UESP Forums

Okay, so I have Oblivion GOTY.
My version of Windows is Windows 7 Home Premium, 64-bit.
The game runs smooth, works great, no problems, except that i can't leave the starting area.
Whenever I try to exit from the Sanctum out to the sewers, it shows the loading screen, then goes black.
After that, it returns to the desktop and displays an error message.
Also, when I use console commands to COC anywhere, it does the same thing.
I've tried several things now, including installing both discs, Unofficial Oblivion Patch from TES Nexus, and going on forums like this to find out what the heck I should do.
And nothing so far has worked.
HELP?

Are you running oblivion with the graphics set high? Because your comp may not be able to run the bigger areas with full graphics and/or with the lowest graphics if you're running with graphics low.

Sounds like a graphics card issue to me. Try CoCing to a cell without water in it.

Pity. I have the same OS as you but mine only decides to crash with mods. So I gave up and dual-installed XP. Not helpful, I know, but the option is there.

Yeah, it's almost certainly a graphics thing in my opinion. I saw someone with a similar problem over on the wiki side of things ().

I'd bet would allow you to play the game.

Hm, never heard of that before. I'll give it a go, thanks.


EDIT: I installed the most recent version of Oldblivion (Clicked the INSTALL link for June 2006) and ran the new program, but it crashes immediately...

@pitchflare

Aha! Your DXDIAG confirms what I suspected! You have on-board video AND sound, typical of most off-the-shelf PC's nowadays. Manufacturers like to assume the majority of PC users don't use their PC for games, so they don't bother installing a dedicated video card and dedicated sound card. By a strange coincidence, this also keeps the PC build cost as low as possible so they make MORE profit per PC.

Intel(R) G33/G31 Express Chipset Family

On-board video (ON the motherBOARD, part of the Northbridge chip). If you can't tell from the name, here are the dead give-away entries:-

Chip type: Intel(R) GMA 3100 //Supports Shader Model 2.0 (SM2.0) maximum
DAC type: Internal //Internal to Northbridge

Display Memory: 256Mb //(Dedicated + Shared)
//
//The following TWO entries will ONLY appear for on-board video chipsets...
//
Dedicated Memory: 0Mb //NO dedicated VRAM, typical of most on-board video chipsets
Shared Memory: 256Mb //Amount of System RAM to allocate, set in BIOS Setup

The GMA 3100 is not a dedicated video card with its own Video RAM (VRAM), so will be slow. It has to have System RAM allocated AS Video RAM, which means your CPU (doing AI, Physics, etc) and the GMA 3100 (3D rendering) are constantly competing to use your system's main memory bus, the Front-Side Bus (FSB). This creates an "FSB bottleneck" that slows everything down, resulting in low in-game framerates. On-board video is OK for desktop productivity (2D), but is useless for games (3D) due to the FSB bottleneck it causes.

I'd suspect your on-board video doesn't support a certain advanced aspect of 3D rendering that Oblivion is trying to do, and this is resulting in a crash. The fact that it's happening in Exterior cells seems to point to the water shader being the source of the problem. Try backing up your Oblivion.ini file then editing it to impose the following settings:-

bUseWaterShader=0
bUseWaterReflections=0

This will switch the water shader off completely (water will be a simple pink transparent surface). If the game stops crashing, the water shader is the likely culprit.

Realtek Digital Output (Realtek High Definition Audio)

Realtek are a major manufacturer of on-board sound/modem chipsets. Give-away entry for poor sound performance:-

HW Accel Level: Basic //Typical for on-board (DSP emulation via sound driver so heavy FSB usage)

Either this is the maximum hardware acceleration level for your Realtek chipset, or it's been lowered from Full. My old SoundBlaster Audigy PCI card runs in Full acceleration mode for best possible performance. In this mode, the driver emulates nothing, just sends sound data straight to the card's hardware Digital Signal Processor (DSP). When set to Basic, a LOT of what the hardware DSP does is emulated by the driver. This means a LOT of FSB usage by the CPU running driver code, a further source of FSB bottlenecking.

Recommendations

It's not surprising that you're having to run Oblivion at LOW details! Your blazing fast 64-bit quad-core PC with a massive 8Gb RAM is CRIPPLED without dedicated video and sound cards installed for gaming performance! Upgrading to dedicated PCI-E video (with at least 512Mb VRAM) and dedicated sound (i.e. Soundblaster X-Fi) will remove that nasty FSB bottleneck. Your top-end PC will then run Oblivion as intended, with ALL settings maxed out in top-notch SM3.0 and HDR eye-candy!

My PC doesn't come anywhere NEAR the spec of yours <drooling>, but Oblivion performs reasonably well at 1366x768 in near FULL video details with Distant Landscape, HDR, Grass and Shadows enabled. I get an average 20-30fps outdoors and 40fps+ in dungeons. Some dips to 10fps in cities but at least bearable. Reason? I have dedicated video AND sound cards installed! Treat that excellent spec PC to the ESSENTIAL upgrades it deserves, my friend, and you'll having a gaming rig to boast about!

Determining the Crash Error Message

<ProgramName> has caused a problem. That's a standard Windows fatal error dialog you're seeing. It should have a Details link (underlined in blue) you can click to view the crash dump information (typically Fatal Exception followed by a code, e.g. 0xC0000005 which means Access Violation, due to one process attempting to access protected memory owned by a another process).

Hope this helps you get closer to solving the problem.

PS. Sorry about the long post. I just really, REALLY want to help you get Oblivion working at its best so you can join the "My jaw hit the floor" club!

For the long post, no problem; that actually helps me beyond belief!

I tried the first suggestion you gave (the water shader) and it works. The pink is a little unnerving, but if I desperately need to get id of that, I'll try again.
Looks like my tribulations are over; now off to Tes Nexus to download some race mods.
Thanks!

Fan-dabby-tastic!

Now all you need is a decent PCI-E video card to replace that ultra-lame Intel on-board video! I'd suggest at least an nVidia Geforce 9800 series card (dropping in price now now that the 200 series is top-end and 300 series is on the horizon). Or, if you have the cash, go for a 200 series card for even better performance. That will get the bulk of FSB bottlenecking sorted and enable you to run at FULL eye-candy no problems. Your framerates should then blow ME out of the, er, WATER!

As for the sound card, well, it's not as important. The video card upgrade will remove the bulk of the FSB bottleneck. You may get the odd slowdown/stutter due on-board sound occasionally bottlenecking the FSB. If it bothers you, a decent sound card will solve the problem.

If, once your video card is in place, you need help tweaking Oblivion.ini for super-high-quality eye-candy, please drop me a PM. I spent over a week on a marathon Oblivion tweaking effort a few months back when I upgraded to my Geforce 7900GS, which taught me a LOT about balancing eye-candy against performance, and enabling a few eye-candy options which AREN'T available from the in-game Video options.

Oof, that's going to take me a while to get. I'm not even old enough to get a job.
Oh well, I guess I'd better start saving up money from chores again.
Thanks!

Hey, shouldn't take that long, pitchflare. I have a GTS250 and it came with a computer that cost just under £500. And I can run Oblivion at full settings plus INI eye-candy PLUS nVidia 3D vision with no problems.

I believe that stand-alone you can get a 200-series card for anything less than $150. And with that [&@%!] (censored, obviously, but it had to be said) amazing PC like yours you're going to be laughing all the way to the right of the settings menu. it's just a pity that you had to get the world's biggest con. You wouldn't be willing to sell, would you?

Hi I just got oblivion for the PC today and I'm having the same sort of problem with the graphics too. I have a completely custom built PC with a video card that should be more then enough to handle the max resolution of the game. When I started the game it told me that the best quality resolution was low. But when I would change it to high or very high it would bring up an error screen saying the game shut down.

I looked at the previous posts in this thread and copied my DXDIAG and here it is.



My friend helped me build the computer since I'm VERY new to PC gaming and he updated all the drivers. Is there anything I can do?

With the lack of guidance from our PC expert, I'm gonna say that your video card is too new or too much for Oblivion. Also, you seen to be outputting on HDMI. Oblivion didn't like it the last time I tried that.

that kind of sucks if it doesn't like HDMI for the higher quality graphics.

HDMI isn't a problem per se. I play Oblivion on a Windows 7 (64-bit) computer on HDMI all the time, without a problem. That said, I wouldn't be surprised if you're having an HDMI driver problem of some sort. Sorry I can't be of more help.

My W7 x64 works fine with Oblivion, as long as there are NO MODS WHATSOEVER. Never quite worked that one out.

As for finding drivers, try going to 'Device Manager'. We really need h8ball back. I might just go to Newcastle and get him.