Is there some way to know why the game is crashing? Some clue or something? I need somewhere to start troubleshooting, but it seems pretty random and the only error message is what Windows gives generically to all crashes.

There are a few options.

If you use OBSE then a log of OBSE events are generated in the OBSE log - created new with each game play - found at the top of the Oblivion game directory.

Another great tool is http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=26510 (requires OBSE) - it saves to a similar txt file all the console spam.

Many ini driven mods have a debug option so that extra spam is generated - when used with Conscribe I've been able to identify several causes to crashes and/or put me on the right trail.

Other than those -- critical thinking is another good tool. Thinking about when the crashes happen - what events in the game are occurring -- those things tell a lot.

weOCPS logs crashes but good luck understanding what they mean. I got one of these and still have no idea what it means since you can't tell what mod. Something referencing something that isn't there id assume?

Yeah without Wyndom Earl - good luck translating that.

I'd recommend not using weOCPS though as it can mask real issues that can and should be addressed.

True, and that is what I always assumed. But in my case, I was having stupid crashes for god knows why even though I had a perfectly installed bashed and constructed FCOM that I reinstalled 5 or 6 times and still had the issue. This seems to have fixed it for whatever reason this error is caused.

Fix the crashes =/= fix the cause of crashes.

Haha true, I don't want to steal this guys thread but... I spent 2 weeks here on this forum going through mod by mod to fix it and never came to a solution so I just gave up and went with this alternative. The crashes were probably a cell transition error or something but who knows. Best I could do was install the FCOM bare minimum requirements and test before adding the rest but still had the same issues. (i have installed FCOM in the past with no issues)

Don't worry, it's not hijacking because it sounds like the exact same situation I have. I had just installed Crash Prevention but hadn't played it yet. I would rather find the source of the problem though.

Does conscribe tell you what was being referenced when the crash happened?

My crashes are happening pretty randomly in different places, doing different things. No pattern yet.

It can tell you what mods are doing if they spam to the console. Not all do and mostly it is OBSE ones that will.

It is a completely harmless mod. It will not itself do anything to your game - it just saves all the console output. it is only a positive benefit.

Between it and the OBSE log your can gather a lot of info.

I just tested a few crashed and non have been logged for Conscribe so chances are it probably won't say anything when you crash. But then again for me I crash when I go exploring too much... like run around for 5 minutes or if I am on a horse the crash is even faster. No idea exactly what your crashes are from if they are random as you say. Try weOCPS maybe and when your game makes a beep/error noise check the log and see what it says. I just got a few more and they seem to be memory based although I am not sure what that would mean. If you are having memory heap log issues you may have the same problem as me.

Conscribe is great for catching those script based crashes - such as script error messages being the last entry just prior to a crash.

If it is not a mod issue then it is likely a texture or AI overload and since the CPU will start to process texture if the GPU is taxed they very much feed into each other.

Textures are easy to track down - open the console then type 'sdt 13' it will give you the texture memory and polygon count (I think that is what it is called). If over or even within 200mb of your limit on your card then that is the issue. The more cells you cross in the outdoors the more memory you use as cells are loaded in the cells surrounding the one you are in.

Oblivion is also prone to memory leaks and many talk about it, but I've only seen a few instances of being able to identify mods that contribute to it - but not why.

The general answer is less mods.