Oblivion-Some thoughts and advice

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Since I am currently limited in what games I can play I have been messing around with Oblivion which I can now play. Here are some of the things I have learned over the past two years.

1) Vanilla Oblivion is a CPU hog. It wants 2G of Ram. 3Gs are recommended if you add DCLs and user mods even just 20

2) I only have 1G of RAM but play with a clean boot, frequent defraging and am very careful about what mods I use.

3) Install order is important Remember that the last patch/mod may overwrite something in Oblivion.esm or other patches and mods.

4) Then comes load order. Again a mod may overwrite things in .esms or .esps that are loaded prior.

5) So you just have to have 275 mods? You merge mods together so you can bypass the 255 limit. Aha, you forgot something, maybe several thins. (a) Overwriting, A mod may overwite something in other mods. (b) So the AI thinks you only have 254 mods. It still has to remember and find all that information you installed. Don't complain if the game CTDs on you; the game and your system can only handle so much.

6) Patches and conflicts. You just have to have those two mods that conflict with each other. (Note: An Overwrite is not a conflict despite the fact that it gets called that.) Back to true conflicts. So you or someone else made a patch to fix the conflict. Good if it was througly tested not just by some tester mod or whatever they are called but by playing through the mods to see how they mesh together. Don't complain to the orginal modders that their mod is buggy. They developed what they wanted. You don't like go make your own. Don't know how? Learn. Mods are free and the only right you have is to dl, install and activate them.

Hokay, that's enough for now.

 

Thanks for that info, Nakia. I am still a fan of the game as well, and it's nice to know that you are back playing again. I've been pretty lucky as far as adding mods to Oblivion. Sometimes it's a little hard figuring out the file structure, since, as you point out, mods share the same folders and sometimes overwrite each other. It would be great if all the mods worked in the Mod Manager. But that's some good info.

 

Rule of thumb seems to be install Oblivion first. Hokay, that should be pretty obvious. Official patch if needed. Shivering Isles then official SI patch if needed. DCLs, unofficial patches for the brave of heart. Mods that do terraforming, retexturing and otherwise overwrite the original Oblivion files.

I'm no expert on this but currently with COBL and OBSE installed and over 60 mods of various kinds installed and activated. Even with my limited system I have no in-game CTDs. Sure from time to time it crashes on exit but that is no big deal. It won't corrupt your saved games. What you lose are any in-game .ini tweaks you made. Simple solution to that is before exiting go to the Console (tilde key) type without quotes the following: "saveini" enter Then exit. You can exit using qqq in the Console if you wish.

Always read the read-me carefully. A kind and courteous mod maker will tell you of any known conflicts or problems and other pertinent information.

Do not install a bunch of mods at one time. I install one at a time or if or if it is a set that should be installed at the same time just that set.

Always do at least a brief playing of a test game after installing things. Oblivion.esm play a test. patch play a game. etc. Go in and out ofhouses, caves, forts, ruins. Fast travel around and check different areas. It is well worth the time to do this.

It took me a week of testing to get my current lovely game. What's the rush? Dragon Age won't be out for a while. Fallout doesn't interest me. Not my preferred era.

If you take your time, ask questions politely giving system info and load order you'll find plenty of help.

 

Again, thanks for the info. BTW, I posted some of my ESIV screenshots w/mod installed. Nothing special, but the modded characters work pretty well.

 

Took a look, left a comment.

I've learned things the hard way. Now I do research, ask questions and take great care. I uninstalled and reinstalled Oblivion so many times that now Windows and I have a little game we play. Windows: You can't uninstall this game. Me: Oh yes I can. Renames file to something brilliant like Oblivion.bak. Moves it out of the progra file. Goes to CD and finds the setup.exe. Manually uninstalls and sneakily reinstalls it while Windows is busy elsewhere.

 

...you use 275 mods?
I never use more then 7.

 

Not me, Mate! But I have read people saying they have as much as 300 by mergering mods to get past the Bethesda limit of 255. Then cry because "a mod causes their game to CTD".

Crazy if you ask me.