First off, some useful links and utilities:

The Bethesda Oblivion Mods forum, this is where you'll want to go for all the latest news and updates on the mountains of unofficial content we all take for granted. If I don't have the answer you're looking for, chances are one of the many people here do.

Oblivion Mod Manager, I don't think I need to explain this one.

Better Oblivion Sorting Software, this is a well maintained utility that reads the mods you have installed and suggests the best order to load them in to avoid the inevitable conflicts. This is another must-have.

Wrye Bash, the Swiss army knife of Oblivion modding, and I swear by it. It's intimidating at first, but surprisingly easy to use once you figure out how it works. Finally, Once you figure out BAIN, you will never need to worry about installation problems again.

Wrye Bash Pictorial Guide for Newbies, if you are just starting Bash, it can be very easy to get lost in how much it does. This will help you get on the right foot.

TES4Edit, a very important tool. Most of its features don't concern the end user, but its ability to clean up dirty and unneeded edits in a plugin is invaluable.

TES4Edit Cleaning Guide at the TESCS Wiki. It contains a comprehensive list of mods that need to be cleaned, mods that are already clean, and mods that should not be cleaned, as well as a comprehensive guide on how to actually do it.

So, it seems I have become "Mr. Modder" around these here parts, so I've decided to open this little thread if you have any questions for me. Questions about making modding easier for yourself, how to use a specific tool, if you've encountered a rather irksome problem and can't figure out what to do about it, or if you want to make your game perform a bit better. I will be the first to admit I'm not a professional modder, as I don't make my own mods. I do have the experience needed to maintain a heavy load order with minimal issues, as well as understanding a few advanced tricks to squeeze every last drop of performance out of the game, so I do know what I'm talking about.

If anyone has any doubts, this is my load order:



So with that, ask away.

Thanks for starting this thread TK. You might be sick of me before this is through, but hopefully you won't regret starting it. I just looked at your mod list/load order. WOW! 11 .esm files to start the list. I am not looking to change the game to that extent. However, I am looking to make it more immersive than what I have now. That is the ultimate goal. Of the bold printed utilities that you have listed, I only have OBMM. I have stayed away from Wrye Bash and BAIN, and wasn't aware of BOSS (other than seeing it mentioned in passing). I had not heard of TES4Edit until this post. So, before I (we) embark on this, allow me to post my current mod list/load order -

00-Oblivion.esm
01-Cobl Main.esm
02-Unofficial Oblivion Patch.esp
03-DLCShiveringIsles.esp
04-Unofficial Shivering Isles Patch
05-SM Plugin Refurbish - SI.esp
06-Knights.esp
07-Knights - Unofficial Patch.esp
08-SM Plugin Refurbish - Knights.esp
09-Cobl Glue.esp
10-Cobl Si.esp
11-Cobl Tweaks.esp
12-Salmo the Baker, Cobl.esp
13-Real Hunger, Cobl.esp
14-Living Economy - SI.esp
15-Living Economy - Items.esp
16-Harvest[Flora].esp
17-Harvest[Flora] - Shivering Isles.esp
18-Enhanced Water v2.0 HD.esp
19-AliveWaters.esp
20-AliveWaters - Slaughterfish Addon.esp
21-RealSleepExtended.esp
22-Cyrodiil transportation network.esp
23-za_bankmod.esp
24-kuerteeGoldIsAnInventoryItem.esp
25-Chapel Tithe.esp
26-Cobl Races - Balanced.esp
27-Cobl Races.esp
28-Cobl Races TNR.esp
29-Cobl Races TNR SI.esp
30-Laesea_House_v1.0.esp
31-FormID Finder4.esp

This list is from OBMM. I have OBSE v18 and Pluggy v125. Two OMOD files - DarkUld_DarN_16_OMOD_Version-11280 and Oblivion Graphics Extender. The game runs smoothly. Before I add anything, I would like advice my current list (changes/tweaks). I don't know the code for "show/hide spoiler", so sorry about the post length.

The code for spoiler boxes is [*spoiler][*/spoiler] tags (remove the stars).

Now, Load order advice...



Living economy has been rendered obsolete by Enhanced Economy. Be sure to pick up MenuQue alongside it, because this particular modder uses it quite a bit.


If you start noticing a lot of crashing for no reason around Skingrad, you may need to turn this one off. Leave it on for now, though, because it makes every visit to Salmo a delicious experience.

Aside from running BOSS to achieve the optimal load order, those are the only things that stand out to me. Glad to see you read the readmes!

OK...so Step 1 completed! Thank you for the quick reply. Step 2 is info gathering before making changes, with the following questions...

1) - Is BOSS to be used in lieu of OBMM or in conjunction with it?

2) - Are all of the mods on your list available at TESNexus? (That way I can look them up instead of clogging this thread with questions about them.)

I am going to assume that any mod on your list will will have a dependency list, either in the readme or the mod description.

And yes...the very first thing I do is read and re-read the readmes...The first and cardinal rule of installing mods!

1. In conjunction with. Occasionally BOSS will happen across a mod it does not recognize, and you will have to sort it by hand.

2. A great deal of my mods are available on the Nexus. As for dependencies, yes, most mod authors will let you know about them. Just watch out for a few of the mods that are marked ++ or ** in my load order. Most of them are harmless, but there are a few of them (Item Interchange for one) that are not designed to be activated.

Wow, TK knows mods, and can cook too!

Thanks for starting this thread. It's so nice to have some 'in house' real expertise here. As you know, I'm hoping this summer to spend some time getting more sophisticated with my mod usage. I'm sure I'l be pestering you lots then!

Confusion here...Why would there even be a mod that is designed not to be activated? Also, if it is not too much of a pain the keester, could you tell me which mods those might be? I see that you already named "Item Exchange".

Thank you so much for starting this thread TK !!!

I said that because some mods, like Item Interchange, you will notice if you look in Bash, have 50+ dependencies. Mods like those require Wrye Bash's Bashed Patch to use, because activating those mods directly will render the game unable to start.

It's an advanced installation technique.

As for which mods to expect this to happen on, they are usually labeled as "Filter Patches." If you have a mod that has Filter Patch in its title, it's a good idea to leave it out of your load order if you don't have Bash.

When you have just downloaded a mod, unzipped it - do you copy the folders into the Bethesda/Oblivion/Data file? Or do you copy the contents inside the folders into the Bethesda/Oblivion/Data file?



If you are supposed to just copy the folders - and you have (erroneously) copied the (inside contents of the folders) and placed them in the Oblivion Data folder - and now your Oblivion Data folder is a mess of loose files that you can't place what mod they go to - many of which could have been removed by now because you no longer use them ... er ... How do you clean up your Oblivion Data File?

I have TES4Edit, but only mod .ESP's are showing up on it, and these lose items in the Data folder are not showing up as anything on it. - also, I'm really not sure what the H I'm doing with it, not sure what the H I'm supposed to be doing with it.

Since my game crashed, I've been trying to clean out all the mods I wasn't using/clean out all these loose files I don't know what mod they originally belonged to/either keep intact or re-install mods I want to use (install correctly this time)

GAAAAAH!

Actually, I do not recommend manual installation, as it tends to be extremely hard to undo those (as you very well have seemed to notice). If you are still relatively inexperienced with BAIN, your best bet would be to use Oblivion Mod Manager's OMOD installer feature. Simple packages are very easy to install via OMOD, you just need to maintain the standard Data format for the game (all folders appear as they would if you were to enter the Data folder: meshes, menus, textures, etc.) as well as the plugin, which does not go in any folder. You then open OBMM, select "Create OMOD," select the folder the mod files are in, and finally click "Create." There you go! One easy to install and uninstall OMOD package!

The downside: larger mods with multiple install options tend to require a custom script in order to install everything properly. I therefore still must recommend you take the time to learn BAIN. Believe it or not, BAIN is actually simpler than OBMM!

As for your data folder, at this point, if it's as much of a mess as you say, take note of all your esp files (if you install the Construction Set, it will mark all your ESMs and ESPs with a handy little swiss army knife icon to make your life easier), and delete anything that is not an ESM, ESP, BSA, TXT, or INI. If you are really uncertain, and you don't have a lot of mods installed, starting over is also a viable option. The base Oblivion data folder contains these files:

Folder: Music
Folder: Shaders
Folder: Textures (it only contains one, TerrainNoise.dds, but you can actually delete this entire folder, because the TerrainNoise texture is also in the BSA)
Folder: Video
Credits.TXT
Oblivion (BSA X 6+ESM)

(DLC if you have them)
DLCBattlehornCastle (BSA+ESP)
DLCFrostcrag (BSA+ESP)
DLCHorseArmor (BSA+ESP)
DLCList.TXT
DLCMehrunesRazor (ESP)
DLCOrrery (BSA+ESP)
DLCShiveringIsles (BSA X 4+ESP)
DLCSpellTomes (ESP)
DLCThievesDen (BSA+ESP)
DLCVileLair (BSA+ESP)
Knights (BSA+ESP)

This list is going to be a great help when I try to clean up the Data file!! (Thank You, Thank You!!) I have only a few mods that I am really hesitant to mess with, Kawa Khajiit is the main one of these. I ... ARGH ... accidentally deleted the original file. DesuChan has a new one out, but it is not the same ... and I really don't want to lose the Maxical I have. - THAT is the main reason I don't just un-install the whole game and start over.

I installed the latest Wrye-Bash, does it have BAIN or is that something I have to install seperately? (and I have not had time to read the "Wrye-Bash for dummies" yet - but will before I fool with it again. I do have the OBMM and the latest OBSE installed.

OBMM OMOD - GAAAAAH! URG! I ... thought I was taking a short cut by not making OMODs, thinking I may mess it up. GAAAAH! Bleah.

OBMM and OBSE don't touch anything inside the Data folder (well, OBSE sorta does, so if you have an obse folder inside your data folder, leave it alone), so you don't need to worry about messing them up.

BAIN is part of Wrye Bash, it is not a separate download. If you want to know how helpful it is, I am in the middle of a small modding project myself right now (generating landscape LOD for some mod combos) and it is SO helpful to be able to uninstall my texture packs (restoring vanilla textures) in only seconds, and without ever having to worry about messing up another mod in the process.

Now that you have mentioned this...one of my werewolf mods messed with the Oblivion music that I love so much - replaced it with something I do not like much at all. I removed the mod (or possibly just unchecked it) - but I was walking outdoors and suddenly that (bleah) new music was playing - even with the mod not activated. Has it changed my Oblivion music files permanently? If so, is there a way to restore them to their original?

Default music tracks:

Battle folder:
-battle_01 thru _08

Dungeon folder
-dungeon_01_v2 thru dungeon_05

Explore
-atmosphere_01 thru _09
-(_02 and _05 do not exist)

Public
-town_01 thru _05

Special:
-tes4title
-success
-death

Where do I look to verify I have these - and how do I reset it to the default music? (you never knew I could be so much trouble ... and I haven't messed with Wrye-Bash yet!)

They should be in the music folder, unless the werewolf mod overwrote them. In which case, the mod was shoddily packaged, as overwriting the default files is a cardinal sin of modding Oblivion.

The music in this game is just a bunch of MP3 files tossed into their various folders, so it should be easy to verify.

If they have gone missing, you'll need to reinstall the game to get them back.

I have only checked the "Battle" folder so far - and it has (1-3) Other on top, then below that the (1-8)

- but when I click on the first 3 MP3 files - nothing happens. When I click on the Bethesda MP3 files - all their battle music plays just fine.

Not sure I follow. Do you have the battle_01 through battle_08 tracks all inside, along with three extras that are titled differently?

If yes, just delete those three extra tracks, leaving only battle_01 through battle_08, and repeat that pattern in the rest of the folders.

Never mind, they are playing their sucky music now. - so do I just move them/delete them? They are def NOT Bethesda music.

Okay, what they have done is number theirs so they are chosen first. It is easy to tell which are their added ones by using your list - Thank You so much !!! You ROCK !!!!

Yup, go ahead and let Maxical give 'em an explosion!

Wait...

No, don't do that! you don't know what she'll destroy!

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to put your computer in jeopardy by suggesting that. Yeah, go ahead and delete them if you don't want them.

EDIT: Celebratory 200th post dance is in order here...

Just in case, I am moving them to a folder on my desktop and holding them till I am sure nothing is messed up by the change. If all seems okay - then I will delete them. (and what you were asking in the first post is correct.

The files looked exactly the same, but the numbering was the key. Example:

Public Folder:

town1.mp3 = Other
town_01.mp3 = Bethesda


*

Next time I am attacked by a mudcrab or am dungeon crawling and hear the familiar TES Jeremy Soule sounds I will think of you and say THANK YOU !!!! WOO HOO !!!!

Alright...I have downloaded and briefly scanned over the "Wrye Bash For Dummies" visual tutorial that was posted earlier. The thing still scares the hell out of me. But...I really want some of the mods that require it.

So...here is the first of my Q's regarding safe installation. I don't want to lose anything that I currently have...mods, saves, etc. If I copy the two game folders (the one in c:\games\Oblivion and the one in MyDocs) to a safe back-up location...you see where I am going here. What is the best safest way to get started with this?

The "Data" folder provided in Bash will not overwrite any of your mods, so don't worry about losing anything. Speaking of Bash...

*notices 291 is out*

I'm going to need to check out the new installer....

EDIT: Not too much different from last time, but with a pretty nice number of new features. I'm particularly liking the new OBSE plugin installation option.

Well I added this mod to my game:
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=2518

and it has optional creatures add-on. I would like to use them but for some reason when I activate that part of the mod and go into the game world the game crashes.

I deactivated almost every other mod I am running and it still crashes.

Any suggestions?

That download doesn't provide the extra resources you need to use that portion of the mod. Grab them here. They've been optimized for improved performance on this download. Make sure to grab the items pack, as well, if you want the extra loot.

That would be nice if they had mentioned that. The only thing I saw was the extra file needed for the optional gear add-on. Thanks!

I guess they did at the very bottom. My mistake. Thanks for the help anyways.

Well I grabbed the mesh/texture pack and applied the optimized textures you linked. If I apply the creature portion of the mod to the game while I'm inside of a building or something the game crashes as soon as I go into the open world. However if I apply it and load a game that is already in the open world, the game does not crash. What the heck is up with that?

EDIT: did a quick run around and I'm still seeing lots of "WTF?! MESH." Also crashed in like 5 mins. The conflict detector is useless because the mod overwrites its self A LOT when you use the optional files.

That's because you didn't set the BSAs up properly. The game cannot use any resources from an Archive unless you do one of two things:

1: Register the BSA in Oblivion.INI

2: Load an ESP with an identical name to the BSA

Note that it has to be an ESP file in order for that to work, not an ESM. Since the optional creatures and items for that mod come in ESM form, your best bet if you want to use it on its own is to do this:

-Open Oblivion.INI (Documents, My Games, Oblivion)
-Find the entry "sArchiveList"
-Scroll to the end add the BSAs to the list, it should look like this:

sArchiveList=ArchiveInvalidationInvalidated!.bsa, Oblivion - Meshes.bsa, (the rest of Oblivion's base resources go here), Oblivion - Misc.bsa, FraNewCrea.bsa, FraNewItems.bsa

If you don't have Archive Invalidation Invalidated, I do recommend you obtain it to fix the archive invalidation bug, but it's not absolutely necessary.

This is also the only mod I recommend toing this for, because there is a 256 character limit to the sArchiveList entry.

THANK YOU!!!!

They skimped that Oblivion.ini part in the readme. And I didn't even know it was in the Documents section. I was looking for it in C:\Programs\Bethsoft\Oblivion (when another mod made mention)

What is " Archive Invalidation Invalidated"? I found a text document in C:\Programs\Oblivion called "ArchiveInvalidation"

this is the text in it:

Textures/Armor/ImperialWatch/M/Gauntlet.dds
Textures/Creatures/Zombie/ZombieHair.dds
Textures/Dungeons/AyleidRuins/CPRailing01.dds
Textures/Plants/MiscMoth01.dds
Textures/Weapons/SilverShortSword.dds


Thanks man, you are the ModGod
(just got done reading the latest update in "Madness Helps Me Save Myself" lol)

Archiveinvalidation Invalidated!

It's a form of Archive Invalidation called BSA Redirection, which essentially tricks Oblivion into using its bugged automated Archive Invalidation technique on the wrong BSA, allowing for file dates to properly supersede the archives like they did in Morrowind.

It needs to be first because I noticed that the linked installer actually places the BSA's registration after the Meshes BSA, which is not a good place for it to be. You want for that dummy BSA to be the very first one Oblivion sees. I know this because I am now solely using BSA Redirection myself and have absolutely zero problems with my replacers not showing up. No more archive invalidation hassles for me!

(In case you are wondering, that was my endorsement for using BSA Redirection as your primary Archive Invalidation technique)

Ok this isn't a pressing problem, it's just annoying. Some of the mods I have add NPCs to the game. Some of them have extremely weird looking eyes. The textures of the pupil and iris are not in the correct place on the eye. I'll upload a pic if you don't know what I mean. Not all mod added NPCs are affected though. I'm wondering if the Cosmetic Compilation Omod is causing this. I do not want to remove it from my game because my current character relies on this mod.

That's why you don't want to mix-and-match eye meshes and textures, it results in the rather classic googly-eyes glitch.

Post your load order so I can see if you have multiple mods installed that provide replacement eye meshes.

This is going to be lol. I'm sure I have lots of load order problems

These two mods are what's causing the problem:

7. Cosmetic compilation revived .esp
36. Eyecandy compilation .esp

You're either going to need to drop one of them or merge the changes in Bash's Bashed Patch. I would suggest dropping one, though, because I really don't recommend mixing eye resources. Try and keep only one mod in your load order altering eyes at all times unless they are using a universal eye mesh.

thanks.

I'll just deal with it because I don't know how to use Bash

*nudge nudge*

The OP has links... they can be handy.

Find any other problems with my load order? everything seems to work fine, but something would have to be seriously wrong for me to notice.

EDIT: I didn't know the eyecandy mod changed the eyes. I have no problems with standard NPCs, and the PC, just a few mod added NPCs. I see the mod added ones infrequently enough that I can ignore their Fuglyness.

I've provided the link to BOSS (Better Oblivion Sorting Software), a one-click utility which will suggest the optimal load order for you in mere seconds. Download it (it's very tiny and easy to use) and run it. That should get you what you want.

That sucker completely changed the load order lol. It's screaming at me to Bash stuff but it works fine without.

Quick bulletin on how to improve your game's performance here: today, I wish to discuss water reflections.

The pros? They make your water look nice and purdy.

The cons? It has recently come to the attention of the TES4 modding community that water reflections can provide a huge FPS hit. Here's why:

The water reflection system in this game piggybacks onto the game's Distant LOD system. If an object has a matching _far.NIF mesh (which are the low quality objects you see over long distances in this game) the game also uses that mesh for the water reflection mapping. This means that every _far.NIF mesh that is loaded into the game is being rendered twice (once for Distant LOD, once for reflection map) if you have the water reflections setting turned on.

Now, due to Oblivion's lack of occlusion culling (which is a system that prevents a game engine from rendering objects the player can't see), this means that any exterior cell that has water in it gets a reflection map rendered... even if there's only a small puddle on the ground. Every single object that is Visible When Distant, even those you could not hope to see in that tiny puddle. HEck, there are some cells in the game that have no water in them whatsoever up on ground level... but down below the landscape is a giant sea. Not only can you not even hope to see them in normal gameplay, it's impossible to even reach the water. Even they get reflections rendered!

This is an astoundingly inefficient (and dare I say lazy) method of adding reflections to the game, and many people have reported up to 20 FPS (!!!) gained just by turning reflections off. So, if you are looking to squeeze a bit of extra performance out of your game, consider removing the water reflections. The downside to this is you will lose every reflection, including the sky reflection, so the water will look rather soupy and bland, so it is your decision, and it may not be worth the trouble if you are running a lightly modded game.

Nice. I'll consider turning them off, I have had some nasty slow downs.

Can you turn it off by going to the game menu options? I have noticed my PC game slowed a lot recently before crashing - but so did my PC itself, so not sure if that is a PC issue. It has been acting up since I downloaded the latest drivers from NVidia. (overheating, bluescreening, etc.)

In the video settings, the option is Water Reflections.

As for your drivers... you may want to consider re-downloading them or rolling back.

Can I roll-back just the drivers without doing a system restore? What I found odd about the driver update is, I went to the NVidia site itself, and it did not list my card. I asked it to automatically determine my card and it came up with a driver that listed cards way newer than mine. - I don't think they gave me the correct driver, and can't figure out why they didn't have mine listed.

What card model do you have?

8600GT

Latest for XP
Latest for Vista/7 x32
Latest for Vista/7 x64

They all support the 8600GT (I checked).