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TESIV: Oblivion - So you want to start using mods, eh?

Ledsen

Member
John said:
Does OOO rebalance bows? They were damn near useless in vanilla and I want to try a thief build, and I want to know whether or not I should use any bow modifier mods.

When you install OOO using the TES IV: Positive OOO Installation Guide that is linked in the OP, it will also tell you to install OMOBS. OMOBS is a complete rebalance of all the weapons and armor in the game using a carefully designed system. It changes things like weight, damage, reach, speed etc for all equipment in the game. OOO uses this system for all its custom equipment as well. I don't know specifically how it changes bows, except I remember that they are now nearly useless in close combat but much more powerful (about 50% more damage I think) at long range. Also since sneak attacks are more powerful in OOO, bows automatically become more useful. I'm currently using a character with Marksman and Stealth as two of her major skills and it's going very well (with OOO and Oblivion XP).
 
Great thread, subbed for later when I get around to playing Oblivion. Tried to earlier but having to deal with install order and stuff messed me up.
 

Vanillalite

Ask me about the GAF Notebook
Beware if you are gonna do some of the texture mods and you only have 512 on your graphics card. You don't really need a beast of a card in terms of speed and capabilities, but the texture packs eat up graphics card RAM. 1 gig is what you need to really get the texture packs working well.
 

Ledsen

Member
lethial said:
Is there a graphical mod that doesn't make the characters look like some crappy Korean MMO?

There are hundreds if not thousands of character, face, hair, armor and equipment mods. You can get everything from a normal looking dude with more or less realistic medieval armor to a crazy anime super model with 10 feet hair and Gundam robot armor with missiles coming out of her ass. Take your pick.

The particular screenshot I'm assuming you're referring to was in fact made by a Korean, and they are very active making graphical mods in general.
 

Sysgen

Member
Brettison said:
Beware if you are gonna do some of the texture mods and you only have 512 on your graphics card. You don't really need a beast of a card in terms of speed and capabilities, but the texture packs eat up graphics card RAM. 1 gig is what you need to really get the texture packs working well.

Even with a gig the game will stutter if not configured correctly.
 

Rflagg

Member
Really nice job this might get me to retry it the next time steam has a sale. I really liked fallout 3,but couldn't get into oblivion.
 

kiunchbb

www.dictionary.com
coopolon said:
Does OOO add a bunch of new monsters and are really just recolored and resized versions of old monsters? I had it installed, but when reading the description when I saw that I found that idea pretty sad, but never really messed with it. I know OOO is supposed to be amazing though, just seems like such a cheapening addition.



I wanted to try FCOM, but everyone says it is such a pain in the ass to get working, and it requires Wrye Bash to do it right?

OOO is more for nonlevel scaling monster, better dungeon scaling (deeper you are harder it get), harder fight, less cheating method.

The mod maker also hand pick and edit all loot, so it is no longer random, it is now more risk = more reward.

All NPC's gear are hand picked, so random barbarian no longer carry rare enchanted plate armor. Rare gear will really be rare now.
 

Apath

Member
I've been reading, after given the complicated nature of this to begin with, I figure this isn't worth the trouble. All of that shit on Wyre Bash... I mean jesus.
 

~Kinggi~

Banned
It should be known that those with 64 bit OS like Vista or Windows 7, your game will crash like a motherfucker quite randomly the more mods you install.

Some of you might get lucky and not crash, but the issues seem pretty common.
 

Apath

Member
~Kinggi~ said:
It should be known that those with 64 bit OS like Vista or Windows 7, your game will crash like a motherfucker quite randomly the more mods you install.

Some of you might get lucky and not crash, but the issues seem pretty common.
All the more reason then. -_-
 

r1chard

Member
OK, I've downloaded a ton of huge files, plus BOSS, OBSE, OBMM and Wrye Bash (since even though I'm rather afeared of this whole process and would like to only use BOSS there's several of the really popular mods that required OBMM and Wrye)... I'll see if I can keep an actual log of the installations I've made and how it goes...

Then again I'm running 64-bit Windows 7 so it might all go to hell real quick anyway :)


Edit: actually, screw it. If it's not an OMOD it's not installed (well, with the one exception I'll make for Qarl's...
 

D3RANG3D

Member
A few things to keep in mind is there is a hard cap of 255 mods, you can get around this limitation by merging mods or using bash patches, even then there is a soft cap of 300-400 esm, esp and bsa files you can have in your directory, it causes your game to act up regardless of the os.

Here are some utilities/mods I recommend for performance, stability and crash prevention.


Oblivion Stutter Remover
http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=23208

Windom Earle_s Oblivion Crash Prevention System
http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=22282

3gb Enabler
http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=23254

Operation Optimization
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=10510

Script Optimization
http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=13092

Script Optimization SI Fix
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=31757

Fast Exit
http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=22410

Troubleshooting
http://tesivpositive.animolious.com/?page=troubleshooting
 

Ledsen

Member
ZombieSupaStar said:
do you still need to do archive invalidation, I thought they did what they ended up doing in fallout 3, using that one bsa that loads first and everything else loads after it fine without having to do it manually anymore.

http://www.oblivionmodwiki.com/index.php/ArchiveInvalidation_Invalidated!

They did, and that's what the procedure I described in the OP does (OBMM generates the dummy .bsa file). I guess it's not really archive invalidation but I didn't want to needlessly explain it since all you need to do is press one button :)

Kenak said:
I've been reading, after given the complicated nature of this to begin with, I figure this isn't worth the trouble. All of that shit on Wyre Bash... I mean jesus.

It's not really that complicated. Like I said in the OP, you don't even need to use Wrye Bash! Let's say that you decide to use the mods I list in the OP. What you need to do is

1. Download and install the external programs
2. Do Archive Invalidation (and reset .BSA time stamps if you're on Steam)
3. Download Mods
4. Make mods without omods into omods (preferably)
5. Use OBMM to easily install all mods
6. Run BOSS

That's it really. The only slightly complicated bit may be installing OOO (if you choose to do that) since you will need to read the guide on TES4: Positive. But really you can skip a big part of it (like where they talk about omod scripts) and just download the mods it tells you to download and install them in the order they tell you to install them. Don't give up so easily :)

~Kinggi~ said:
It should be known that those with 64 bit OS like Vista or Windows 7, your game will crash like a motherfucker quite randomly the more mods you install.

Some of you might get lucky and not crash, but the issues seem pretty common.

Weird, I'm on Win 7 64bit and haven't had even one crash despite my long list of mods (I run more than those I listed in the OP).

r1chard said:
OK, I've downloaded a ton of huge files, plus BOSS, OBSE, OBMM and Wrye Bash (since even though I'm rather afeared of this whole process and would like to only use BOSS there's several of the really popular mods that required OBMM and Wrye)... I'll see if I can keep an actual log of the installations I've made and how it goes...

Then again I'm running 64-bit Windows 7 so it might all go to hell real quick anyway :)


Edit: actually, screw it. If it's not an OMOD it's not installed (well, with the one exception I'll make for Qarl's...

Making an omod by yourself is super easy, you don't need any more knowledge than you already have if you're installing mods like Qarls manually. Simply put the mod files in a separate folder instead of in "Data Files", and then make an omod from that folder using the "create" option in OBMM. Tada!
 

subversus

I've done nothing with my life except eat and fap
What mod gives you such beatiful god rays?

sgheut.jpg
 

Ledsen

Member
subversus said:
What mod gives you such beatiful god rays?

http://i37.tinypic.com/sgheut.jpg[/MG][/QUOTE]

Looks to be an OBSE plugin

[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xc3zEXYm6FY&feature=related[/url]
[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3IQeeFYLkY[/url]

edit: found it

[URL="http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=30054"]Oblivion Graphics Extender[/URL]
 

JoeBoy101

Member
Couple of my modded Oblivion shots:

Oblivion2010-03-2322-27-32-45.jpg


This is showing off a part of Unique Landscapes. A whole agricultural hub around one of the eastern cities (Chorrol, I think)? I highly recommend picking it up.

Oblivion2010-03-2419-10-08-79.jpg


Not a great example, but have a decent Depth of Field mod applied, along with the Enhanced Water mod. And of course, Qarl's optimized textures on both. As the flowchart mentions, its pretty much a given.
 

kiunchbb

www.dictionary.com
~Kinggi~ said:
It should be known that those with 64 bit OS like Vista or Windows 7, your game will crash like a motherfucker quite randomly the more mods you install.

Some of you might get lucky and not crash, but the issues seem pretty common.

That explain why my game crash so much, I got tire from reloading the game over and over every 20 min.

Is there anyway to prevent this? Like run it in Window XP mode? I don't want to install a 32bit OS.
 

Lafiel

と呼ぶがよい
Thanks for this. *bookmarked* bought oblivion GOTY edition off a steam sale, and haven't gotten around to playing it yet. Mostly because i can't be bothered with the mods. This should hopefully help me a bit.
 
~Kinggi~ said:
It should be known that those with 64 bit OS like Vista or Windows 7, your game will crash like a motherfucker quite randomly the more mods you install.

Some of you might get lucky and not crash, but the issues seem pretty common.
If you are using a lot of texture packs and area enhancers it could be because Oblivion is running out of memory. Since the game was programmed for a 32bit OS it can only use 1.8gb before it runs out and crashes.

This link explains it in more detail and provides you with the programs and mods needed to bump the cap up to 3.8gb:
http://forums.bethsoft.com/index.php?/topic/1078392-oblivion-and-memory-usage/
 

subversus

I've done nothing with my life except eat and fap
kiunchbb said:
That explain why my game crash so much, I got tire from reloading the game over and over every 20 min.

Is there anyway to prevent this? Like run it in Window XP mode? I don't want to install a 32bit OS.

try it please, I'm going into the fray tomorrow and want to know if I should cap it at OOO and texture packs...
 

thundr51

Member
These shots are seriously making me want to go and pick this up even though I played the heck out of the 360 version. My main machine only has a Geforce 7600 with about 2 GB of RAM. What kind of specs are you guys running to make these screen shots?
 
thundr51 said:
These shots are seriously making me want to go and pick this up even though I played the heck out of the 360 version. My main machine only has a Geforce 7600 with about 2 GB of RAM. What kind of specs are you guys running to make these screen shots?
7600GT wouldn't cut it I'm afraid, I'm using a 512mb 8600GT with 2gb RAM and can just about scrape medium settings at 1024x768 with 40-50fps using the LowLowPoly Grass mod and grass draw distance set to very close. That means no HDR lighting, poor quality grass, low draw distance, no texture mods, minimal shadows (no shadows at all on trees) and none of the weather/lighting mods.
 

Tensai

Banned
thundr51 said:
These shots are seriously making me want to go and pick this up even though I played the heck out of the 360 version. My main machine only has a Geforce 7600 with about 2 GB of RAM. What kind of specs are you guys running to make these screen shots?
Don't bother with those specs. The 360 version will look miles better.
 

Lafiel

と呼ぶがよい
Tensai said:
Don't bother with those specs. The 360 version will look miles better.
Even with those specs, you should probably still play the PC version though. I mean i originally played oblivion with a radeon 9800 and then later a 7600 gt.:lol
 

Crazetex

Member
It's amazing how terrific this game can be if you mod it to hell - and there's still cool stuff I haven't seen, despite how I used to live on TES Nexus. Oblivion XP? I'd used other leveling mods, but not one as perfect as that.

For me, though, immersion and environmental difficulty is the most important. First off, OOO is an absolute necessity. If I could only have one mod, it would be OOO. From there, darker nights and darker dungeons - this is already in the flowchart, and for good reason. There's no reason to use night vision or anything in vanilla Oblivion. With the right mods, nighttime and dungeon delving is Fucking Creepy. Hence the worthwhile additions of various sound-enhancing mods.

I'm pretty sure I just coined "environmental difficulty," but I guess it means "some places try to kill you harder than others. Also, darkness." So, level scaling + torches.

Or if you're cool, just play a Khajit and never need a torch. Or if you're badass, play a Destruction mage and light up the world with FIRE.
 

thefil

Member
I think I'm going to redo my Oblivion mod setup. The way I have it now was mostly so I could do FCOM: Convergence (which really sounds like a waste of time from how up you guys are on OOO) and ended up using both OOO and WyreBash.
 

Darkman M

Member
Here's a huge tip and must! for those who get alot of CTD, make sure you have Oblvion.exe and Obse.exe turned off under FFDShow. I played for years with crazy random crashes all day and this pretty much erased all that i rarely ever crash now. You should do this for Fallout 3 as well.
 

Tensai

Banned
Lafiel said:
Even with those specs, you should probably still play the PC version though. I mean i originally played oblivion with a radeon 9800 and then later a 7600 gt.:lol
Just no. The 360 version will be a night and day difference to the settings he'll have to play the game on due to that terrible videocard.
 

thundr51

Member
Lafiel said:
Even with those specs, you should probably still play the PC version though. I mean i originally played oblivion with a radeon 9800 and then later a 7600 gt.:lol

Yeah, I've got a GT now. So what am I missing? faster card, more ram? Ugh, this is why I stopped playing PC games..
 

subversus

I've done nothing with my life except eat and fap
thundr51 said:
Yeah, I've got a GT now. So what am I missing? faster card, more ram? Ugh, this is why I stopped playing PC games..

Pretty much everything.
 

JDS 1977

Banned
What's the best face and hair mod? Some just make the ugly people a little less ugly. But I'm looking for one that actually makes some cool/pretty looking people.
 

John

Member
JoeBoy101 said:
http://i794.photobucket.com/albums/yy230/joeboy101/Oblivion2010-03-2419-10-08-79.jpg[IMG]

Not a great example, but have a decent Depth of Field mod applied, along with the Enhanced Water mod. And of course, Qarl's optimized textures on both. As the flowchart mentions, its pretty much a given.[/QUOTE]
Looks like your DoF mod just blurs shit a lot once it gets to far - look to the left
 

Lafiel

と呼ぶがよい
Tensai said:
Just no. The 360 version will be a night and day difference to the settings he'll have to play the game on due to that terrible videocard.
7600 gt played fine on oblivion in 720p here. Looked great too, while the 360 version probably looks better, i still wouldn't recommend playing the console version over it even with that card. As mods don't just = better graphics.
 

Slayer-33

Liverpool-2
Fuuuk... Will have to get in on his.. God damn you OP for reminding me about this. I have a monster pc that would make this game+ mods god sauce.
 
I'm trying to use Wrye Bash to install the Really almost everything viewable mod, and I have no idea how to even get started. Is there a good tutorial for Wrye Bash if I just want to install a BAIN mod?
 

Ledsen

Member
WHOAguitarninja said:
I'm trying to use Wrye Bash to install the Really almost everything viewable mod, and I have no idea how to even get started. Is there a good tutorial for Wrye Bash if I just want to install a BAIN mod?

Hm, I'm actually not that familiar with that process. Check the RAEVWD thread in the official forums, and also the Wrye Bash readme (it's at the bottom of the program window).

subversus said:
Ok, I'm going to launch this shit or at least try to do this.

If you have any questions, please ask! Good luck and happy modding:)
 
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