I am having some real problems with a glitch that won't go away even after uninstalling the game, all mods and the My Games/Oblivion folder and all other traces of Oblivion. The bug I am having is that the grass in game starts to flicker like mad whenever I cast shadows upon them, aswell as the self shadow on my character is screwed up and cast strange artefactish shadows, especialy when custom armour is used.

It all started when I installed the Unofficial Oblivion Patch, I then got the self-shadow bug I am talking about, but people on The Nexus Forum told me to turn off self shadow which I did and the problem was gone as long as it was turned off - even though I would have prefered to leave it on. I uninstalled and reinstalled the game Vanilla style only and even with the mods gone I had the self shadow bug pestering me, but turned it off and thought I had to live with that.

Then I installed a mod called All Natural, and yes I did have Wrye Bash and OBSE Loader for it - and I got this really irritating flickering grass bug. So I uninstalled yet again and then reinstalled Vanilla style with only official patches and the DLCs plus SI - I still had the flickering grass and the self shadow bug. One strange thing that happened is that eve though I uninstalled everything oblivion related, one custom clothes mod (that makes stock clothing into HGEC fitting clothes) still appeared in game - but I uninstalled everything!?

I have tried all combinations of settings and reinstalled 10 times I think and so far I have had absolute no success in removing this what got to take the price as the most annoying bugs I have ever encountered. Even starting a new game isn't helping at all. I have been searching all over the net with no luck whatsoever of finding a way to fix this issue, not many seems to have encountered it - except one other guy that got it recently on The Nexus Forum. And he have gone to even more drastic ways of trying to eliminate this bug with no success. Here's his thread over there if you want to read, lots of good info also including a video. I am attatcing an image of the self shadow bug that I have and the video tat the other guy made can be seen in the link (I hope e is ok with me linking to it).


Link to other guys thread of ways to try and fix this - http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?/topic/272608-flickering-grass-and-game-data-access-issues/

video of grass bug - http://www.timothy-sails.com/download/oblivion_glitch.avi

image of self shadow bug - http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?app=core&module=attach§ion=attach&attach_rel_module=post&attach_id=13887



I hope someone really really could please help us both with this, I want to play oblivion sooo bad, it is one of the best games ever made and these bugs are really ruining it for us! Thank you.

Self Shadows are borked. Don't use them.

As I said I am not using them. Although the indication that something is wrong with them as in the bug I am having, indicates that they should be able to be fixed somehow. Any other thoughts or ideas on the main problem I am having with the grass? I am going insane over this error which is keeping me from playing, I don't want to take away all the grass in oblivion, it will look horrible.

I read this as YOU are casting the shadow. Does the problem still exist with self-shadows turned off?

Ah there have been a missunderstanding between us. Yes the problem with the shadows cast on the grass flickering still exist when the self-shadows are turned off. Maybe I was a bit unclear.

Ah. Ok.

Look in your oblivion.ini, located in My Games\Oblivion, find the setting:

iShadowmapresolution=some number......

It is probably currently 256, if so, change it to 512, or 1024. If you have a GOOD vid card, go for the larger number.

Thanks for replying back, I looked in the .ini but it already were on 1024. So I tried 512 - to no luck. Grass is still flickering, and I noticed now that the water reflections in the distant looks horrible and squareish.

Sorry for bumping, but I really need help with this. I have no idea what to do to fix this.

Shadows will flicker on grass with AA and HDR enabled no matter what. That's why they are off by default and in the Fallout games based on this engine there is no way to turn them on outside of editing the .ini file.

Hm that is really strange, because I have been able to play with shadows cast on grass PRIOR to installing the weather mod (which I think caused this, even though I uninstalled it and reinstalled oblivion the bug is still there). Something is really really wrong here. :/

Did you update your video drivers recently? DirectX?