Hello,

I would like to opinions of a few experienced mod users. I am fairly experienced in mod installation and customization (have my setup fully BAINed, PyFFied, BOSSed, cleaned, etc.)--by the way, big kudos to all the great people who created these tools, I remember the tedium of manually moving mods around based on mod readmes! You guys are amazing.

Anyways, I have big trying for a LONG time now to get FCOM + optional content to run and just cannot seem to find stability. The crashing simply ruins the game for me and I eventually give up playing. I have recently been looking at other options, ROM, TIE, etc. and in hopes of saving myself some wasted hours of installing and setting up another game, thought I would ask here.

I would like to run a variety of mods (All natural, AWLS, Sound enhancers, Nice One Mods like economy/Map marker, etc., and good quest mods). Which non-FCOM option would present the best option for a stable experience. Is TIE or ROM a good base to start from in building a stable install? Or is there another great overhaul that is a nice, stable base to build from?

Thanks in advance,
YuMMz

Well, there are plenty of people who have stable fcom. Do you know what might cause the crashes, or is it just something that happens as you play randomly? I use ooo/mmm and I'm pretty happy with it. It does crash from time to time, but it's not unplayable, maybe 45 minutes or so. ROM is actually based on ooo 1.33 and changes a ton of stuff so you should check out the manual/readme and see if you like what it does. If you're looking for less cpu drain I'm guessing TIE would be it, but I haven't played it so I can't comment on it.

OOO+MMM works just fine. If you find MMM creatures too much for you, the following list should be enough to add some variety:

http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=26634 - http://tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26634-2-1301080413.jpg
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=37529 - http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/37529-3-1299880031.jpg
http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=35913 - http://tesnexus.com/downloads/images/35913-1-1291432847.jpg
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=39674 - http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/39674-1-1312051434.jpg
http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=36111 - http://tesnexus.com/downloads/images/36111-4-1292709882.jpg
http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=39784 - http://tesnexus.com/downloads/images/39784-1-1312395971.jpeg

No opinion on TIE and ROM as I have yet to try them out.

I can tell you I recently installed TIE myself. I never played it, I was always an OOO fan. But due to a major computer crash, it presented me with the opportunity to try something new so I did. I love it! Although I must admit I'm getting my butt kicked all over the Oblivion Map more often than I was use to with OOO LOL!. I'm figuring it is just me getting use to a totally new and different experience and learning where I can and can't go at level 1.

So far, my reinstall is very small. For my last play through before Skyrim, I figure I will keep it that way.

Along with TIE I have the following:

Race Balancing Project
LAME
Integration
A Brotherhood Renewed
Aylied Steps
All Natural
Enhanced Economy
Map Marker Overhaul
COBL
Kvatch Rebuilt
Sneaking Detection Recalibrated
Progress
Slof's Horse Base and Extra Horses
Mountain Shack by Vince Bly

All have played very nicely together so far and no crashing except on exit. I did have an issue of crashing while trying to sleep in the Mountain Shack, I finally left the cell and came back and haven't had any trouble since. Hope this helps you!

FCOM has always been stable for me. TIE would probably be the "most stable" as it uses only vanilla resources.

TIE or ROM for me are the most stable. Both are difficult enough in the first 10 levels so take your pick. ROM is more drastic in overall changes while TIE unlevels when you meet creatures and that is tough.

I have had stable FCOM games for over a year. Perhaps due to some of the updates to other mods and uFCOM. My next most stable game was MMM and Frans.

XrRydr: My FCOM installs tend to run 1-3 hours with no crashes, but they like to crash on save/re-loads and the crashes are seemingly pretty random. Could just be hitting memory caps or something. The reason that I end up stopping though is that the crashes tend to occur more often the longer I play and which leads me to believe that if I cannot solve them, they will make the game unplayable at higher levels after 60-100 hours of playtime (which would really drive me insane if I put that much time into the game and could not continue).

QuijaU: Thanks for the advice, I was leaning towards TIE and it is good to hear that it is working great for you. This was definitely the overhaul that seemed the best to "build" from, but then I came across ROM which made a lot of revisions that fit with my mentality.

PeterID: In your experience with ROM, have you had long session without crashes? Can you reload saves after you die without crashing?

Thanks again for the feedback! I will probably try removing FCOM through BAIN tonight and installing a different set of mods. One other question: Has anyone removed FCOM using BAIN and installed another overhaul without problems? Or should I reinstall from scratch?

This issue is inherent to the game in general and doesn't really come with or without certain mods. Oblivion does not perform a proper reset of data when you reload - whether you died or not. It's most annoying when you reload a save in a cell you're already in. You will sometimes see stuff you know you didn't touch, and more often than not, it'll just crash instead.

OOO, OOO+MMM, FCOM, ROM, TIE, and ROM+TIE are all 100% stable, in my experience. With some tweaking, cleaning (of other mods) and correct configuration, that is.

The main thing that puzzles me is why exactly someone might be looking for "an overhaul" in general terms in the first place. It is not as though they are all that similar, when looked at side by side. After all, an "overhaul" is simply a collection of gameplay tweaks and - more often than not - a pile of other mods welded together, in part or wholly as the case might be.

You can, I suppose I am saying, achieve much the same effect yourself, with or without a pile of other mods, only in this case, not welded together (except if you so choose) but rather, simply installed as normal.

Just a thought, lest "overhaul" appear to have some mystical significance, as it were, that it does in fact not possess.

Because of the original content they add to the game. For instance, as far as I'm aware OOO quests are not found anywhere else but in OOO. I haven't tried TIE yet but I bet it follows the same philosophy as OOO.

Some of them do that too, yes. But then, there are plenty of other quests - small and large - to be found elsewhere, of course.

To me the sign of stability that concerns me is not whether the overhaul stable by itself, but can it play well with others. Other mods that is. I actually have 3 different overhaul configurations in 3 different installs.

Sure any of the overhauls by themselves are going to be pretty stable (even FCOM) it becomes a different story when mixing other mods in.

In that regard probably ROM is the least stable because adding mods can mess it and others up. The reason for this is that it makes use of OBSE for a lot of scripting, but it then does not give options for adjusting settings (one of the great gifts of OBSE no less). This pushes folks to want to add more mods and then there is the issue of the elusive script conflict that TES4edit is just not going to help you find. ROM would be ideal if it were adjustable and did not rely on OOO.

FCOM is just so damn heavy - I get a 25+ drop in fps just from it. So with it I'd recommend using mods sparingly.

TIE is pretty light and svelte - it will fit the bill for a quick fast overhaul without the frills of mod added content. No OBSE, so little worries there. You can add a bunch more with it. Only crowded areas get the fps impact.

I've never used Warcry by itself only in FCOM

OWC ND - will conflict with a lot of mods because it covers so much and in way that simply loading later will not always fix things. The upside is the so far it has a very light fps footprint - I notice no drastic drops and sluggish behaviors like I do with FCOM and endless patching.

Frans is very light on performance too but has a few bugs that if they show up it can be pretty bad.

WAC is still in Beta - you have to do self edits and fixes to get it to work, but worth it. It plays well with mods other than overhauls because the philosophy is to only add to the game not alter the vanilla game. So it may not even be seen as a real overhaul (yet). If you use a bahsed patch and http://shy.jsphr.net/upload/upload.php?search_keyword=ItemLootFix&word_match=free_word_match&act=search&view= (and the fixes on the WAC forum) you can combine WAC with just about anything.

I felt in love with some of the WAC creatures, they have definitely the highest quality I've ever seen in Oblivion. Too bad it doesn't play nice along other overhauls. I long to see a FCOWM [FCOM + WAC] one day

Again look at the http://shy.jsphr.net/upload/upload.php?search_keyword=ItemLootFix&word_match=free_word_match&act=search&view= - they purport to make WAC work with FCOM and OWC ND. But not both.
Just grab the top archive.

Yeah the readme's are sparse.

Yep will check those out, I'm going to complete my FCOM run, add WAC to it and see how it goes.