Do you have the strength, fortitude, and compassion to help this weary assassin mage on his quest?

[scottrill2]

Sup HeyYou,

 

 

Yeah I don't know why UV:III isn't compatible with soul gem magic either.  I guess maybe cause you can release soul gems, throw em like grenades etc?

 

 

I figure I making backups after every single mod install, so once I reach the UV:III part I will make a backup and then try Soul Gem magic, see if I can find bugs lol  

 

 

Between Oblivions built in Testing Hall, Frostcrag reborn, and ancient towers I have a bunch of cool crap I can practice on to see if glitches etc creep up.

 

 

 

Install order becomes important when more than one mod adds/changes the same file. (this is mostly for things like menus, textures, and meshes.) 

 

 

 

 

 

Is there a way to easily find this out?  Will Bash or Boss let me know this?

 

 

 

Thankfully I am almost done with the locations, houses, castles, and quest mods to install.  Be moving on to Overhauls hopefully by tomorrow if my OCD will permit it lol

 

 

Appreciate the help HeyYou!

 

 

[HeyYou]

TESIVEdit will show you what mods have overlap. I think there is a tutorial on how to use it for such out there on the web somewhere.

 

UVIII lets you throw soul gems as grenades? Ok, that would explain why they are not compatible then..... I don't think they are going to play well together at all. Whichever one loads last will overwrite the changes in the other. (and possibly break other things as well.....)

 

I suppose it would be possible to remove those changes from UVIII.... you wouldn't have the Soul Gem Grenades.... but, no clue just how complicated that would be.

[scottrill2]

Thanks HeyYou,

 

 

Yeah I am hoping a simple ini change will let the two play nicely.  I NEVER summon creatures because I like to do the ass whoopin myslef lol  So the soul grenade thing has no appeal to me.

 

Well except for perhaps distraction techniques, throw a golden saint's soul into a group of guards and whilst they deal with the creature I slice my targets throat open

 

 

I will check out the web for tutorials for TESIV Edit.  Again thank you very much for all the help you have given thus far, I appreciate it!  I will hopefully find a pdf tutorial I can download and read on my kindle while drinking lol  

 

 

Although I guess it may just be easier to make a backup, load em both up and play in the testing hall for a bit.  Right now I am still installing locations, quests etc etc.  Boy there is alot to do in this game.

 

 

Any castles, mansions, houses, or quests you highly recommend?

[HeyYou]

I usually just use Battlehorn Enhanced. Used to be Oblivion Real Estate had a huge collection of housing, from small cabins, to huge castles.... Appears the site is gone now though..... not sure what happened to it..... Evidently, other issues came up in the owners life. Bummer, that was a wonderful resource. Don't know what happened to all the mods there though.... Check on Nexus. Just search for 'castle', and I am guessing you will find tons of them.

[scottrill2]

Thanks HeyYou,

 

 

 

Yeah I have found a bunch over at Nexus.  I have already installed a dozen.  I am trying to reign in my OCD which tells me I should download them all roflmao.

 

 

I was just curious if a seasoned oblivion aficionado like yourself had any personal favorites.  Alas Battlehorn is out for me unless I switch over to the full steam version.  

 

 

As mentioned earlier ion the thread I hate steam with a freaking passion.  If valve hadn't made half life, portal and counterstrike I would disown them.

[HeyYou]

LOLOL. I see we have the same views on Steam.

 

There are a LOT of HUGE castles available. Look at 'em all, and pick the ones with the most downloads. (only two or three please, gotta watch for conflicts. )

 

I never spend a lot of time at my residence in any game in any event. Usually its just a place to drop my stuff, and then run off again. I don't use followers, they just get in the way. (and end up sprouting arrows out of their back......) Don't even bother with horses.... too much trouble.

[scottrill2]

lol,

 

 

*Covers my horse's ears*  

 

Don't speak ill of horses they will hear you!!

 

 

 

Man I love the horses.  And once I get UV:III installed I will have mounted combat.  No longer will a bandit halt my journey for a few minutes...I will simply vaporize their sorry butts with a spell or arrow from horse back and keep on truckin lol

 

 

So far for locales I have picked up:

 

Frostcrag Village

Frostcrag Reborn

Kvatch Rebuilt

Ancient Towers

Castle Seaview

Elven Tree Home

Glenvar Castle

Mountain Tower

Red Rose Manor

Shadowcrest Vineyard

Shop from trade and commerce

 

Those are big places, I am next going to find some smaller "hunting cabins" hopefully spread out evenly over tamriel.

 

 

But I am also installing a camping mod to where I have to eat, drink and sleep everyday etc.

 

 

I figure in the end I will get many many YEARS of playtime out of Oblivion lol  With my OCD, I will have to fully stock, organize, and furnish every place I own etc etc  One very cool thing is I normally grind really bad cause of my OCD, but with all these quests tied to these extra locales, I will probably already advance many levels by the time I even BEGIN the main story line lol.

 

Then figure after the main story line is over I can go crazy with even more quests etc??  I probably won't even buy Skyrim until I am 40  lol

 

 

I do see a few things that turned my nephew off Oblivion though.  Like the guards being all knowing bastards lol  I used a cheat to spawn a guard into the BASEMENT of my elven tree home, then casted  a life force spell to see if ANYONE was nearby 125 feet.  I silently killed that prick while in stealth mode.  No screams or anything.  I then got on my trusty steed and galloped into the closest town and they instantly tried to arrest me lol

 

1.  No one was around to hear him scream anyway lol

2.  Even if someone broke into my home and found the body, there is no way they could have beaten me back to town.

3.  I have no deed for the eleven tree home, it is concealed by magic, so even if someone found the body how would they know my face to associate it?

 

 

Needless to say right now I am hunting for mods to make the guards more realistic and less OMNISCIENT.  lol

Edited February 28, 2014 by scottrill2

[scottrill2]

Okie dokie got another question,

 

 

Right now I am installing quests.  I have a few that all modify the same geographic region.  Now this isnt a house or something otherwise I would just pick one.  But I read in a post about "clean saves" if using mods that mess with each other.

 

Lets say mod A. B and C all take up the same area (cells or whatever you call em).  Could I:

 

1. Install Mod A and play it for the xp points and leveling up.
2. Save game
3. Uninstall Mod A
4. Save Game
5. Install MOD B and play it for the xp points and leveling up.
6. Save game
7. Uninstall Mod B
8. Save Game
9. Install MOD C and play it for the xp points and leveling up.
10. Save Game

 

 

Now obviously MOD C could be left installed, but it is still taking up resources and I will gain nothing else from it once the quests have been played.  So if I can just keep doing clean saves I could download every quest mod I can find that doesnt alter gameplay que no?

 

[HeyYou]

Yep, that will work just fine. of course, any items, etc, you collect from that mod will disappear.... which could cause issues.....

[scottrill2]

New Question,

 

 

I have about 60 mods installed so far, still havent gotten to the overhauls and QTP.  So far FPS's are staying up around 60 when roaming and high 30's during heavy combat.

 

 

What kind of average FPS hit does QTP and FCOM cause?

 

 

 

I have to say, so far I am loving the mods I got installed already lol  But if I will take too big of a hit with FCOM etc, I will have to go back and uninstall some crap.

 

 

So one final question:

 

 

How forgiving is Oblivion when it comes to drops in FPS?

 

 

 

I know like with Crysis II, the game really started to suffer on my machine at anything below 40 FPS.  But other games like GTA IV could fall all the way to 15 FPS but yet were still fluid with no jitteryness.

 

Now I know this question ALL depends on our PC specs.  But just in general is Oblivion forgiving of FPS drops?

 

 

***EDIT***

 

I just thought of a 3rd question.

 

 

If I do suffer too much FPS droppage, is there a way I can tell what mods are hitting me the hardest?

 

 

Sorta like task manager but for oblivion lol

Edited March 6, 2014 by scottrill2

[HeyYou]

FCOM really won't hurt your FPS. I never noticed any drops with it.

 

Texture packs can possibly beat you up. If you use the 'insane resolution' texture packs, you can expect to take a serious performance hit.

 

Oblivion is pretty good about being tolerant though, basically, anything above 15-20 is very playable.

 

Texture packs are the worst for performance. Running high values of AA, and AF are as well. I am not a real stickler about 'pretties' myself, so, since I run at 1920X1080, I have AA and AF turned off. I had to enable Vsync to cap my framerate, to avoid strange issues.

[scottrill2]

Well,

 

I don't know if I will be keeping FCOM.  I am getting massive CTD's now.  Unfortunately I found the 3 "latest" install guides I could, and they all talk about the importance of Install order and load order.  Yet all 3 have different install orders lol

 

 

They also arent very clear on what files to install like it says " Grab FCOM Convergence from the download page at TES Alliance: all three files "  

 

 

Yet the convergence download page has like 8 files, some are obvious like warcry and Bobs armory.  But without exact directions I very well could have installed the wrong file / esp etc.

 

Not a single readme in FCOM archives either ;(

 

 

 

Anyway for now my newest questions are:

 

 

1.  Is there anyway to tell Oblivion to log everything to file?

 

The Windows error messages tell me bubcus on where to look.  If I had a log file I might see a pattern or some esp file trying to load when crash occurs etc.  I have read that OBSE creates crash logs but Ill be damned if I can find one lol

 

 

 

2.  Do you all know off hand a Horse skin that is compatible with FCOM?

 

Seriously, What is with all the PURPLE horses and saddles?  My horse looks the same color as my dates dress from Junior prom back in the olden days lol

 

 

3.  Not the biggest fan of the Elven or Steel HORSE armor.  Is there a good set that anyone knows of that is FCOM compatible? 

 

 

[HeyYou]

Purple stuff is missing textures. Reinstall the mods dealing with those.

 

There is Conscribe, it logs everything in the console to a text file. Not sure that will help though.

 

Where are you getting crashes at?

[scottrill2]

Thanks HeyYou,

 

I read about Conscribe, but most things I read mentioned it isnt the best for tracking CTD's only glitches and the errors that leave the game running.

 

I have seen what you mean about purple textures when a texture is missing or dds file is bad.  This isn't like that, its a god honest purple sheen lol  Even SLOF mentions the purple sheen as why she originally made her horse textures.  Ironically, it isnt on the white stallions or the appaloosa's only on black mares which is what I prefer.

 

I have a backup, I will prolly end up trying various ones and then playing with the horses alot to see if any quirks show themselves.  Same thing with the horse armor.

 

 

As far as the crashing, I have autosave completely off.  Sometimes it is during fast travel, others while opening a door or a crate /barrel etc.  Had a few crashes here and there, but since the FCOM install it is quite frequent unfortunately.

 

I would like to keep FCOM so I will probably end up annealing each pack one at a time and then play some, see if I can narrow it down that way.

 

[scottrill2]

Another question I have,

 

 

I have been playing around with FCOM 300 Test resource.  It says it is to help simulate / test spawn points etc.  I was just wanting to chek out some of these cool new monsters added by FCOM.  But these test cells are spawning a TON of creatures.  Making my fps go down to low 20's without even having texture patches yet.

 

 

Is that how levels will spawn with FCOM?  Man I stumbled into a necromancers cave while checking out other mods I installed, only 4 spawned, but each of them summoned other crap lol and I barely was able to escape with my life lol  

 

 

I could not even escape if there was that many as in the test cell.  I noticed there isnt too many INI files for FCOM how could I change little things like that.  If possible?

[HeyYou]

Spawns are more reasonable in the world. I believe they are configurable to an extent as well. Been a while since I played with it though.

 

And yes, FCOM makes the world DANGEROUS!! Best bet is to stay close to cities/roads, and it isn't too bad, there are still surprises though.

 

Are you using wrye bash? (i am going to assume so, since your are running fcom....) The color of the little box by the mod can sometimes help ya out. Make sure everything is in good shape.

[scottrill2]

Yup on the wyre bash.

 

 

 

I have actually moved some things around and the CTD's arent quite as bad.

 

 

 

Here is a pic of wyre bash on photobucket:

 

 

http://s1154.photobucket.com/user/scottcott/media/TES/wyrebash.png.html

 

 

 

 

Now I think with the Horses and Horse Armor I will be safe if I just copy over meshes and textures correct?

 

 

 

As always, what my sig says!!

[HeyYou]

Ok, that looks good.

 

Should be safe on the horse armor thing.

 

Still getting crashes on transitions? (going thru any kind of loading screen)

[scottrill2]

Still getting CTD's but after making some of the recent changes in Wyre Bash they are way cut back.  I'd say for this heavy of a game within acceptable ranges now.

 

Found a horse armor texture I like but still has a damn purple-ish saddle knob thing.  I am firing up gimp now to blacken it lol

 

 

Tomorrow I start the last overhaul Uneccessary Violence III !!!!

 

 

Yeah my strategy PRE-fcom was to do necromancer quests for mages guild.  They send 4 mages with you as backup, so I kind hung back and let them do the heavy lifting.  Sniping an occasional poison arrow here and there lol  Then run in and loot the bodies to sell.

 

 

Well FCOM completely destroyed that plan.  4 mages and a novice go in, 5 dead people DONT come back out lol

 

 

 

But no worries, I have spent most of today riding around on horses, screwing around with this horse armor mods etc.  I have noticed a lot of raiding going on against the city gates around 1AM.

 

Quick levitation potion to get me on the stables roof, and I snipe these pricks while the imperial guards pummel them.  Then I hop down and go loot to my hearts content!!

 

 

Yep,  only have to install another 65 mods before I can play for real lol

 

 

 

Again thanks HeyYou for all the help thus far, I owe you brother!!

 

 

[HeyYou]

Happy to be of service.

 

Sounds like you are gonna have fun.

 

There was a Vampire lair on the Imperial Isle that I walked into at like 3rd level, thinking it was close to 'civilization', therefore, it should be safe.... WRONG. I snuck in, and died..... The first vampire to see me was like "whoa, what's this idiot doing here?" and whacked me dead in short order. I don't think I hit him once......

 

FCOM most certainly makes for a different playstyle than vanilla.

 

Enjoy your game!

 

Side Note: Did you happen to look at Duke Patricks' (spookyfx) combat mods for Oblivion? He has been in the SCA just this side of forever, and wrote his mods to as closely resemble 'actual' combat as he could manage. At low levels, they make life REALLY interesting, fighting multiple opponents can get you dead in a hurry with his combat geometry changes, flank/rear attacks negate shield, and some other bonuses as well.... Conjurers were my bane. Their summon would always get a shot at my back while I was trying to kill the summoner..... I would get dead. Combat got REALLY interesting. Stealth, and a bow/crossbow became my favorite playstyle.

[scottrill2]

Well problems have crept in,

 

 

So the whole time I have been modding my game I have noticed BOULDERS, ROCKS, and even TREES just *popping* into existence 200 yards down the road or so.  I assumed this was because I didn't have RAEVWD installed yet.

 

 

So now I have RAEVWD installed and from Frostcrag spire I can see IC, even Bruma it looks like.  But yet stuff is STILL pooping into existence 200 yards down the road??

 

 

Where could I start looking to fix this you think?

 

 

 

*On a side note*  I did check out  Duke Patrick's combat mods, but they apparently conflict badly with some of my others.  So only two Duke Patrick mods Im using are *NPC's sometimes miss* and his Saving Mod for clean saves.

 

 

However, it looks like Oblivion has great replay value so who knows, maybe next run through make it all realism mods or something.  Although I am loving the sheer bloodshed from UV:III and that is one that is incompatible so I dunno lol

[HeyYou]

What are your various view distance sliders set to?

 

I *think* there may be some ini settings to extend those even further, but, I don't recall just offhand. (it's been a while since I played.)

[scottrill2]

Hola HeyYou,

 

 

Distance sliders are at max.  I think I got a bead on this thing though.  Read on another post that streamline can cause weird stuff if it is fighting to keep FPS up.  Since playing with streamline ini file some of the issues are going away I think.

 

 

I still wish there was a way to see exaCTLY what mod / esp file is taking up the most resources at any one time.

 

 

I am at 195 plugins and am almost perfect in where I want to be.  FPS have taken a huge hit though, down around 20 at all times almost.  Gets a little jittery sometimes in combat, I wish I knew what mods were sucking up the most juice so I could tone them down or perhaps find a weaker alternative.

 

 

Thanks as always!!!

[HeyYou]

May want to look at your O/S, and see if you can't kill off some background processes to pick up a bit of performance. You would be amazed at the amount of useless crap windows has running.... even if it will never be used. (windows time for instance..... or wireless zero configuration on a machine without wireless capability....)

[scottrill2]

Hey HeyYou,

 

 

I keep my system pretty lean, even though I have 32GB of RAM etc I mainly use all that for Photoshop etc.  I have cpu cycles, Ram and video card to burn!!  

 

 

What sucks is I am running performance logger and my CPU is only being utilized 45%, my Video Card less than 30%, my VRAM 20%.  It's driving me mad where the bottleneck might be?  I have checked every *tweak oblivion* site out there.

 

 

 

I need a good guide for debugtext.  setdebugtext 13 shows some cool stuff, but there are some that just flash constantly, can't get em to stay still long enough to read em.

 

 

I will find the cure one way or another lol