*official* Oblivion Thread - Technical issues

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: trog100
my othert hread got locked i assume i should have posted in this one so i have reposted here.. i think oblivion is unstable on certain systems and am trying to find a common denominator.. the info i would like is.. mobo chipset.. cpu.. grfx card.. both from folks who have no problems and those who do have instability problems.. the odd crash once a week dosnt count.. several a night do.. he he

just what i have discovered from my own experience..

i have two similar machines

abit ax8 mobo.. amd 64 3700.. ati x19000xtx.. 2 gig memory

abit ax8 mobo.. amd 64 3000.. ati c850 xtpe.. 1 gig memory..

both running windows xp pro..

the game behaves exactly the same on both machines..

its not affected or altered by hardware speeds in the slightest..

game settings dont affect or alter the problem..

it happens with onboard sound or soundcard..

i have found three basic crash to desktop situations..

the most common by far is when moving to a new map location.. passing thru a door or simply loading a game save.. instead of seeing the little loading screen i get instant desktop.. it seems to be worse in the country than in caverns or towns.. this could be pure coincidence thow..

the second incidence is when in third person view simple trotting thru the countyside on horse back.. every so often its instant desktop..

the third and the one that seems unconnected with the other two.. is a simple single animal sword slash.. as the sword comes down to mid screen its instant desktop.. this again seems to be a country side thing and dosnt happen often in towns..

overall the game seems less stable in the country side settings than anywhere else..

the time interval between crashes seems completely random.. two hours apart or it can happen again as soon i reload the game.. system reboots do not affect things..

the fact i have it happening exactly the same on two similar machines tells me for definite its a game problem.. whilst the game might play okay on some systems its quite clearly unstable on others.. mine being among the others..

my common denominators are.. abit via chipset mobo.. amd 64 bit cpu.. ati grfx card.. none exotic memory..

both my machines are well set up.. have all the latest drivers and handle all other recent games without a problem.. they are also pretty new..

i make this post to emphasis the fact that the problem is with the game itself and needs a fix or at least an admision and promise from besthesda..

as it is the game could be considered unplayable and not worth the money payed for it.. it needs fixing and fixing fast..

having said that.. i like the game and have managed to play it by regular use of the quick save function.. i shouldnt have to be doing this thow..

trog

is your Hardware Monitor on? [MotherBoard Monitor or Hardware Doctor]

they will crash your system [especially it is o/c'd]

i USED to have irregular . . . sometimes often . . . and random crashes . . . with my PC Health Monitors 'off' . . . i can play for 10 hours without a single lockup.

 

[CalvinHobbes]

I have infrequent crashes to desktop. I normally get the crash when exiting the game, not a big deal.
The in-game crashes I have had are:
twice after sleeping
multiple times when in the country (both FP and third person) on foor and on horse.
I save all the time, F5 every 5 minutes or so.

 

[Warren21]

PC INpact, a French hardware/game website, is able to pull HDR+4x FSAA @ 1600x1200 on a SINGLE X1900XTX with the Chuck patch and get 30+ frames, yet here at Anand, in the new review (Posted today) they weren't even going to TRY at 1280x1024 because the performance was already way too low?

 

[starwars7]

Originally posted by: apoppin

is your Hardware Monitor on? [MotherBoard Monitor or Hardware Doctor]

they will crash your system [especially it is o/c'd]

i USED to have irregular . . . sometimes often . . . and random crashes . . . with my PC Health Monitors 'off' . . . i can play for 10 hours without a single lockup.[/quote]

really, when you say Motherboard monitor, are you talking about MBM5?

didn't realize that would crash my PC durring a game

 

[trog100]

my two PCs dont crash on any other recent game.. fear.. quake 4.. serious sam.. gun.. i could go on and name a few more but my systems are stable.. oblivion is the problem.. i do not have any issues with the game framerate wise.. its just the persistant crashing to desktop problem.. on two machines not one..

strangely enough i dont have the crash during shutdown problem that seems common..

i have looked for a pattern and found one with my crashes.. i have listed the instances in my first post.

the only pattern i seem to see with people reporting instability problems is they all seem to be useing an AMD 64 bit cpu.. not a lot of help cos most gamers have them.. he he.. thow it might suggest a problem with the game and the chips onboard dual channel memory controler..

part of my attempts to find a cause or alter the the problem.. has been to "underclock" my machines.. as i said earlier hardware speeds have no affect whatsoever.. an overclock dosnt make it worse and an underclock or default speed setting dosnt make it better..

nothing i have tried has had the slightest effect on the problem.. it carries on bunging me out to the desktop whenever it feels like it..

trog

ps.. calvins "aftersleeping" and jogging thru the country side crashes seem exactly the same as mine.. when new textures have to be loaded.. they just dont happen as often as mine..

the game having probelms shutting down or loading new levels/saves/textures seems to be coming to the fore..

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: starwars7

Originally posted by: apoppin

is your Hardware Monitor on? [MotherBoard Monitor or Hardware Doctor]

they will crash your system [especially it is o/c'd]

i USED to have irregular . . . sometimes often . . . and random crashes . . . with my PC Health Monitors 'off' . . . i can play for 10 hours without a single lockup.

really, when you say Motherboard monitor, are you talking about MBM5?

didn't realize that would crash my PC durring a game

[/quote]

yes.

i have Hardware Doctor, instead . . . it is monitoring and attempting to report irregularities and voltage spikes . . . it definitely intereferes with Oblivion on my system.

if you are experiencing random lockups, try not loading it

 

[trog100]

part of my testing has been to switch off or unload pretty much everything i have just to look for odd iincompatibility.. i cant find anything that affect things.. if the game has issues with software that a lot of people run.. that is down to a game problem.. it shouldnt have.. i have no problems with the alt/tab issue.. a lot of games cant manage that one..

trog

 

[vois2]

There is a great utility to tweak the Oblivion ini called Tweaper. The new version has slider bars for the knowledgeable to easily change their ini settings for all sorts of tweaks. It has a hardware configurator, too, so it makes recommendations for tweaks based on your specific hardware. I've been beta testing for a month and it has expanded to become an easy tool for both the new and old ini tweaker. You can read about in forums here:

From the thread...
Tweaper for Oblivion ver. 1.2 is ready and released for you from http://www.tweaper.com and developer Itai Levi . It is freeware.

For those of you now using previous versions 1.0 or 1.1, please take a few seconds to let us know how those earlier versions have worked for you.
Current release thread at: http://www.elderscrolls.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=404324

You need to UNINSTALL any earlier version of Tweaper first.
You need to download the new GTP 1.5 along with your new version of Tweaper.

MAJOR NEW ADDITIONS IN VERSION 1.2 :

--> More new tweaks! Itemized by category. (About 40 Oblivion tweaks in all, and the hardware detection will recommend the best ones for you.)
--> New slider bars to allow you to easily tweak ini values across a numerical range of safe values
--> Export to text file toolbar button. This creates a brief text file of your hardware profile and the tweaks you have turned on. This allows you to easily post or share with others all your Tweaper info. People of like hardware can quickly share to learn the best ini settings.

Numerous small bug fixes from earlier versions are included.

.
Tweaper was developed by Itai Levi - itai [at]
tweaper.com
Tweaper is freeware - http://www.tweaper.com

If you have any questions about this software, very likely they have been addressed during beta testing in the forum threads below.
Previous threads:
http://www.elderscrolls.com/forums/index.p...howtopic=399629
http://www.elderscrolls.com/forums/index.p...howtopic=397435
http://www.elderscrolls.com/forums/index.p...howtopic=395541

 

[rise]

yeah, i tried tweaper. i may fiddle with it a bit more or i may just uninstall it. load times when leaving a city are horrendous for me with all the "recommended" tweaks. most look like the same thing i edited in the .ini but i never had load times like this. literally, 30 seconds leaving cities.

the wilderness runs well but not noticeably better (performance or iq) than what i had before.

i'll look at it again before uninstalling. defintely easy to use anyway

 

[LordNoob]

Does anyone know if there are any plans to patch the game to support multiple processors? Also, any idea on what headway future ATI/NVIDIA patches may make in handling the intense requirements of this game? (i.e. what kind of performance increase can we expect from future patches on existing hardware).

 

[trog100]

pretties take power.. i cant see any expectations of performance increases from patches/drivers.. to be honest (unlike some games) i cant fault the game on a pretties per horspower ratio.. i think they have done quite well with this one.. my only gripe is the game cant seem to do a simple thing like load data reliably.. to use more than one cpu needs a complete rewrite from the ground up.. the odd dual cpu game patch that has appeared has been about making the game run reliably with dual cpus.. not as some folks think.. make use of more than one...

so i would say.. none.. only perhaps better dual card (crossfire) performance..

trog

 

[DrZDO]

Noise: I get some background hum even with mute on, which increases if I'm in the tab menu. It's very quiet, but I can hear it w/headphones and that's bad enough.

It's not the same background noise as with plain windows or other programs (which generally does disappear with muting), so I was curious if anyone had a similar prob. Hardware in sig.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: DrZDO
Noise: I get some background hum even with mute on, which increases if I'm in the tab menu. It's very quiet, but I can hear it w/headphones and that's bad enough.

It's not the same background noise as with plain windows or other programs (which generally does disappear with muting), so I was curious if anyone had a similar prob. Hardware in sig.

onboard sound or dedicated soundcard?

 

[DrZDO]

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: DrZDO
Noise: I get some background hum even with mute on, which increases if I'm in the tab menu. It's very quiet, but I can hear it w/headphones and that's bad enough.

It's not the same background noise as with plain windows or other programs (which generally does disappear with muting), so I was curious if anyone had a similar prob. Hardware in sig.

onboard sound or dedicated soundcard?

onboard. I'll get a card someday, really, I swear.

I had a thought last night, that it might have started when I got the Apr. 12 beta geforce drivers. Is that possible?

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: DrZDO

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: DrZDO
Noise: I get some background hum even with mute on, which increases if I'm in the tab menu. It's very quiet, but I can hear it w/headphones and that's bad enough.

It's not the same background noise as with plain windows or other programs (which generally does disappear with muting), so I was curious if anyone had a similar prob. Hardware in sig.

onboard sound or dedicated soundcard?

onboard. I'll get a card someday, really, I swear.

I had a thought last night, that it might have started when I got the Apr. 12 beta geforce drivers. Is that possible?

onboard sound - especially the less sophisticated ones - tend to give "noise" . . . try a cheapie soundcard. . . . it is well worth it, imo.

and - yes, it could be the drivers . . . got to the last certified driver.

 

[DrZDO]

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: DrZDO

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: DrZDO
Noise: I get some background hum even with mute on, which increases if I'm in the tab menu. It's very quiet, but I can hear it w/headphones and that's bad enough.

It's not the same background noise as with plain windows or other programs (which generally does disappear with muting), so I was curious if anyone had a similar prob. Hardware in sig.

onboard sound or dedicated soundcard?

onboard. I'll get a card someday, really, I swear.

I had a thought last night, that it might have started when I got the Apr. 12 beta geforce drivers. Is that possible?

onboard sound - especially the less sophisticated ones - tend to give "noise" . . . try a cheapie soundcard. . . . it is well worth it, imo.

and - yes, it could be the drivers . . . got to the last certified driver.

I understand that about onboard. Thing is, I don't want to pay out the az for one with front panel connectors, and I'm dearly attached to the front jack: I'm always switching between 'phones and the home stereo connected to the back.

The new drivers run Oblivion better, so I might wait until the next ofc. release.

Thanks

 

[apoppin]

try a "y" adapter

good luck!

 

[professor1942]

Originally posted by: apoppin
try a "y" adapter

good luck!

yep $6 will solve that problem.

I don't know how anyone can put up with onboard sound, a basic Audigy is so cheap these days...

 

[DrZDO]

Originally posted by: professor1942

Originally posted by: apoppin
try a "y" adapter

good luck!

yep $6 will solve that problem.

I don't know how anyone can put up with onboard sound, a basic Audigy is so cheap these days...

Not to stray OT, but at least with the couple of ASUS boards I've had, if you adjust all the levels properly and keep Master as low as you can, you can get good sound...Except for the odd situation like this.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: DrZDO

Originally posted by: professor1942

Originally posted by: apoppin
try a "y" adapter

good luck!

yep $6 will solve that problem.

I don't know how anyone can put up with onboard sound, a basic Audigy is so cheap these days...

Not to stray OT, but at least with the couple of ASUS boards I've had, if you adjust all the levels properly and keep Master as low as you can, you can get good sound...Except for the odd situation like this.

seems like you don't even know what "good sound" really is.

the rest of your rig IS nice.

 

[kmmatney]

I've been running Oblibvion perfectly well with the system in my sig. Then something completely odd happened when I tried playing today. I loaded up my last saved game, and my character started moving forward really slowly, like my speed attribute was set to 1. I cannot stop my character from moving. I can turn, strafe, access all normal menu items, cast spells, attack, all at normal speed. Its just that my character moves REAL slow.

I started a NEW game and had the exact same problem, so its not a problem with my save game. All the keyboard controls are standard, and I reset back to my old Oblivion file. The overclocking of my cpu/vid card is not a factor, as a downclocked and had the same problem. I've rebooted, removed all mods, etc...I have not made any recent changes to my system, hardware or software-wise.

The game in general runs at full speed and I'm getting 45 fps in the town I'm in. I can turn and look around at normal speed. But my character is moving at about 6 inches per second, and the game is unplayable. Really bizarre.

So the game seems to have completely broken on me. In general, can you re-install the same, and start from a previous save?

Has anyone else come across this issue? The game has not been crashing on me, and I exited normally the last time I played. I tried a different keyboard and have the same problem.

Edit: Fixed!! After realizing that the symptom was a lot like how a mis-calibrated joystick would cause a game to behave, I checked out my gamepad (Sony Playstation 2 with USB adapter for PC). It had fallen onto the ground underneath my desk, and one of the analog sticks was being activated. I picked up the pad and the game is running normal again. Funny, I never asked the game to use the gamepad!

 

[Doom Machine]

mine has realtek 850, with my creative 5.1 it sounds plenty good enough for the money
but then again there are still plenty of morons who think bose accoustimass sounds good for $1200 bucks even though it costs $130 in parts and manufacturing
sure soundcards are reletively cheap but the sound gained isnt crap over some onboard chips

 

[jediphx]

Anyone else having crashing to desktop and black screen with just HUD issues?

have latest nvidia drivers and a good system but sometimes after 5 mins sometimes after 15 mins etc game will crash to desktop with error reporting message or my screen gomes black but I still see the HUD and hear sounds etc.

my specs

amd 2600+ mobile@2.4ghz (all my other games run fine so I dont thing OC is problem)
gigabyte 6800nu unlocked with all 16 pipes and 6 vertexs open( been running this for months and no issues with other games)
1 gig PC3200
160 gigs hd space
abit NFS-7 2.0

 

[imported_Imp]

Originally posted by: jediphx
Anyone else having crashing to desktop and black screen with just HUD issues?

Me... and a LOT of other people. This just started recently after about 3 flawless weeks. The pisser is that if I start a new game (which I always do before loading so it doesn't lock-up), I can see stuff fine and move around as long as I want until I load up my old save. Then afterloading, screen goes black except HUD; I can go through the menu, even 'play' by interacting (hitting) things minus the seeing part. Problem seems pretty widespread, but appears to be related to HDR and may go away if you disable fastwrite or something under video settings -> troubleshooting tab from what I've read. I doubt it's my card since it's less than a month old and thankfully (not) it's a 7600gt so I can hear the fan when under 'heavier' load at all times. It's happened after cold boots and after hours of playing before having to restart due to a CTD. Also, if the screen turns black and I try to start a new game, even that screen goes black.

Although, I have to say that it MAY be due to loading a saved game outdoors. I usually finish a session indoors (actually inside a dungeon/house or a town) until recently when saving in wide open areas. I haven't changed any settings in the weeks before this started either. So far, looks like 'warming up' by running around the first prison cell for a while before loading works. By the way, I was checking on the GPU temperature and noticed the clock down temp. of 115C. Don't GPUs start melting (permanent damage) when they get that hot to make this 'safety' feature useless? O am I suppose to manually scale it down? Or are we going for an "if it get's that hot, somethings broken anyways, let it break" attitude?

On a side note, my onboard sound's been wining occasionally as well. I sure hope those are crickets I hear at night. Going for an X-fi (cheapest) soon.

 

[theMan]

having a problem where the game locks on the screen where it says. "are you sure you want to load this game" when i click yes, it locks. also, it locks randomly during game play. these problems used to be rare, but now it seems like they happen 50% of the time. anyone else experiencing this?