Ok, its been years since i've used a forum so go easy on me, i'll be messing up alot I'm sure.

The Problem:
Despite ini tweeks, no mods, system optimizations and so on I STILL keep getting frequent BSOD and occasionally a CTD
With all default settings I still get crashes, I've uninstalled and reinstalled, I use no mods [just the two expansions], I have been playing oblivion [or enduring really] for years now and this problem has just gotten worse and worse over time. with all the ini tweeks and such and dumbed down settings [and brand new nvidia driver] i get more playtime before BSOD. but its unpredictable

Crashes take place during the following:
when character is moving, talking, attacking, falling in water [only once, after being knocked into it by a trap in a dungeon], and pretty much at random if I'm not paused or in a menu.
I can avoid the crashes by not enjoying the game and using the console "kill" command to simply avoid combat, but I still BSOD after awhile [within minutes or after many hours of stable play]
also, crashes always seem to take place after the game locks up momentarily [freezes?] sometimes it resumes and plays fine for awhile after these but usually after a moment i get BSOD or maybe a CTD

What I've tried:
Complete reinstall [after uninstalling]
various ini tweeks
various system setting optimizations [via manual settings or use of a program]
various game settings ranging from medium settings/auto-detect settings to the absolute minimums.
I hesitate to do another OS reinstall as i've done several before with no change in this BSOD CTD Oblivion issue
Killing unnecissary processes and preventing auto start on most of them when appropriate.
I also [out of frustration] tried threatening the system when the game freezes up, but it still BSODs on me... it got a laugh from a friend at least XD

my system isn't high end but I do meet the required minimums

spec are as follows, I hope dumping a wall of potentially irrelevant info is ok... I dont have a proper spec dumping program

The System:

OS Win XP Pro Ver 5.1.2600 SP3

CPU
Intel Celeron D 3.20GHz
CPU ID x86 Family 15 Model 6 Stepping 4
Socket Designation Socket 775

Motherboard
Altair ASUSTeK Computer INC.
BIOS Name Phoenix - AwardBIOS v6.00PG
SMBIOS Version 3.03
BIOS Date 5/19/2006

Memory Resource
Total Memory 1022 MB
Used Memory 515 MB
Free Memory 506 MB
Memory Usage 50%

RAM 1
Capacity 512 MB
Speed 166Mhz
Data Width 64bit
Form Factor DIMM
RAM 2
Capacity 512 MB
Speed 166Mhz
Data Width 64bit
Form Factor DIMM

Drives
EIDE 80GB boot disk [OS boot drive]
SATA 500GB [no OS installed]
CD/DVD read/write Drive ATAPI DVD A DH20A4P

Graphics
NVIDIA GeForce 6200 OC [came from wal-mart and claims to be Over Clocked]
VGA 256MB
Driver Version 6.14.12.6099
Microsoft DirectX Version 9.0c (4.09.00.0904)
OpenGL Version 5.1.2600.5512 (xpsp.080413-0845)

Audio
Sound Blaster Audigy Creative Technology Ltd.
Driver version 5.12.1.512

Peripherals
Logitech mx 700 wireless optical mouse and the multimedia internet keyboard and reciever that comes in the same package [can't find model number]

So, does anyone have any idea what I could do to minimize these crashes or eliminate them forever?

You aren't supposed to be able to play Oblivion on either a Celeron or on a 6200, no matter what lies nVIDIA convinced Bethesada of five years ago. It just can't do it without the Ultra Low super murky - muddy Low Quality settings in the first patch. A 6200 is pure crap, was pure crap six years ago when it was new, and was never intended for games.

A Celeron is a low-powered budget CPU for the simplest of business chores, and it also was not designed for games.

Release date March, 2006 (Corrected for Lies and Pie in the Sky Puffery)

Recommended:

* 3.4 Ghz Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent processor (A64 3200)
* 1 GB System RAM
* ATI X800 XT, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 series, or higher, video card

Minimum System Requirements:

* Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows XP/64-bit
* 512MB System RAM
* 2.4 Ghz Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent processor (XP 2200)
* 128MB Direct3D compatible video card and DirectX 9.0 compatible driver;
( ATI Radeon X800 GTO, NVIDIA Geforce 6800 GT )
* 8x DVD-ROM drive
* 4.6 GB free hard disk space
* DirectX 9.0c (included)
* DirectX 8.1 compatible sound card
* Keyboard, Mouse

Thanks, I guess?
I've managed to get this system to run HL2 and other newer games with standard settings and perfectly playable framerates
apparently [according to what you say] that should be impossible on this system, which is just wrong.
I know my system is outdated but, its all i got and telling me that my system is crap doesn't really solve my problem.
To be honest, this is not the kind of reply i was expecting from this forum's community, nor is it particularly welcome.
I'm looking for help, not opinions on my system specs.
This same system, a few OS re-installations ago, was doing fairly well running Oblivion with "low" auto-detected settings [low settings may be ugly but not everyone is obsessed with insane graphics]
I'm hoping to get help improving the stability. I always got crashes but I also originally got 8+ hours of play before Oblivion would crash, not the current 15min - 2 hrs. Oblivion just seems to be notoriously buggy from what i hear online.

Your system specs mean quite a lot with this game, and for any game.

There is a simple reason you BSOD all over the place when trying to play, it was said before and I will say it again. Your hardware is insufficient for running this game. Just because Bethesda added an Ultra-low graphics option for people who came in short on hardware does not mean it's a good idea to run the game on that setting, especially if that's the only setting your hardware is even remotely capable of supporting. BSODs are NOT, I repeat, NOT the fault of the game, if the game fails, it simply crashes back to the desktop. BSODs indicate a hardware problem, and in your case, (I'm sorry to say) there is one.

At best, your system is barely capable of running this game as-is on Ultra-Low graphics. Your only other option if you refuse to (or cannot finance) upgrade is to install Oldblivion, which is a mod that allows people to play the game on systems below the minimum requirements, albeit at a graphics level even lower than the default Ultra-low settings (as in, the game will look like Morrowind before all the graphics enhancing mods came out).

However, I recommend neither. You see my video card? It's not that expensive, and is more than capable of running this game smoothly. You're going to need a serious CPU upgrade, since this game puts a rather heavy reliance on it, at least a Core 2 model. But then that raises several other questions:

Is your Motherboard compatible? New processor doesn't mean a lot unless it fits in your motherboard.
Is your Motherboard PCI-Express compliant? You need it to be to use most modern video cards.
Is your power supply sufficient? Not enough wattage=insta-shutdown.

Really, it might be best just to sell off that PC you have now and build a new one from scratch, it's just too far behind the times in hardware.

Or say (censored) it all and get the Xbox 360 version. :flamethrower:

The OldBlivion launcher swaps the SM 1.4 textures for Dx8 with those for Dx9, originally done for the FX 5700, 5900, and 5950 Geforces because they had separate functions for Dx8 compared to their normal 32-bit shader functions, which were very slow in relation to any other pixel shader system. The Geforce 6200 uses the same Dx9 functions for both SM 1.4 and for SM2 / SM3, it's just a very slow card in all regards. Similarly, although the Radeon 9200 and 9250 had the Dx8 SM 1.4 shaders, they were bog slow, and the Oldblivion launcher can't improve the game on those.

http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=198&card2=354

When nVIDIA should have been working on their GF4 cards, they were involved with the original Xbox's video development, and with absorbing the 3dFX personnel after they bought that company and merged it into theirs. The GF4s amounted to just a refresh of the GF3s, and the new 3dFX people went to work on the FXes, while nVIDIA's own people finished up on the Xbox. Major mistake there. Dx9 performance was quite bad, and also Dx8, for all but the FX 5600 Ultra and the FX 5800. They rushed through replacements for the FX 5800, which they handled by grafting on a large part out of the GF4 Titanium core design, so that after that, the better FX 5700s could run Dx8 almost as well as a Ti 4200, and an FX 5950 managed to match the Ti-4600.

@ Thomas Kaira
I can't afford to upgrade right now and I don't own a 360. I will try out the oldblivion thing when i get back home
My system only has PCI slots and as far as i can tell doesn't support multi-core so I'm looking at an entirely new system if I upgrade. I'll be happy to be rid of the Celeron D finally.
a search for your card online came up with $300 results which isn't exactly cheap... but its been awhile since i've been able to shop for parts, so my idea of cheap is probably outdated i guess.
how much do you think it would cost me to build the bare minimum system needed to run Oblivion stably?

@ Gorath the Elder
I'm lost in all the different fx ti 4200 5950 video card names, but I get the point, I need to upgrade. and everyone keeps saying to go to PCI express (which i don't have) I'll have to invest in a newer system when I can afford it.
the oldblivion site has some screen shots that look fine compared to the fugly ultra low defualt settings (which I'm fine with) so even if it doesn't improve my stability, it looks like I'll get a boost in visuals over the ugly bright visuals with no lighting if anything.

Thanks for the info and stuff, i'll try out oldblivion and report back in a few days (no net at my place, too far into the woods lol)

Five years ago, when Oblivion was brand new, the era of plain PCI had already receded so far into the past that the very slow speed across that bus (33 MHz) already meant that there was no graphics that was possible that would run the game. Despite being inadequate, slow, and having been produced with serious built-in defects, the 6200 had already exceeded the bandwidth available on plain PCI. Newer cards have been offered for plain PCI, but no matter how new they are, the 33 MHz bus bottlenecks them down to a crawl speed that is inadequate to play this game with.

Any system so old and so cheap that it has no proper video bus doesn't deserve to still exist, and should be destroyed.