Gold: The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion

[SubZero]

Well, I'm at level 19 right now so I'm going to find out soon enough!!!

Anyway, a lot of great stuff at level 15 and up.

[zapionics<alt>]

Thanks for the info guys. I dont think I should be doing any more quests until I level up a bit more!

[BKA]

I finally got a chance to pick the game up this weekend. Got a little playing time in, I've been playing, read the manual, playing, reading, etc.

So I'm done with the manual and just out of the cave. I've done a little exploring outside and I'm really loving this game. It's the game Fable was trying to be. I see a lot of sleepless nights ahead.

[SubZero]

I have about 50 hours into the game allready....

I'm a level 23 Dark Elf who can't stop kicking but.... hehehe

[TQ]

A very helpful and informative Oblivion Tweak Guide is found here:

http://www.tweakguides.com/Oblivion_1.html

It's a must-visit...

[BKA]

Originally Posted by TQ

A very helpful and informative Oblivion Tweak Guide is found here:

http://www.tweakguides.com/Oblivion_1.html

It's a must-visit...

Great guide. thanks for the link TQ. I also noticed that obliviondownloads.com has a few official plug-ins for SALE. I haven't got that far in the game but the armor pack for your horse seems good.

[toomuchcaffeine]

Originally Posted by TQ

If these save games are from your previous o/c'd install it is likely that they are corrupted.
Have you tried starting an all new game since you re-installed Oblivion?

Haven't visited the forums in a while because I've been busy playing Oblivion
Anyways, to sum up my experiences regarding stability to date:
1. installing the DirectX december 2005 update removed the VERY frequent application error and crashing back to the desktop which, after it had occurred, could be readily recreated
2. my machine is overclocked as seen in my signature, however, after updating DirectX I've been able to run the game for hours on end (generally) without issue
3. issues I do have are the VERY rare application error (not reproducable) and that sometimes the game freezes when i click the save button (about 1/10 saves) and needs a reboot immediately after.

Anyone else experienced this sort of thing? Thoughts?
Its back to work for the mages guild for me

[darkwish]

Most of my crashes is when I exit the game after playing for a while. Doesn't bother me, since I was quitting anyways.

Rarely, I get a crash during a load after I close an oblivion gate. That has only happened twice out of about 10 gates closed. When it happens, I just reload my save before and it doesn't crash again.

All in all, pretty stable.

[SubZero]

I always get an application error when I quit Obvlion. Almost never during the game. So not a problem for me.

But your freezes definitely sound like they happen because of OC'ing....

Originally Posted by toomuchcaffeine

Haven't visited the forums in a while because I've been busy playing Oblivion
Anyways, to sum up my experiences regarding stability to date:
1. installing the DirectX december 2005 update removed the VERY frequent application error and crashing back to the desktop which, after it had occurred, could be readily recreated
2. my machine is overclocked as seen in my signature, however, after updating DirectX I've been able to run the game for hours on end (generally) without issue
3. issues I do have are the VERY rare application error (not reproducable) and that sometimes the game freezes when i click the save button (about 1/10 saves) and needs a reboot immediately after.

Anyone else experienced this sort of thing? Thoughts?
Its back to work for the mages guild for me

[SubZero]

Thanks, I've been checking his site regurlarly for a tweakguide but he was working on it. Great that it is finally finished. This guy really has a nice bunch of guides there.

Originally Posted by TQ

A very helpful and informative Oblivion Tweak Guide is found here:

http://www.tweakguides.com/Oblivion_1.html

It's a must-visit...

[SubZero]

Well he is definitely off base with this conclusion:

Furthermore, for those having problems with AMD Dual Core CPUs, I don't recommend the installation of the X2 CPU drivers or the Microsoft Hotfix which is usually suggested as a fix for this issue. The simplest solution is to disable 'Cool'n'Quiet' functionality in your BIOS, which also helps prevent problems with other games, since Cool'n'Quiet is not really designed with gaming in mind and can reduce performance.

This is truly false. After reading up for months and months going through all the troubleshooting attempts myself, this is clearly not true. I did have the stuttering issues even though I have never enabled C&Q. Installing the driver and the hotfix DID solve the problems....

I think there are some other flaws in the guide but overall a great piece of work.

[TQ]

Guys, you have to try this...

Go to Page Four of the Tweak Guide and locate this section:

" Highly Recommended Mods

The following are free mods I highly recommend that you install. These are mods I have installed on my own system, and are safe and effective. From time to time I will add to this list of 'must-have' mods:

Landscape LOD Replacement (21MB) - This mod replaces all the distant blurry LOD landscapes with better looking higher resolution textures. This means you don't have to use the uGridsToLoad command, and hence you won't experience any major performance reductions or visual glitches. More details here.

Landscape LOD Replacement (Border Regions) (42MB) - By the same author as the mod above, this mod fixes all the blurry landscapes from the border regions as well."

I have personally installed these MODS. They are mind-blowing. If you think Oblivion's outdoor scenes are beautiful now after you install these two MODS the improvement is off the scale.
Be very certain though to do this:

"If you want to boost image quality in Oblivion, resolve issues such as shimmering textures and edges, texture corruption or anomalies, go to your graphics card control panel and disable any 'optimizations'. In the ATI Catalysts, this is called 'Catalyst AI', and can be found under the main ATI Catalyst Control Center screen. For the Nvidia Forceware drivers, untick the 'Trilinear Optimization', 'Anisotropic Mip Filter Optimization', and 'Anisotropic Sample Optimization' options and set your 'Image Settings' option to Quality or higher. Also make sure to Allow the 'Negative LOD Bias' option for better image quality. You may lose a couple of FPS by doing this, but it is absolutely necessary in most cases (particularly for ATI cards) in reducing obvious visual glitches. More importantly, certain mods (like the Landscape LOD Texture Replacement Mod discussed on Page 4 of the guide) will not work correctly if these optimizations are enabled. "

I didn't experience any FPS drop that I could detect. The improvement in the outdoor scenes would be worth it in any case, unless you're not meeting or exceeding the recommended system requirements.
The only effect that I noticed is slightly longer load times on outdoor save games as the larger texture packs are being loaded. Indoor scenes are unaffected. The game still looks stunning when you're dungeon crawling.

[SubZero]

Yeah, I kind of forgot to install these although I had downloaded them 2 days ago.... Thanks for trying it out and letting us know. Definitely going to install the mods tonight!

[TQ]

Originally Posted by SubZero

Yeah, I kind of forgot to install these although I had downloaded them 2 days ago.... Thanks for trying it out and letting us know. Definitely going to install the mods tonight!

The install is as painless as it can be. I unzipped mine in a temp directory, read the .readme and followed its directions.
I had to unzip again as per, but that was nothing.
Fired up an outdoor scene and wow, look at those mountains!

[SubZero]

Going to try it right now!