OBLIVION, Why do you taunt me so?

[Master Kirby]

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

Is it possible to play this game without it crashing?

I recently got this game, and really enjoy the RPG customization of your character, the wide open world to explore, and how beautiful everything looks. The problem is, whenever I play the game it always crashes.

Sometimes it just crashes to the desktop, sometimes it just freezes up and sometimes it crashes to the desktop with the screen resolution down real low and with what looks like 16 bit color. Usually I can't play for anymore than 10-15 minutes before it crashes out.

I know there are lots of discussions that I have started to find, talking about these problems, but there are so many people talking about their problems with the game, that it is hard to find anything that clearly shows how to fix this problem.

Have any of you ever played this game successfully without it crashing, or found a way to stop the crashes? If so, please share. I have been playing at the lowest resolution, but I would like to be able to continue to have Bloom lighting turned on and be able to see distant trees, landscapes and buildings since that makes things look a lot better.

My Computer
CPU: AMD XP 3200+
Graphics: Nvidia Geforce 6600GT (MSI NX6600GT-TD128E)
RAM: 1GB
OS: XP, SP3
All stock settings, no overclocking.

When I am playing, I have a good framerate. It just randomly crashes. I have turned off the AutoSave since it would sometimes crash after I pass through a door.

Help!?

[jdmlight]

Is Oblivion the only game that crashes, or do other games crash as well?

Try updating your graphics drivers.

[Master Kirby]

I don't have that many computer games. Age of Empires 3 runs fine (only ever crashed when I tried turning on the high polygon moodels and high water graphics mid-game while I was on an island map.) I recently went to a LAN party where we were playing Counterstrike Source (using the Half Life 2 engine). That would crash from time to time, usually while I was sitting on the screen showing the progress bar as it was loading the next map info from the server.

I'm not so sure the graphics driver could be the problem, because I think Oblivion probably ran longer without crashing before I recently updated to the most recent Nvidia driver. I'll have to see if I can roll back my driver to the previous version. The game has always had the problem of crashing out, both before and after I updated the Graphics driver.

I have made sure that I have the most recent Official patch. I tried loading a mod called "Streamline" that was supposed to clear the memory cache to prevent problems, but it actually causes the game to crash when it tries to purge the system (when I increased the setting to purge more often, it crashed the game more quickly once I started up with that mod enabled.) I have since removed that mod since it didn't seem to work.

[ShogranDonos]

Are you using OBSE And if so what mod is using it?
If not, What are some of the other mods you use?

Running on one gig of memory Might be the problem I stopped getting CTD's when I upgraded my memory to 3 gigs.

[Master Kirby]

I have not been using OBSE. I believe the only mods that I have been using are the Unofficial Oblivion Patch and a "Skill Diary" mod that allows me to track how many advancements my skills have had during each level.

This past weekend I went and downloaded a different driver or my graphics card, this time directly from the MSI website instead of using the automatic Windows "Update Driver" button that previously had given me the generic Nvidia driver. This seems to have given me some improvement over how long I can play without crashing.

I downloaded a mod that I found, called "Oldblivion", so sometime this week I'll have to test that out to see if there is much of a difference.

I don't want to spend a lot of money just for one game, but I may look into getting some more RAM since I hear that Oblivion uses a lot, and that might let me play for a longer time before it crashes due to whatever "memory leak" problems there might be.

ShogranDonos, before you upgraded to 3 Gigs of RAM, how much did you have? Is the RAM the only thing that you upgraded? Do you ever get CTDs anymore, or has it totally gone away?

[ShogranDonos]

Almost Completely gone away. Sometimes when i screw with the terminal i still CTD but thats my own fault lol. And I had 2 gigs of memory, And 3 gigs made it all better. Although, Later this month, I'm going to get 16 gigs.