I have been playing Vanilla Ob on my 360 because I couldn't find my pc copy after I bought a new laptop. Well, lo and behold, today a friend found my PC copy of oblivion (while we were cleaning my garage!). It barely ran on my last laptop, only in 640x480. On THIS laptop I can run it in the highest settings without a stutter (understand, although it is a laptop, it was designed for gaming and has a dedicated separate vram of 2Mb and has 6Mb ram with an i7 processor.

So, that said, I installed it. But I don't know what to do first. I don't have the Unofficial Patch, I don't have any mod manager, I have only what is on the Shivering Isles version of the game.

Do I need to Unofficial patch?
What add-on manager do I need?

I can read up on many of the mods, some of those environment ones look fabulous, one that adds new clothes sounds great, and something to help with leveling so I don't have to be a bookkeeper to micro-manage my character would be great too (though I did just create a char using the old-standard of putting the minors in the majors etc. so I can control levelling. I don't HATE doing it, but I I look forward to skyrim being different

But before I get mods that make things lovely, I want to know what I need to do to make things work.

I know. I am only 4 years late to the party. But one can never be too late. I like vanilla OB but I'm tired of the same old same old. I just don't know where to start.

Thanks

i would say Wrye Bash is a must, and i use Oblivion Mod Manager Extended, also you should get Oblivion Script Extender (OBSE)

http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=22368

http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=32277

http://obse.silverlock.org/

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=20516

i dont know what you want to change about oblivion, i personally use Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul + MMM, others use FCOM with all the stuff for it.. Ooh allmost forgot, BOSS is an awesome load order tool

If you want to use lots of mods, and/or fairly complex mods, you will be better off starting with Wrye Bash (using the part of it called "BAIN" for mod installation, etc.) and continuing to use only that, rather than bothering with Oblivion Mod Manager (extended or otherwise) at all.

In order to get used to the various aspects of Wrye Bash, the easy way, you would do well to work through the http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=35230. Wrye Bash can seem a little daunting, I am told...

An excellent site for information, guides, advice, warnings, lists, links, and more, is http://tescosi.com/wiki/Main_Page. Highly recommended, to bookmark and read through as needed.

That should cover it, really. If not, feel free to ask away!



You could try either nGCD (with or without Progress as well), or Realistic Leveling. Or, on the other hand, if you do not like having to worry about leveling ahead of time, but would like complete control over how you level, every level, there is Oblivion XP as an alternative. All these, and many more, are available at the http://www.tesnexus.com/.


edit: And yes, you do "need" Unofficial Patches, for Oblivion itself, as well as for Shivering Isles, and for any other DLC you might have (i.e., Knights of the Nine, etc.) At least, these are a very, very good idea. But make sure you patch Oblivion with the official SI patch first. As in, before adding any mods whatsoever.

oblivion mod manager i usefull in its own right..

Wrye Bash is really the way to go nowadays in terms of mod management. Oblivion Mod Manager is pretty much completely superseded by it now (save for messing around with BSA files.)

As said:
First step (after getting set up with Wrye Bash and the other mentioned utilities; OBSE, BOSS) is to install those http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=27710
Install those that you need linked from the description page there, then add the main file from that page (the supplementals.)

You really do want those, as they include a great number of real fixes that the official patches miss.

This site might be of use to you as well: http://tescosi.com/wiki/Main_Page

And as for leveling, there are a number of choices, shop around to see what you like.
I personally use http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=13879 which might be what you are after; on its default settings (adjustable through the ini file) you just set and forget, besides a popup message which tells you when you have reached a new level, and you can even set it up (with a single ini variable change) to not even interfere that much!