Hi, all,

Some of you may remember me from Morrowind days when I helped clean up Wormgod's Morrowind Advanced mod. I bought Oblivion when it came out and needed to upgrade my graphics card in order for it to run. Unfortunately, that tended to overtax my power supply which resulted in relatively frequent crashes. :brokencomputer: Between that and waiting for a mod like Oscuro's to address level scaling issues (which were ridiculous in vanilla Oblivion), I decided to put Oblivion on the shelf and come back to it after buying a newer computer and after the mod options had matured. While I've been following mod developments periodically on the forums, real life events also kept my focus elsewhere.

In any event, I recently ordered a new custom built computer which I expect to get in a couple of weeks, so I figured I'd use the time in the interim to start working on my mod list. :celebration:

So, here will be the most relevant computer stats:

Intel i7 960 3.2 Ghz
12 GB RAM (yes, I know Oblivion won't be able to use anywhere near that)
Radeon 5970 2 GB graphics card (generally prefer Nvidia but right now benchmarks were all pointing ATI's way)
Creative X-FI Fatality Pro sound card
Windows 7 64bit Professional

I have Oblivion, Shivering Isles, and the KotN retail CD (with all the DLC except Battlehorn Castle).

Here is what I have as far on my list of proposed mods so far:

All Unofficial Patches
FCOM
Better Cities (had considered Open Better Cities but I guess that isn't maintained now and may have compatibility issues)
Unique Landscape Project mods
Lost Spires
Qarl's Texture Pack 3 Redimized

The following mods I was previously running when I last played Oblivion but I will need to research whether there are compatibility issues or better alternatives now:

Better Rings and Amulets
Dark UI & Loading Screens
Elven Cartographers
Golden Elven Armour and Weapons
Landmarks
Natural Environments
Natural Faces
Oblivion Eyes
Quest Award Leveling

I also want to add a mod that has more sensible starts for the DLCs (I know there are a couple of alternatives).

So, what am I missing? I've read a bit about LOD mods (and I assume I will need one?) Mostly I'm looking for "atmosphere" mods or things that are consistent with TES Lore. Quest mods are good if they're consistent with the existing game. I'm not really interested in mods that radically alter the races, add new playable races, or alter the leveling system much beyond what OOO/FCOM already does. Yes, I know the base system is a bit quirky and the races aren't balanced but it's what I expect in a single player Elder Scrolls game.

Here are my mod goals in order of preference:

1) Avoid obvious conflicts and select mods that don't require a lot of time cleaning and personal tweaking. With Morrowind I found I spent more time tweaking mods than playing the game, so I'd prefer to avoid that this time around given constraints on my time.
2) Mods that add atmosphere to the game without distracting from it. In other words, if I walk into a place added by a mod I want it to feel consistent with the rest of the game, not hear rock music.
3) Mods that will let me get the most of my new hardware.

Any suggestions would be welcome.

Thanks,
-Stromgarde

Indeed I do. Morrowind Advanced is in my Data Files at this moment.

Here are some of the mods I can't play without.

http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=OblivionMods.Detail&id=3953 by Oscuro, dev_akm, MadCat221. Not just a 'creature-adding' mod, not just a 'difficulty' mod, not just a 'gameplay-tweaking' mod, Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul is actually one of the finest finest roleplaying mods around. http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=OblivionMods.Detail&id=1757 by Martigen, Corepc Dev_Akm Shadowborn is the perfect complement to Oscuro, adding much-needed spontaneity to Oscuro's static world. Crank Martigen's mod all the way up and Oblivion will feel as wonderfully unpredictable as an MMO. These mods are so inseparable to me I count them as one.

http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=OblivionMods.Detail&id=2764 by, of course, DarN.
This essential mod goes a long way toward making Oblivion's consolized interface useable. Configurable from within the game via a menu.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=14065 by tej?n, or http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=13879 bu ABO.
Two excellent character-levelling mods that do away with stat management, excel spreadsheets, visits to Wiki pages, etc, to research "builds". With these mods a player can just play and let a mod handle leveling seamlessly and invisibly in the background. I tend to prefer RL but I am using nGCD in my current game and am very impressed.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=14304 by tej?n.
This mod allows the player to control the speed of advancement of each skill. Easily configurable via an .ini.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=11237 by tej?n. (I tell you, I believe my games would be practically unplayable without tej?n.)
Willpower again has an affect on the player's vulnerabilty to magic, as in previous ES games.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=7484 by Deathless Aphrodite.
Makes the player lose fatigue when running. When the player's fatigue hits 0 he starts to walk. Also allows the player to sprint for a brief time.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=25078 by TheNiceOne.
Using this mod merchants' gold goes up and down with each trade. Also does away with the haggle slider (what a relief!) Allows the player to specify how much gold they recive from looting containers, enemies, as quest rewards, etc. All configurable via .ini.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=4387 by CorePC. Adds much-needed life to Cyrodiil's roads. The merchants are great if you like to spend extended time away from cities as I do.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16513 by Bananasplit, Wolfslady, Reckless, SilentResident, Nernie, Vorians and last but not least, Ismelda.
The way the cities of Tamriel should have looked. Spend hours wandering around like a tourist, awestruck at how different (and gorgeous) everything looks. Comes in modular form - you can choose to redo all of Cyrodiil's cities or just one. It's your choice.

But as a Morrowind player you might be more interested in Arthmoor's http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=1019807, which tranfers the vanilla cities into the Cyrodiil worldspace. Wonderful for those of us who love to ride horses into town.

http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=942911, also by Arthmoor, adds Morrwind-style transport to the game. A nicely immersive touch.

http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=984109 by XMarksTheSpot, Brumbek & Ismelda is another mod I can't play without anymore. It adds windows that turn off and on in synch with day/night cycles and also, optionally, smoke from chimneys. Comes with a nice variety of window color tints too.

Emma has recently released one of her wonderful companion mods for Oblivion, http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=28977, an Alchemist-oriented companion with a mind of her own (and, as a bonus, dialog voiced by Emma herself).

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=25023 by Iliana.
An ambitious project whose aim is to recreate the province of Elseweyr, home to Khajiits and, of course, Moon Sugar.

http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=1010109

http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=1072579&hl='

http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?s=&showtopic=1072579&view=findpost&p=15593416

More specific:
You can find most of these by skimming through the links I already gave you but I'm feeling nice (and obviously realize that my posts are often ignored because people are too lazy)

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/genmessage.php?board=924363&topic=51137901

http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=1053088&hl=

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/search.php: "Delayer" for mods which delay the start of some mods with unimmersive starts. There's also delayers for the DLC but I can't find them right now.

EDIT2:

Okay here's the http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=11474.

By the way, you're really tying my hands here. Integration requires a major race overhaul and a magic overhaul, but...the only new races/race changes added are lore correct, and Integration is the most immersive quest mod around.

Hi Stromgarde, love Morrowind Advanced.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=11280 is based on the latest, greatest DarN's UI. Much recommended.
http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=1046403&hl= is awesome for anyone who has the rig to run it. And you will.
http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=1057128&hl= is also awesome, more than worth it for Natural Interiors alone.
I prefer Improved Facial Textures plus Enayla's for facial textures personally.
Use http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=13536of Quest Award Leveler, as it has Raziel23x's fixes merged.

As for quest mods, I'd recommend Lazarus http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=13714 and painkiller_rider's http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=OblivionMods.Detail&id=92712&id=3534 and http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=OblivionMods.Detail&id=92712&id=2054.

What else? Check dev_akm's TOTO for a great overview of texture replacers. Seems down ATM, though. If you have SI I'd recommend Bomret's SI replacer. Also, all replacers by Mikal33.

Oh and http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=1063553&hl= is excellent, providing an astonishing variety of weapons/armors while keeping the vanilla feel.

I was grabbing for my standard answer but then I saw yours! So handy

Yes, if you don't use http://www.ntcore.com/4gb_patch.php on your Oblivion.exe, you will experience a memory ceiling of about 1.7gb or so.
With the patch you will hit the ceiling at around 3.8gb.

Sorta proud of these numbers since I've been doing retarded amounts of testing lately... at http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=1076274.

If I could recommend a beautiful eyecandy mod that recently have been playing with...

http://rapidshare.com/files/305550118/AmX_ENB_settings.rar (PM if you cant get the DL to work)

Once you have it loaded. Try holding down on 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , or 0 while pressing page up and page down.
This will give you various results.

Here is a nice http://img40.imagefra.me/img/img40/2/2/16/far327/f_105k96q9m_b8db55a.jpg (Credit to AmpolX) -

I'd also recommend RAEVWD, also check out Dev Akm's Total Oblivion Texture Overhaul. I don't have a link, but google it and read through it, you should get a few ideas from it. It's a bit out of date, but still has plenty to say on graphics enhancement.

Otherwise, on the graphics side of things, I could suggest trying out some OGE shaders, but I'm adding the disclaimer that the OGE project stuff is at alpha release stage, so you've been warned. It does look pretty though. Link in sig to latest thread if you're interested.

EDIT: Just saw that Arkngt recommended RAEVWD already. And All Natural.

I'm also going to point Enhanced Water out as a possible alternative to Natural Water, and Enhanced Vegetation to Natural Vegetation, from Natural Environments. There's been nothing like Natural Habitats released, so that's definitely a keeper.

Yes, I agree with wrinklyninja's suggestion with OGE shader plugins! I didn't want to bring it up since it is in alpha stages, but OMG it's amazing stuff!!! I personally can't say I've had any instability issues with it yet.

Thanks to everyone for the suggestions so far.

Pseron, thanks, I'm glad you're still enjoying it after all this time. Thanks also for the suggestions, there are a number there that were helpful. It's hard to miss the "big" mods that are always on the first page, but things like Willful Resistance and the Travelers mod I didn't know about yet are exactly the type of thing I'm looking for.

phoenix, thanks for the DLC starter link, exactly what I'm looking for. Yes, I'm aware of Integration and would have liked to try it, but the underlying mods change things a bit too much for my taste. It might be something I try on a subsequent run through the game however.

Arkgnt, thanks for the positive feedback on Morrowind Advanced and suggestions. I will probably be adding most if not all of those to my list (in particular AEVWD looks very cool).

far327, thanks. Yes, it's a shame that most of my RAM won't be used by current games, but I knew that when buying the system. It's really more to "future proof" the system for several years.

wrinklyninja, thanks for the tips. I'll check them out although "alpha" stage things may not make it into my final game...more of a testing thing I think

Having spent quite a few hours reading through links that were recommended to me here as well as watching trailers, I've changed my mind and have decided to add LAME, RBP and Integration to my list since from everything I've read and seen it looks like they're solid mods. Thanks for that suggestion.

However, I do have a couple of questions with respect to texture replacers that I hope someone can help me with. I was reading dev_akm's TOTO guide and it's not clear to me whether I need an LOD texture replacer or not if running the RAEVWD and, if so, which would work the best with it. Can anyone offer any advice on that aspect?

I understand I should install the unofficial patch first to get its texture fixes, then QTP3. Based on what I've read, however, QTP3 doesn't replace everything and I believe MIKAL33's textures were suggested as an addition. Looking at the screenshots those look very nice. My question is...is there any overlap at all between QTP3 and Mikal33's textures, and if so does anyone have a recommendation as to which to install first? I realize this comes down to personal preference, but I'd like some opinions if there is an overlap.

Also, there is a list of item texture replacers at http://devnull.sweetdanger.net/totoitems.html ... does QTP3 replace any of the same items? Again, I'm just trying to identify potential conflicts where I need to pick one over the other.

The texture replacer market seems a bit more complicated than it did for Morrowind...maybe that's just because there is more you can do with the engine.

I have never used RAEVWD (on the contrary, I made a mod to eliminate Oblivion's infinite view distance altogether) so I can't answer that question. But I can say that when I used QTP3 I installed it first and then installed Mikal's textures over that because I preferred Mikal's for those objects Mikal textured. For the most part texture conflicts are handled the same way they were in Morrowind: the latest texture installed over-writes any earlier texture installed.

Re your questions on texture replacers

RAEVWD only adds specific groups of objects in the distance, forts, Ayleid ruins etc. It does not affect how the landscape looks, which means that for the best visual effect yuou will need LOD landscape replacers. This brings me nicely to me second point-

Check out Corepc's http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=18677. I've been an fan of these since Corepc first started his work. Briefly, Corepc took the vanilla textures, sharpened them up a bit, and made them slightly more colourful, (plus he's also done other stuff I don't understand). What started as a fairly narrow project based on new LODS has gradullay expanded into a (possibly?) complete set of texture replacers. Although now fairly well known, the textures sometimes get overlooked because they are not in TOTO. (TOTO has not been updated for a while).

Corepc recommends that his textures are used along with Bomret's Detailed Normal Maps. (Which does feature on TOTO).

The advantages of using the Vibrant Stuff are-

-There is no performance hit. The textures are exactly the same size as the vanilla ones.
-If you don't want to worry about conflicts, just install everything to get a complete texture overhaul.
-It's much more extensive than QTP, covering Shivering Isles, The Oblivion Planes, The Sky and distant landscape, Architecture Clutter etc ets.
-It's modular. Use just those bits you want.
-You can install QTP on top of it if you want, to get the high rez QTP stuff (Don't use Bomret's Detailed Normal Maps if you plan on putting QTP3 in though)

Each bit of the Vibrant stuff only makes a marginal visual improvement to the game, but when they're all in the difference is astonishing. For example the distant LODs stuff shows roads in the distance. I don't think any of the high rez LOD replacers manage this.

RAEVWD works very well with Vibrant plus Bomret's Detailed Normal Maps.

Thanks for the feedback from both of you. I'll check out Vibrant Textures.

I'm actually looking to test my new system a bit to see how far I can push it. For those using QTP3, which LOD replacer do you prefer?
Or, is just installing it over Vibrant Textures good enough?

RAEVWD is not a texture replacer, it's a VWD mod. That means Viewable When Distant. When you're out on the world map you don't see all the objects that are in place there, the game engine only makes them visible when you're within a certain range. A VWD mod allows those objects to be rendered on the landscape at all times, instead of being faded out beyond a certain distance like they usually are.

Belanos, thanks for that clarification.

Here's really the heart of my question at this point...

Let's assume I install the following texture packs in this order...

Vibrant Textures
QTP3
Mikal33's flora textures

and also assume I install RAEVWD in addition to these texture replacers.

So, assuming I do that, from what I've gathered that will have replaced all world textures, including in SI and Oblivion as well as LOD textures.

My question is, will the LOD textures from Vibrant play well with QTP3/Mikal33's, or is it going to be obvious they're from different packs? For example, is the transition from the near to long-distance textures going to look sensible, or is there going to be an obvious line where the textures are clearly different? I've seen screenshots and Youtube videos that seem to have a natural transition but typically there isn't documentation that accompanies these that explains exactly which texture replacers were used.

In the event that they don't play well together, is there an LOD texture replacer that works well with QTP3/Mikal33 that I should also install into this mix?

Yes, the Vibrant LODs play well with QTP. What you propose to do sounds pretty much what I'm running at the moment, ie Vibrant (including Vibrant LODs) with QTP (Redimized) on top and RAEVWD for the distant architecture. It all works together fine, with no obvious discontinuity at the transition to LODs.

However, I don't use (or know anything about) the flora textures, it seems unlikely however that they would affect anything.

Great, thank you, that's exactly what I needed to know.

I'm not sure about Vibrant Textures, but QTP3 doesn't touch SI's textures, it's strictly for the main world. However, Bomret has done a retexture pack for SI that's supposed to be comparable to QTP3. So you might want to include that as well.

You really should look into them, they greatly improve the look of most of the plants and trees in the game. If you're going to retexture the rest of your game, you may as well do those too. Mikal also does some nice work in other areas as well, he's well worth looking into. Sometimes I prefer his retextures over Qarl's.

I want 12 GB of RAM too...
For an immersive touch, look for Setsuna's Dummy training it's a MUST, specially if you use OOO or FCOM

Too bad Oblivion can't touch more than 4 Gbytes of RAM even when patched. *sigh*

I believe Vibrant does also touch SI, but yes if there are higher-res packs I'm interested since I'll have the hardware to try it. Thanks for the suggestion about Bomret.

A couple of people have suggested installing Mikal33's flora textures over QTP3, and I like the screenshots I saw of Mikal33's flora textures so I'll be using those.

Thanks for all the suggestions...normally I would just try stuff myself but since I'm still waiting for the computer I figured I should at least work on the list of what will probably work so I can actually spend time playing when it gets here.

You probably already know this, but make sure you get wrye bash and BOSS at the least and have an idea of how to use them and the order you should install your mods. Otherwise you might get it all done and think "Finally!" then run into problems once you start the game up.

Yes, those are already on the list, thanks. I don't think I could even run things like FCOM without those utilities.

Yes, Bomret's SI set is awesome. Really recommended (and I did in my first post). Here's a link: http://theelderscrolls.info/?go=dlfile&fileid=298.