GUIDE General Oblivion Support

[hishutup]

Use this Topic to post generic Oblivion questions when following any of the Oblivion guides.

 

Be sure to check the FAQs. I will be updating it as questions are asked.

 

 

I'll try to populate my Troubleshooting section on my FAQs page with common problems with Oblivion and Wrye Bash.

Edited October 10, 2014 by hishutup

[ArkaineDeao]

So, I think I figured it out. I did what I should have done to begin with and read through the furshlugunah thread. After noting some other users having the same issue I had, tracked it down to OSR's heap replacement, whatever the butts that does. I overwrote the project files with the unedited ones in the original archive, uninstalled, refreshed, and reinstalled OSR, and now I can start a new game.

 

I have no idea what I did or didn't do wrong, but now it works, and hopefully I can serve as a lesson to anyone else having the same issue as those who came before me served me. Thanks, pmw57, and here's until next time I screw up and come crying for help.

Edited June 15, 2016 by ArkaineDeao

[ArkaineDeao]

Welp. "until the next time I screw up" didn't take long.

 

Got the game running fine after doing what I posted above. Ran through the tutorial to test the stability; everything ran just fine. Left the sewers and saved game. Then I moved on to the 'Conflicting Graphics' section. Installs were smooth, but now when I run the game it crashes my damned video card. Tried uninstalling the last three projects (Detailed Terrain) after reading in the mod's comments that Wrye screws it up and they should be installed with OMM. No dice, so I kept backtracking and uninstalling projects, making sure to run BOSS, rebuild the bashed patch, and run TES4LodGen every time. Card keeps crashing, so I skim through the guide until I find the section on Tes4II. It says that it needs to be run every time a landscape mod is installed or uninstalled. I figure texture mods probably count as landscape mods, right? So I run that and try again. Nothing changed except that the GPU crash happened a few seconds faster.

 

Once again, anything to point me in the right direction would be a godsend.

[pmw57]

everything ran just fine. Left the sewers and saved game. Then I moved on to the 'Conflicting Graphics' section. Installs were smooth, but now when I run the game it crashes my damned video card. Tried uninstalling the last three projects (Detailed Terrain) after reading in the mod's comments that Wrye screws it up and they should be installed with OMM. No dice, so I kept backtracking and uninstalling projects, making sure to run BOSS, rebuild the bashed patch, and run TES4LodGen every time. Card keeps crashing, so I skim through the guide until I find the section on Tes4II. It says that it needs to be run every time a landscape mod is installed or uninstalled.

Not quite. The LOD stuff is only so that the far terrain matches up with the close-up terrain. If you have the distant lands option disabled, you'll have no LOD stuff to worry about.

 

So I run that and try again. Nothing changed except that the GPU crash happened a few seconds faster.

 

Once again, anything to point me in the right direction would be a godsend.

The main approach here is to figure out what it is that is causing the crash.

 

Where you want to be at, is to add a mod and have the game crash, followed by removing that mod to find that the game works. When you can reliably go between a non-working setup and a working setup, you can then reliably attempt things so that your non-working setup ends up being a working setup with the mod included.

 

So, backtrack. Is it the Conflicting Textures section that you are having trouble with? Uninstall them. Then run the game and make sure that it still works (there's no point testing from there if it still doesn't work). Install the mods one by one, testing after each one. You will then find that one of them causes trouble. When that occurs, make sure of it. Remove the trouble one and get back to a working system. Then add the trouble one and make sure that it really is the one causing trouble.

 

Let us know which mod is the one causing trouble, and further troubleshooting can occur from there.

[ArkaineDeao]

Let us know which mod is the one causing trouble, and further troubleshooting can occur from there.

That's just it, though. None of this happened before installing the texture packs, and now it occurs even after uninstalling all of them. I'm running a GTX 970, should be enough to handle anything about Oblivion, so I don't get what's crashing the damn thing now. Video settings for Oblivion are set to the guide's specs; all sliders to the right, AA at 2x, HDR, all that noise.

[pmw57]

That's just it, though. None of this happened before installing the texture packs, and now it occurs even after uninstalling all of them. I'm running a GTX 970, should be enough to handle anything about Oblivion, so I don't get what's crashing the damn thing now. Video settings for Oblivion are set to the guide's specs; all sliders to the right, AA at 2x, HDR, all that noise.

What does the event viewer say about the crash?

[ArkaineDeao]

Display driver nvlddmkm stopped responding and has successfully recovered.

 

This is what shows in the General tab in Event Viewer. If I go to Details and check XML View, I get a bunch of word spaghetti that I have not taken the classes to understand, detailed here:

 

<Event xmlns="https://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">

- <System>

  <Provider Name="Display" />

  <EventID Qualifiers="0">4101</EventID>

  <Level>3</Level>

  <Task>0</Task>

  <Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>

  <TimeCreated SystemTime="2016-06-16T00:39:25.059871600Z" />

  <EventRecordID>15411</EventRecordID>

  <Channel>System</Channel>

  <Computer>MyComputer</Computer>

  <Security />

  </System>

- <EventData>

  <Data>nvlddmkm</Data>

  <Data />

  </EventData>

  </Event>

 

 

[pmw57]

This is what shows in the General tab in Event Viewer. If I go to Details and check XML View, I get a bunch of word spaghetti that I have not taken the classes to understand, detailed here:

 

That's alright, knowing it's nvlddmkm is enough. Your issue seems to rest outside of Oblivion, which is confirmed by the inconsistent nature of the issue.

 

Some good solutions on dealing with that particular driver can be found at

https://www.techspot.com/community/topics/blue-screen-while-playing-oblivion.146756/

and

https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/373084/nvlddmkm-driver-crash-possible-solution-33-/

[ArkaineDeao]

Well, I wiped everything and started from scratch and now I can definitely say that it is a texture pack issue that's screwing me. I went down the list again, step by step, and had no problems at all until I reached 'Conflicting Textures'. I even figured out how to get the heap replacement problem fixed (set algorithm to 2). Before I started with the texture packs, I ran through the game to test the stability. Loaded my save outside the sewer, ran to Frostcrag Spire, then fast traveled to Kvatch and went through the Gate. Not a single problem or crash.

 

Then I installed the Really Textured Normal Maps section. Now, before I did this, I figured it would be a good idea to back up my Textures folder, just in case things went screwy and, true enough, they did. Installed the three mods in that section, ran TESLodGen and TES4II and started the game. Almost immediately my GPU crapped the bed and I had to hard restart. So, I figure that things will be fine if I just delete the Textures folder, restore the one I copied previously, run the programs again, and just skip the texture packs entirely, right? Wrong. The texture mods are uninstalled and completely replaced from my backup, and now it's still crashing my card when I open the game.

 

I don't get it. I tried the driver solutions in those links and followed them to the best of my ability. Is this an issue with TES4II or something?

 

Another thing I should add: The second time my card crashed, I got the notification that "Application oblivion.exe has been blocked from accessing graphics hardware". I don't know why this would only apply once I install new textures, but there it is. Hope someone has encountered and fixed this before, and can help me out.

Edited June 19, 2016 by ArkaineDeao

[pmw57]

I don't get it. I tried the driver solutions in those links and followed them to the best of my ability. Is this an issue with TES4II or something?

As you had a working copy of Oblivion's textures, and returned it back to what was a working copy without it working, you have ruled out the textures as being the cause.

 

You can troubleshoot further by taking a full copy of a working Oblivion before making further changes, and then after having trouble seeing if that you can get things back to working by deleting and replacing from that working copy. If things still fail after that, something outside of Oblivion is causing your problem.

 

TES4LodGen is for distant objects, and TES4LL is for distant landscape. They help to make things more consistent, but to the best of my knowledge not more stable. I don't think that they affect the stabiltiy of the game.

[ArkaineDeao]

full copy of a working Oblivion

 

 

Damn. Sounds like it's back to square one again, then.

[pmw57]

 

full copy of a working Oblivion

 

 

Damn. Sounds like it's back to square one again, then.

 

If you're going to fix this issue, it's vital to figure out where to focus your efforts.

 

With a non-working printer for example, it does no good doing a full tear-down of the system to figure out if a PCB is responsible for it failing to work, when what's wrong is that the wall socket doesn't work. Currently we're doing the equivalent of replacing the printer with another one. If that doesn't fix the problem, we check further by investigating the mains.

 

With Oblivion, if restoring a working copy after a failure doesn't result in things working, that means that something else outside of Oblivion is causing the problem. It could be the graphics card, it could be the antivirus, it could unstable memory, or anything from the troubleshooting Oblivion page. https://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Technical_Support

 

Whatever else, by restoring a working copy of Oblivion and finding that it doesn't work (perhaps until after a reboot), you are confirming that Oblivion is not the cause of the problem.

 

Figure out the cause of the problem and you're more than halfway towards a solution.

[DanielCoffey]

Bouncing Arrows...

 

Is there a reason why arrows bounce off Atronachs instead of sticking into them? I was inside the first Oblivion Gate at Kvatch last night and noticed that my arrows were sticking into creatures such as Daedroths, Hungers and Scamps but were ricocheting off the Atronachs (all types, not just the "hard" frost ones). I was having to run all over to retrieve my precious arrows. They do inflict the expected damage.

 

I wondered if it was working as intended but vaguely recall that something similar happens in Skyrim with mudcrabs and one or two other creatures.

 

Mods added that are not in Mythic Dawn : MOO rather than OOO/FCOM

 

===

 

EDIT : Oh, I see it is a vanilla Oblivion feature that is apparently intentional. Fair enough.

Edited June 24, 2016 by DanielCoffey

[Greg]

Pretty much the same thing happens in Skyrim. Sometimes this is intentional (like bouncing off the hard shell of a mudcrab), but I think it's often due to poor physics in the engine. I've seen lots of high-impact arrows bounce off jello in Skyrim. Well, not literally jello, but soft surfaces.

[Scythiss]

how much of this guide is still stable? I know I put it together a few quite a while ago minus a few troublesome mods and I had no issues.  Is it still still stable for the most part?

[Scythiss]

So quick update.  I just finished the unique locations and adventures section.  Everything seems to be running smoothly for the most part besides the crazy fps drops in some parts of BC and UL however im in 4k.  Also OOO had a consistent crash between horn cave and ill omen, so I swapped that out for MOO and it worked just fine, although MOO works with OOO, Couldn't exactly figure out what mod ooo didn't want to work with.  1 other crash I have is right by leywinnn when you exit out the back and head up north.  I can pinpoint what is causing this crash as it's inconsistent, sometimes I crash around that area sometimes I don;t.