through.

 

Some people will recommend putting larger mods first, but personally I disagree. There are a number of mods out there that make minor tweaks, and loading after a large mod will end up completely overwriting a chunk from one of the bigger mods because of the way conflicts work in Oblivion (even one minor change will take precedence over the entire record... for example, simply tweaking the speed of a weapon can cause every stat of that weapon to be retained to vanilla levels if loaded later).

 

So basically, it stacks up like this...

 

Oblivion.esm

Unofficial Oblivion Patch

<Minor Mods / DLC's (Post-Completion)>

<Major Overhaul Mod/Mods>

<Mods that specifically conflict with overhauls and need to take precedence>

<DLC's (Pre-Completion)>

 

 

 

Expanded Load-Order Guidelines

by dev_akm

 

I would extend this to include:

 

Oblivion.esm

Unofficial Oblivion Patch

<Weather/Environment/Sound Mods>

<Minor Mods/New Items/Houses/DLC's (Post-Completion)>

<Major Overhaul Mods>

<Mods that specifically conflict with overhauls and need to take precedence>

<DLC's (Pre-Completion)>

<Quests>

<Compatibility Patches/UOMP/Merged Leveled Lists>

 

And a special-case warning for Knights.esp (Knights of the Nine) -- you may not be able to move it earlier than some other mods (some people have had problems after moving it before OOO, for example).

 

That's basically the structure I use and I have 140+ mods working well together.

 

Another way of describing this (posted by DMan77):

....

Oblivion

unoffical patch

Deeper realism mods that add sights and sounds

added content like weapons/items

gameplay changes, like 'must eat and sleep'

The OOO type

the 'new begining' type mod..

................................................................................

................

 

also defrag and clean your hard drive.I defrag every couple of days,but then I use my PC a lot

[bben46]

Crashes are a part of the Oblivion experience. It's the game's way of telling you that you need to take a break.

 

There will always be some crashes, all we can do is minimize them.

 

Save often, it will keep the frustration level down.

 

Anything running in the background can cause a crash. Especially a program that likes to call home, such as an antivirus program that updates without warning, or an instant messaging program.

 

Start by disabling everything that accesses the internet when you play. that includes the Vonage, Skype, IM, xfire and anything that calls in or out.

 

Many programs use a auto update feature - such as HP printers (how often does your printer driver need updating?)

MS auto update can cause crashes.

 

Then look for programs that run in the background, they are stealing time from the game and if they don't give control back quick enough - crash.

 

MS indexing service, antivirus progs that scan everything in the background, Auto defrag programs, Scheduling programs all steal cycles from the game. Any of these can cause crashes.

 

After you have cut down the crashes caused by external stuff, start looking at your mods.

 

You probably won't be able to get rid of all of them, but you can minimize them.

 

@XanAlderon

Your problem sounds like overheating. Start a new topic as it is different.

[gumballthechewy]

Thanks everyone, sorry for posting in the wrong spot. First it's not over heating I could guarantee that because I can play any other game on it for hours on end without fail. Load order I'll change thanks dezdimona for that info. Olurum, yes I am running Deadly Reflex and I did think it may be the problem as the description said 5.0 (I thinks thats the new one) is unstable so I disabled that but as far as I could tell it crashed just as often. Also I just re-installed Oblivion after about a year and all mods I have where put in at the same time but if I have to go through them all so be it. Luckily for me theres Red Bull.

 

Thanks for all the helpful info now I got something to go on and hopefully fix the problem and if not... well thank god for the quicksave.

[NAPALM13092]

the only time mine crashes is when i exit the game and its no big i just hit ALT-TAB and close the crash window and it takes me to my desktop

[BethelAbba]

I'm sorry for resurrecting this dead thread, but I am at my wit's end and can't figure out what the deal is. I'm running Mart's Monster Mod 7.0 (I think) and from that I have chosen to run: Diverse NPC, Durability and Damage, Gems and Gem Dust, Less bone loot, Resized Races --- as well as the ESM and ESP files. I am also running Boethia Custom Race, KT Custom Race Fix, NEC Mystic Dark Elf and Ren Beauty Pack Full and Only Hairs.

 

Add to those mods Shivering Isles and Knights and you've my full run of data files.

 

What's occurring is that whenever I attempt to enter a town --- crash to Windows desktop. Any town, every time.

 

I can enter any cave, any fort and even took care of the Oblivion Gate outside of Klavatch --- but if I attempt to enter Klavatch, crash.

 

I also can't get anywhere near Anvil --- if I attempt to even get close to the town, crash.

 

I now have a 8th level character who's never once entered a major population center in the game.

 

Someone here mentioned boot order --- I have no clue what they are talking about and am curious if this might fix my issues. I would love to start buying houses and storing things, maybe even run some of the quests... can anyone out there help?

Edited February 7, 2012 by BethelAbba

[SilverCobra126]

The load order of your mods could be a culprit to the crashes. If you don't already have these tools, I suggest downloading Wrye Bash and BOSS to sort your load order.

 

If the crashes still occur after sorting your load order, try disabling the Diverse NPCs plugin. I don't use this part of MMM myself, but seeing how the game crashes whenever you try entering a town, this is the plugin I believe could be the cause.

[BethelAbba]

The load order of your mods could be a culprit to the crashes. If you don't already have these tools, I suggest downloading Wrye Bash and BOSS to sort your load order.

 

If the crashes still occur after sorting your load order, try disabling the Diverse NPCs plugin. I don't use this part of MMM myself, but seeing how the game crashes whenever you try entering a town, this is the plugin I believe could be the cause.

 

What you said made sense --- if MMM does to NPC's what it does to Outlaws and monsters, I'm sure the town is so crowded I probably couldn't walk through it. And since Anvil is the one town with an outside Merchant (hence why I'm anxious to get there... I'm tired of selling things for $200g) it probably is just as overloaded with people.

 

That said, the crashes do continue after disabling Diverse NPC. To be absolutely sure I created a new character and tried entering the Imperial City with Diverse NPC disabled --- still crashes. It will show the town loading and then crash before entering.

 

I did download BOSS from your recommendation, to shows me the order my mods need to be run in but it doesn't reorder them in the least, as far as I can see. I'll try Wrye next. The problem here is that BOSS requires an internet connection --- and that particular computer is not hooked up and won't be. To get BOSS to run I backed everything over to a portable Hard Drive and ran boss on the HD from my other computer, then restored the new folder in place of the old one... but still the same issues. It works, I can see that, but the start up menu isn't showing any restructuring of the files at all.

 

BTW: thanks for the assist. I was starting to get so frustrated with this thing that I was about to stop playing altogether. I don't wanna be stuck selling to the Kavatch Ork Merchant permanently, and it's a long way to Merchant level 50 when she'll start taking EVERYTHING off my hands.

 

Let you know what Wrye does after I read the README files, figure out what it does and then port it over to the other computer to test it out.

Edited February 8, 2012 by BethelAbba