Having disabled RAEWVD, OC and UL and still experiencing CTDs outside IC (even more frequently than previously), I turned my attention to Streampurge that I had previously set to run at setting 3, 2, and, at last, 1 (which, coincidentally, means more and more frequent purges)... You get my drift, don't you? So I set Steampurge to mode 6 and it seems to be CTD-free so far.

Now I'm going to turn them back on and disable Steampurge instead. Results pending...

@Psymon - Yeah, you make a good point. I suppose I've never actually loaded just Open Cities on a Vanilla install. It's always been after HGEC overhauls and LOD replacers... I'll take that into consideration. Sorry if I sounded to harsh in that last post Arthmoor. I suppose I haven't looked at the game from within CS as often as you have. I really will test this though... :nod: just for my own satisfaction.

Still, while the notion of RAEVWD and OC being RAM-eaters is put into disrepute, what are the next possible candidates from my load order?

My understanding is that once RAEVWD is installed and TESLODGen is run, simply deactivating the RAEVWD plugins doesn't do much at all. You have to delete your DistandLOD folder and re-run LODGen.

gothemasticator

FCOM,

disable more passivle wildlife

Check your load order you should not be using MMM City Defences with Open Cities Full has that City Defences built in already, unless it has changed..

Thats a lot of spawns .........Consider using one or the other?? MMM was the suggestion I read on here.

Both the above I have read many times ....causes crashes your mileage may vary.....think its in the BOSS report.

I was told to UPdate this to the newest 301 i think ...also causes crashes.........

is this need with an FCOM install.......IE: Built into OOO?

Just having all the actors is hard enough with an FCOM load ...now give everyone a touch? Just sounds like an overload thats all....


One or the other?......could be wrong ..have to look ...EDIT...No your right...I looked and i also have it ...ooops
.....just some food for thought.......Hope some of this helps.

Do you Use BOSS to do your Load order?

EDIT spelling...

I would to like too, which of both is preferable. I still have fishes jumping around on soil.




yes, it is, as far as i remember.


Thats new to me, only "Mart's Monster Mod - Additional Enemy NPC Vars.esp" is mentioned in BOSS.
Coulld someone approve this, if "Mart's Monster Mod - Extra Wounding.esp" causes CTDs? I cant.

Yes, I don't doubt Chorrol Hinterland is going to stress things. There are a LOT of added trees and bushes and buildings, fecnes, NPCs, etc. I wouldn't doubt it if that's contributing to my own problems in the area.



I might have phrased that badly. It loads in most if not all of the AI data, which is what's going to strain the system memory. It does this to bring NPCs up to "medium" level AI processing. It doesn't load any of the video related parts, which is why your load screen still takes an age if you have lots of big texture packs.

Purging the cell buffers blows out *ALL* of the data that would have otherwise been cached by the process, and it's entirely possible this is what results in crashes with Streamline set too aggressively. AI the game is expecting in memory not being there is likely to piss it off.



I wasn't mentioning the buffer memory as a defense of OC. That was more general. In theory, OC might actually be alleviating part of the problem with losing track of the medium level AI processing since all of the NPCs within range are moved to the high level processing area instead, and that doesn't get purged with a PCB call.

BTW, does unloading mods that add extra NPCs and creatures (wildlife, travelers, etc.) immediately remove them from a cell - and give an observable memory gain when comparing loading the same save with and without these mods? The reason I ask is that I tried unloading them and, contrary to the suggestions above, this freed no more than 20 Mb.

More to the point, I've measured mem gain from unloading RAEVWD, OC and UL. UL (Imperial Isle) seems to occupy ~250 Mb. OC ~75 Mb.

You need to wait out the respawn time (default is 3 days), and it is safest to do it in an NPC-free interior cell, like the testing hall.

gothemasticator

Isn't there a console command to force respawn?

Huh. Dunno.

Even if there is, though, it would still be good to go to a safe interior cell and initiate the respawn there. You can run into problems, I'm pretty sure, respawning mod-added and -subtracted NPCs and creatures within the same cell you're in.

gothemasticator

That has nothing to do with a memory ceiling then, you just don't have enough of it. Go out and get a couple more gig and you should be fine. Oblivion is not even close to the 2 gig memory limit.

Another 2gb of memory would report back as 3.25 total system memory if you are running a 32 bit Win7, so yes, that would give you head room for your OS to use it's allocated memory and still give you more breathing room before hitting the 2gb memory ceiling limit in Oblivion. However, I've found from testing that the 2gb limit is actually closer to 1.7gb - 1.85gb. Varies depending on multiple factors. You won't ever hit that full 2gb ceiling. So in reality, another 2gb of ram would only gain you up to 450mb of extra physical memory headroom for Oblivion. This is assuming your OS is 32 bit.

Although, have we determined 100% that this is a memory related crash?

Are you measuring that from inside the game or from task manager?

Apparently the OP installed fcom + 100 other mods and then started playing so I'm quite unsure that's the problem too.
My money would be on a botched bashed patch .

Task Manager.

You can't really botch your bashed patch in such a way as to cause random crashing. You'd have to try really hard, adding your own wrongheaded bash tags to really screw things up. The worst that normally happens is missing out on intended content due to not importing things correctly.

Elenhil,

Crashes can come from several factors, not just the memory.

• MMM-Additional NPC variants comes with a warning about crashes. Try disabling it.
  
• Streamline's purge function can cause problems. Try disabling it.
  
• OSR and weOCPS can help prevent some crashes. Try installing them.
  
• Dirty mods can cause crashes. Try cleaning the ones you can. Don't clean any FCOM-related plugins or any compatibility patches (or any ESPs that are dependent on another ESP).
  
• Sometimes, you will still probably get the random crash. Likely due to factors like crossing too many cells at once and freaking out the engine. Or, some areas you will find to be problematic, because there is just too much happening: a heavy UL area coupled with heavy spawns from MMM couples with extra NPCs from other mods, etc. Sometimes too much is just too much.
  
• You can reduce MMM additions by disabling any optional plugins that add more of something: farm animals, more passive wildlife, etc. Consider using spawn rates - Stronger, since it reduces spawn numbers while making the ones that do show up more challenging to balance out the loss.

gothemasticator

Are you sure? far327 wrote "Oblivion was only meant to allocate up to 2gb of ram. This actually turns out to be around 1.6 - 1.75gb of ram on most systems." ~1.4 and 1.6 is not that far apart to my mind.

Well, through normal building of one I'd agree. But what about when you build one and then later remove mods and forget to rebuild? I've done this myself without even realizing the patch pulled some of that data in and when it leaves behind unresolved formIDs, sometimes that can lead to instability in the game. Usually it just freezes on the loading screen, but not always.

Best advice to avoid it - always rebuild your bashed patch if you're adding/removing mods or changing your load order around.

Yeah, you're right. It's just that when troubleshooting a series of random patches, this hardly ever comes up as the cause. It's certainly not a conclusion I would jump to, as the post I was responding to was doing.

But your advice to always rebuild the patch after adding or removing mods or changing your load order is right on the money.

gothemasticator

Well, I also wrote this... So to be honest I think Belanos is correct in saying that you aren't hitting the Oblivion.exe allocated memory ceiling. If you were you would crash at 1.6gb minimum. That minimum number isn't really flexible below that. It is certainly flexible above that though. Plain and simple, if your crashes are memory induced, it is more likely because you lack enough system memory as a whole for running Win7 and a heavily modded Oblivion for a sustained amount of time . I've mentioned some helpful tips to free up system memory usage etc... Regardless if your crashes are happening for another reason or not, it would benefit you to optimize your system memory usage and possibly add more memory to your rig. But in all honesty, I wouldn't bother adding more memory to a rig running on a 32bit OS. You should try getting a 64bit version of any Windows offering (XP, Vista or 7) Than consider an additional 2gb of memory this way you can enjoy the benefits of the 4gb LAA patch :hubbahubba:

EDIT - if you are short on cash like most of us these days, maybe you have an old WindowsXP 32bit license from an older computer build? If so, using that instead of Win7 32bit would free up 500 - 600mb of system memory. Arthmoor plays on Windows XP 32bit still and he has stable gaming beyond 2 hours from quotes I've read. The reason being is because of teh smaller memory footprint XP uses. I think an SP3 install of WinXP only uses 150-175mb of ram and that's before optimizing it. So that might be an alternative for you for now. Just a thought.

You do need to be on 64-bit hardware as well.

gtm

Oh yah, kinda forgot about that little technicality... haha

No open cities is where there's no gates and stuff like that to go through to get into the city. You just literally walk in.