Hello all. Decided to give Oblivion a go after a five year break. Installed a fresh game (no previous one installed) via Steam. With no mods installed the game crashes after exiting the character creation menu and moving. If they character doesn't move it doesn't crash. The moment he moves towards the cell window it does. Odd. I don't know if the Steam version is any different than the DVD I used for years. I have current GPU and audio drivers. The Windows 7 installation is only a couple months old. Here's my specs:

i7-4690k (stock)

GTX 780 (stock)

16 GB PC-1600 RAM

Windows 7 64 bit

ASUS Xonar U3

Any ideas where I should start in debugging? I've uninstalled the game once and deleted all Oblivion related items and reinstalled. Thanks.

Were is the game installed. The game should not be in the programs folder

Its in the Steam apps folder in programs. I'll uninstall it and move it over to my other SSD's Steam folder to see if it helps.

Placed it on my D drives Steam Folder (out of C drive's programs folder). Still crashed with a new game and no mods once the character takes just a couple steps in the prison cell.

That's odd. Since you moved the install location, you could try cleaning the registry with something like C-Cleaner. You might also try deleting the ini (the one in My Games) and letting the game generate a new one. Vanilla game should not be crashing in the tutorial like that if installed outside program files.

Deleted everything and ran CCleaner - same result. Tried Windows XP Service Pack 3 in compatibility mode and that seems to have done the trick. I was kind of surprised that a fully patched game (I'm assuming Steam fully patches it) wouldn't run in WIndows 7 64 bit. Only like the most used OS in the world!

That is strange, but I am glad you have got it running. I play from a disc on Windows 8.1 with no issues, but I have no experience with the steam version of the game.

Although you got it to work, keep in mind. DX Mode (GX Mode?) (Xonar Audio Center) has known issues with certain games (included Oblivion) for intermittent crashing. Compatibility Mode may disable this functionality or you simply lucked out.

Ah, thanks for the tip. If it crashes again I'll look there first.