Crash Prevention

A Guide to preventing bugs and crashes in Oblivion

A compilation of mods, utilities and methods of preventing crashes

This started as a discussion thread intending to provide a one-stop-place to find collected wisdom about preventing crashes and bugs.

Here is the current list of known ways to prevent the crashes and bugs:

Hardware tips

Upgrade your computer, especially RAM! Oblivion is a relatively demanding game and if your computer is not up to scratch, you will find that your game, under enough strain, will miss pieces of code or give up. Also, Oblivion has a nasty habit of storing all the data it needs to load and never releasing it from memory. This causes crashes when your memory gets too full. Note that more RAM will only make this problem appear later though (I provide a way of almost completely removing this problem below).

Did you know that you can find your PC's specifications by following these instructions: Click on "the Start button on your taskbar => Run". In the box that appears, type (without quotes) "dxdiag". In the system tab of the window that appears, write down the information you see next to "Processor" and "Memory" in the "System Information" box. Then click on the "Display" tab. In the "Device" box, write down information next to "Name" and "Approx. Total Memory". You have now got your PC's (game important) specifications.

Remove dust build-up from your computer every once in a while. Dust restricts airflow and prevents heat from moving away from your components. The best way of removing dust is to use pressurised air to blow the dust away. Brush the dust off non-electronic components (eg, heatsinks) then earth it (touch against computer's PSU while plugged in and mains switched off).

Regularly update your hardware drivers.

Overclocking can cause game instability. Oblivion is very sensitive to overclocking and can become unstable even if other games work perfectly well. I personally only overclock my graphics card.
HP software has been reported to cause problems with Oblivion (?). Turn off your printer and exit all HP related software.

Windows Vista fixes

It has come to my attention that, over 2 years later, people are still having problems with Windows Vista. I still use XP since my computer is not powerful enough for Vista and I can't currently afford a new OS. An upgrade has been on my mind for the last 2 or 3 months though and so I needed to find the OS to use. According to what I have read, Vista seems to be the better system. If you are having problems with Vista, Tweakguide's Vista Annoyances article might be helpful. I can't say whether it is as I haven't even touched Vista yet.

Latest Official Patches

Patch Oblivion to the latest version available - This might seem an obvious thing to say but I am sure that there are still people out there who use a version of Oblivion that is less than the latest available. Currently, the latest patch is 1.2.0.416. You may check what version you have by navigating to your Oblivion directory (by default, C:\Program Files\Bethesda Softworks\Oblivion). Right-click on "Oblivion.exe" and click on "Properties". Click on the "Version" tab and you will see the version number next to, well, "Version Number". If this number is less than 1.2.0.416, you need to download the patch. If your number is greater than 1.2.0.416, you are either very friendly with Bethesda or something is wrong with your game (maybe a crack). You need to download the latest patch because Bethesda provides numerous bug fixes and crash prevention measures and most mods are built around this patch, meaning that you might experience bugs or crashes if you use a mod requiring 1.2.0.416 and you use something less than this.

Oblivion Tweak Guide

Read TweakGuide.com's Oblivion Tweak Guide - The owner of this site, Koroush Ghazi, provides some valuable information on how to tweak your game to perform much better and crash less often. I highly recommend you visit this site and read Koroush's valuable guide. While you're there, you should see if he has written a tweak guide for any other games you might own.

Mod Problems

(some of these were suggested by BattleTooth of the Bethsoft Forum)

The best way of preventing mod problems is to make sure your mods are working properly and are compatible from the moment you acquire and install them.

Try to get the latest versions of your mods. These often contain bug fixes. Also look for compatibility patches if you have two mods which change the same thing.

Use TES4Edit and TES4Gecko to clean and check your mods (only if you know how plugins work). TES4Edit is the preferred tool to use. Very easy instructions on cleaning using TES4Edit are found here. TES4Gecko should only be used if you are impatient or a great noob. Instructions for using TES4Gecko are here.

If problems start occuring right after you install a new mod, deactivate it and see if the game still causes problems.

Remove problematic mods.

Defragment your hard drive, especially after installing a large mod. "The Oblivion Performance Project" provides some free or free-trial defragmentation utilities.

Organise your load order

There have been numerous bugs reported that are caused by an incorrect load order. This problem is relatively easy to fix. The easiest method is to use BOSS - Better Oblivion Sorting Software. It will automatically sort most, if not all, of your mods into the correct order. For the rest that aren't sorted, you can use Wrye Bash or OBMM - Oblivion Mod Manager. Wrye Bash allows you to directly input a date to set on the mod (load order is controlled by the date placed on a plugin) while OBMM lets you move a plugin up or down your load order one slot per click. Take your pick (probably best to get both).

Use Wrye Bash

The Bashed Patch, which is a feature of Wrye Bash, allows some simple mods to be combined together into one plugin, meaning that less plugins are being loaded by Oblivion. It also provides numerous small features which can replace entire downloaded mods, some of which are bug fixes and crash preventers (for example, the Bow Reach Fix, which prevents a crash caused by improperly configured bows, and an Nvidea Fog Fix, which tries to prevent the black-fog-like effect experienced by some/ most Nvidea users). It also allows certain features of mods to be combined together. Also, Wrye Bash provides a number of tools to repair specific problems in mods and save games. Overall, a very useful tool to have.

Download crash prevention mods

I have put together a list of mods that either do or might prevent crashes and bugs from occuring in your game. I shall provide this list and an explanation below.

Close background tasks

Close background tasks, especially anti-malware software - Background programs can cause problems with the game when they consume extra PC resources that could be used by Oblivion. See this article to find out how to start your computer with only necessary background programs.

Disable autosave

Disable autosave and don't use quicksave while in the same cell used to create the quicksave - I have read stories of how using auto or quicksave causes the game to crash. Quicksave only seems to cause crashes if you quick-load a game while you are in the same cell that was used to make the quick-save. Oblivion apparantly doesn't reset the cells when a quick-load is made so problems occur. The solution to this seems to be either leave the cell you saved in before the quick-load or restart the game. Autosaves definitely seem to cause problems when an exterior-interior switch is made (I have had too many of these to be a coincidence). If you now need an autosave alternative after diabling the autosave, I provide a solution below.

Reduce System Overload

Try to make your game less demanding on your PC - The less the game demands from your PC, the less likely the game is to crash or miss some code. Or so that school of thought goes. This is probably the last step you should take due to the probable lack of importance and results. This step may be implemented by either reducing your graphic quality settings or downloading a mod or tool which reduces the quality of something. Even if you don't plan on reducing quality, it might be useful to download some of the performance enhancing mods which don't affect visual quality significantly so that you can crank up some of your graphics settings further. For methods and mods which improve performance, I point you to "The Oblivion Performance Project" thread.

Other Ideas

If nothing else works, visit Bethsoft's Unofficial Technical FAQ - This thread provides a greater list of tweaks and fixes for the game than this one. "Why don't I just go straight there?" you might ask. Firstly, I believe this thread provides the information in an easier-to-read way. Second, the Bethsoft thread is a more general Oblivion issues thread while this one is specifically for crashes and bugs. And lastly, the information in Bethsoft's thread that isn't here is small pieces and the thread tends to repeat itself.

Crash Prevention Mods

This is a list of mods which aim to reduce or prevent crashes and bugs.

The Unofficial Oblivion Patch

The Unofficial Oblivion Patch v3.2.0 by QuarnAndKivan - If you only ever download one mod for Oblivion, let it be this one. This mod fixes a HUGE number of bugs which Bethesda never fixed. The full list of fixes can be found here (note that it is about 550KB of text). They report that they have fixed over 1800 bugs. If you have Shivering Isle or any of Bethesda's official plugins, you might also want their Unofficial Shivering Isles Patch and their Unofficial Official Mods Patch. The bug fixes are listed here (shivering) and here (other mods). Reported fixes are over 200 in Shivering Isles and around 220 in all the other plugins. Please note however that these three unofficial patches all require the official 1.2.0.416 patch to work properly.

Streamline

Streamline v3.0 and 3.1 by Jagatelesin - This mod does three things. First, it clears your memory of unneeded files, hence improving performance and reducing or eliminating the overfilled memory crash I mentioned above. Secondly, it dynamically changes various graphics options based on your framerate. If your PC is struggling, Streamline will lower your graphics settings and raise them when your PC can handle it. I personally don't use this feature because I don't like the way my graphics and visuals fluctuate but this is your choice. Lastly, it provides an overhauled autosave feature for if your game does crash. This system of saving has the same effect as using the save game function in the pause menu so it bypasses the quick and autosave function. This is the best autosave system I have seen so far. There are 5 downloads provided on the Streamline link but you should only worry about versions 3 and 3.1. I regard higher version numbers as being better but there are some people in this community who think that v3.1 actually causes more crashes than v3 does. I recommend you download and try both to see which performs better on your system. If you want more information on this mod, you will have to download it and read the readme. This mod requires OBSE (Oblivion Script Extender) v0012 or later.

WeOCPS

Windom Earle's Oblivion Crash Prevention System by Windom Earle (you may slap your forehead) - This OBSE plugin tries to stop the game from crashing when something goes wrong with the code (Windom calls it a "crash offset"). I have not tried out this mod yet but it has received very good remarks so I must assume that this mod does what it is supposed to do. It makes Elys' Crashshield mod obsolete so if you use that mod, you might want to get weOCPS instead. Also, Elys' Crashshield and weOCPS can't be used at the same time. This mod requires OBSE (Oblivion Script Extender) v0012 or later (duh) though higher is recommended.

Fast Quit

Fast Quit by Scanti and Skyranger-1 - this OBSE plugin lets you quit the game without the game crashing, giving the game a chance to save it's ini file and it makes the quitting process much faster. I have personally used this mod and I can vouch that this mod does what it is advertised to do. Before using this mod, my game would crash on exit nearly all the time. The Oblivion ini file was also usually not saved which meant any changes made ingame were lost. Now that this mod is installed in my game, I have not had a single crash on exit. If you use Deathless Aphrodite's Clean Quit mod, I recommend that you switch to this mod instead. The reasons being that Fast Exit doesn't require Pluggy (which is rumoured to cause crashes) and it is also more reliable than Clean Quit. DA also mentions in Fast Quit's comments that it makes her mod obsolete. Since I spotted that comment, I have not been able to find Clean Quit on this site, leading me to the conclusion that it has been deleted by her. This OBSE plugin requires OBSE (Oblivion Script Extender) v0016 or later (duh again).

Oblivion Stutter Remover

Oblivion Stutter Remover by SkyRanger-1 - This OBSE plugin tries to even out your framerate. It is slightly more difficult to install than most mods but the effort is worth it. You first type in a minimum and maximum framerate for Oblivion to run at. If your framerate drops below the minimum framerate, the game goes into slow-motion. If it rises above the maximum framerate, Oblivion is forced to give up some of it's processing time, supposedly improving stability by allowing other tasks use of that processing time. I have briefly used this mod. I am not sure about crashing but it has improved my experience with the game (try play with 1,5GB RAM; a P4 Celeron 2.6GHz and Radeon 9550. I sometimes want to pull my hair out). The slow-motion is slightly annoying but it's an improvement over the stuttering. Some people have also reported improved stability using this mod. This plugin requires OBSE to work.

Oldblivion

Oldblivion by Asp, Atomizer, Excors, CrazyDog and Tommionu - This allows older graphics cards to run Oblivion and allows you to use lower quality settings. This can help make the game more stable. Note that, as far as I have read, Oldblivion only runs on versions 1.0 and 1.1 of Oblivion.

Known Crash Sources

This is a list of mods that are known to cause Oblivion to crash excessively (or more often than necessary) and any known solutions or workarounds for the issues. Use at your own discretion.

Pluggy v122 by Elys - Pluggy v122 has been tested and shown to increase the chances of a crash on an Interior/ Exterior switch. This has been linked to the HUD component added after v91. If you are experiencing these kind of crashes, try downgrading to v91 or upgrading to v125b and see if the crashes stop (available on the same page as v122 above).