Well, I recently got Oblivion for the PC after many years of wanting it, and so far it's awesome... there is just one problem.

It crashes more then a drunk three year old at the wheel of a car whom's breaks have been cut. So I did some searching for some crash and bug fixes and good lord, there are a million of them.

Im using the GoTY edition of Oblivion, and only have a Level Scaling breaking mod and Reneer's Guard Overhaul.

The main issue I encounter always seems to happen when im in the open world. Ill be running, then the game will just shut down and Ill get a "Oblivion has stopped working" message. I tried making the Water Texture purple, and it kind of helped, but the game still crashes off and on.

So I was wondering what mods you folks would recommend that could fix the vast amounts of this games bugs, and hopefully allow me to make the water look normal.

Im running the game on Windows 7 if that's any help...


Your advice is greatly appreciated.

If you get CTD (Crash to Desktop), we can't figure out the problem without some informations:
What is the level scaling breaking mod you're talking about?

Also:
- Do you have OBSE? which version?
- Do you have OBSE plugins instaled?
- Post your ini configuration. Put it in a spoiler.
- Post your hardware (CPU, Graphic card...)

Agreed with what forli says. We need to know which "level scaling breaking mod" you have, as well as any other modifications of any kind you have made to Oblivion, and your hardware.

As far as stabilizing Oblivion goes:

• ALWAYS make sure you have the latest Official patch installed. If you have the GOTY edition with Shivering Isles, then you already have it.
  
• Install all relevant Unofficial patches. Assuming you have GOTY, you will need the Unofficial Oblivion Patch, Unofficial Shivering Isles Patch, and the Unofficial Oblivion Patch Supplementals, installed in that order.
  
• Also install any Unofficial Official Mods Patches, and any Unofficial Official Mods Patch Supplementals (included with the Oblivion and SI supplemental package), if you have any Official Mods such as Knights of the Nine installed.
  
• After that, if stabilization is a problem, then in general the fewer mods the better! If you install any mods at all, then you are recommended to use BOSS (Better Oblivion Sorting Software) to automatically configure your installation so the mods load in the proper order. (Mods loading in a bad order is one of the primary causes of frequent crashing.)
  
• You can also try installing the Oblivion Crash Prevention System (abbreviated OCPS or WeOCPS), though this only prevents some crashes and does not address the reason for the crashing.
  
• I also recommend that you install Kuertee's Cleanup, as this deals with save game bloating, another frequent cause of crashes.
  
• There are many, many, many more steps that can be taken to stabilize your game: Wrye Bash patching, TES4Edit mod editing, Oblivion Stutter Remover + Streamline, etc. But these first few steps should help quite a bit.

Good luck!

Step 1 - Don't have Oblivion installed in the default Program Files directory as the UAC will cause you all kinds of trouble later on. If this is where you've installed Oblivion, uninstall now and reinstall into a custom directory.

Step 2 - Get a mod installation/deinstallation tool, such as Wrye Bash or OBMM. You'll need to learn the basics of how to use whichever one you want to use. Install it and read as much of the readme as you can before your brain starts bending.

Step 3 - Get BOSS, install it, read the readme.

Step 3 - Get the Unofficial Patches for everything you have installed, Oblivion, Shivering Isles, Knights of the Nine, et cetera. Install them using whichever installation tool you chose above. Run BOSS, read the output.

Step 4 - Get the latest stable version of OBSE and install it.

Step 5 - Get the latest version of Oblivion Stutter Remover and install that as well; this will likely remove a good number of your crashes, but you'll probably need to do some testing and configuration to get the most out of it.

I can edit some links in shortly if you need them.

Vac

Righty. I have gone ahead and installed all those unofficial patches, but the crash still happens. As for the Level Scaling mod I mentioned, it's "Francesco's Leveled Creatures-Items Mod".

The crash seems to only happen when im in the open world.

As for System Specs... let me find out where to find them >_> I think I got my box lying around somewhere..

Ah, that's a pretty important detail. Francesco's is a very substantial mod. It, especially when combined with other mods in the FCOM/UFCOM set, can cause a lot of instability if you don't read up on them carefully or if you don't know what you're doing. Having only installed the M in FCOM before (Mart's Monster Mod), I can't provide much more advice than what I already have.

That did the trick BFG. Thanks alot mate!

Now I need to find a new Level Scaling Breaking mod, but hey, I would rather play a game missing some mod's then not play it at all.

Thanks for the patch info folks. I have a feeling that will help me alot in the long run.

Read http://tesivpositive.animolious.com/?page=intro_to_mods. Very important to get started with Oblivion mods THE RIGHT WAY.

The guide has a lot of information in other sections that will acquaint you with reasons for crashes, what utilities to install to avoid those etc. If you want a frustration-free modded Oblivion, take my strong recommendation to READ, and read the guide I linked.

You *could* try installing OOO if you don't want level scaling (OOO adds/changes a lot of other things too; you might read up on the changes first and decide for yourself). I personally found OOO a bit easier/simpler to install than Fran's, especially if you're not installing it with Fran's, MMM, or the rest of FCOM (I'd suggest using the OMOD version if you want to install OOO: get the 1.33 base version, install that, then install the 1.34b5 version on top of it) You'll still use BOSS to sort your load order, and you'll have to learn how to work Wrye Bash enough to create a Bashed Patch (depending on what other mods, if any, you have installed, it may not be needed, but I'd say it's a good idea anyways; you'll likely need to use it eventually if you keep using different mods together). Also note that you install OOO, I'd start a new game, but you *can* update your existing save games to work with OOO via the Update NPC levels in Wrye Bash).

If that seems too much for you right now, there are other alternatives that may or may not be simpler, but since I've always used OOO pretty much since I bought Oblivion, I can't think of any off the top of my head. :shrug:


And do this. I used this recently myself to get familiar once more with Oblivion modding since I hadn't touched the game for nearly two years until a couple of weeks ago (I had forgotten a lot!). Probably the best Intro to Modding guide for Oblivion I've seen.

I would say, use Oblivion Warcry - New Dimension, easy to install and way better than Frans.