Ok...this probably serves me right because I have posted in other threads about how worry-free and smokin my GPU has been. Yesterday, I upgraded my OBSE from ver. 18 beta 6 to 19b. I also added three mods. One was Map Marker Overhaul and the other two were Kafeis Better Amulets and Kafeis Better Rings.

After doing this, I launched the game from the wrong desktop shortcut. OBSE says to use the OBSE Launcher instead of the Oblivion Launcher. Well, I launched it from the latter by mistake. The first thing that happened was the launcher set all of my video settings to the lowest possible. So in the Main Menu screen, I reset them all to my usual Ultra-High settings. Then I loaded a save.

The graphics went haywire on me. The ground level was screwed up to where low areas looked like they were in a green lake. Evrything that was visible above that was very vivid with no shadowing. It was a mess. I completely uninstalled all of the mods and reversed the upgrade to OBSE. No change...graphics still screwed. I ended up doing a System Restore (ugh...I HATE doing that!) and now everything is back to where it was before I changed my game and the graphics are fine.

What I want to know is, did all this happen because I clicked the wrong launcher, or are there issues with OBSE 19b? I suspect the former, but thought I would get some expert opinion. Thanks.

OBSE cannot play around with your video settings at all. I use it to great success myself (half my LO needs it), it's never caused me any trouble.

Also, OBSE v20 is right on the edge of being declared a stable release, so I'd suggest upgrading to OBSE v20.

I use that same OBSE, but I also use OBMM - and I always launch the game from OBMM - It is a great place to do it if you want to inspect which mods are activated .

I just dropped a shortcut to the OBSE loader onto my desktop and tagged it with the icon in Oblivion.EXE. No need to even go through a mod manager there; they see enough use by me that I don't really feel the need to launch my game through them even though I can.

So it was because I launched the game from the Oblivion Launcher instead of the OBSE Launcher? The Readme for OBSE says to always use its launcher. BTW, the Oblivion Launcher no longer resides on my desk top, to avoid history repeating itself.

I just dropped a shortcut to the OBSE loader onto my desktop...
I had done the same thing, only didn't tag it with the Oblivion.EXE icon. But I was tired and not paying attention, and clicked the wrong shortcut.

Correct. Why Oblivion decided it needed to re-determine your video hardware then I do not know, but only the launcher and the game proper have the ability to play around with the Config. Settings. OBSE cannot do anything to the Oblivion.INI file. If using OBSE, the only time you should use the launcher is if you are regenerating the INI file, and never again after that.

That's what I thought and hoped. Thanks Chef T. The guilty shortcut has been punished by bannishment to the erecycle bin...LOL.