Just installed Oblivion...

H

HackofDestruct

[H]ard|Gawd
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Jul 25, 2002
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I just got my new computer parts, put them all in, everythings working great. Except for the fact that Oblivion, the main game I was hoping to play, won't load the main menu. It'll go through the logo scenes, and then just show a black screen, which will go nowhere at all.

New computer consists of:

AMD 3500+ Venice 2.2ghz
1024mb of ddr ram
160 gig hdd
Asus motherboard with n4 chipset
EVGA Geforce 7600GT w/ 256mb of ram


Any ideas would be helpful, I've been working on it for the better part of the day. Finally giving up and asking for help.
 
That sucks. I can't think of anything obvious. Maybe post on the official TES forum ?
 
Try deleting the ini and let it make a new one? Driver issue? Reinstall?
 
I've tried all kinds of stuff. I reinstalled, I've patched, I've tried new video drivers.

Only thing I haven't tried is new sound drivers, but those are intergrated. Should I still try to find updated ones?
 
How about removing the map intro/menu video line in the ini? Probably won't do anything but may be worth a try if you are desperate.

Look for these two lines:
SMainMenuMovieIntro=
SIntroSequence=

and delete whatever is after the "=". It's actually good to do this so you don't have to skip past the screens each time you start Oblivion.
 
Right, so now it goes to a load bar, but stops right before it finishes, and won't go any further. Weird. Any ideas? I'm getting somewhere at least.
 
HackofDestruct said:
Right, so now it goes to a load bar, but stops right before it finishes, and won't go any further. Weird. Any ideas? I'm getting somewhere at least.
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Did you check the official Oblivion issue forum? I'm assuming you are using no mods?
 
I'm checking it, but I can't find anyone with the same problem. This game has so many little cracks in it. Ridiculous.
 
HackofDestruct said:
I'm checking it, but I can't find anyone with the same problem. This game has so many little cracks in it. Ridiculous.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I blame it from being a "port" from the 360. (Don't tell the 360 owners I said that!) Then again, I've also read horror stories about Morrowind. Sorry I'm not much help, I have had the problem you described but it was from conflicting mods.
 
On my system, HDR would cause the screen to go black for the 3d portion (not the UI, though, just the actual game) in Oblivion due to a game bug. Changing to Bloom+4xAA worked perfectly, though. Just a thought to toss in here :).
 
dj_2004 said:
Yeah, I blame it from being a "port" from the 360. (Don't tell the 360 owners I said that!)
Click to expand...

Work started on Oblivion long before MS handed out the first 360 developer kits. Or it was announced, even.
 
PWMK2 said:
Work started on Oblivion long before MS handed out the first 360 developer kits. Or it was announced, even.
Click to expand...

True. It was originally designed and developed as a PC game.

As far as your problems go I have no idea. It definetly has something to do with your system configuration though, since many people have no problem with it. Try checking your system and application event logs right after the game hangs. If it is hanging while loading it might be having a problem accessing a resource file, which may post to the event log.
 
Sounds like chipset issues, or something with the hard drive. 160gb is rather small (IE., old), given the other components you are using - is this maybe a hard drive imported from another system? If so, did you do a low-level format of it before switching motherboards?

It could also be a ram issue - the game loads an ENORMOUS amount of stuff into ram. 'Oblivion' was the first game that really showed me that one of my 2 sticks of OCZ had gone bad. Prime95 and SuperPI didn't really show it (they would error out, but something like 8 hours into the test), but sure enough, when playing 'Oblivion' with both sticks, it would always freeze up in loading zones. Switching to one stick fixed the problem entirely, switching to the other stick made it much worse.

Got the sticks RMA'd from OCZ, and everything is perfectly stable now.
 
Here's three things you can do:

1: If you have an old version, uprade to new Oblivion.
2: Use Tweakguides. Yes, ugo to tweakguides.com. Tweakguides helps tweak your system so that oblivion will run good. Don't worry about all the ingame tweaking crap, just go to advanced tweaking, and tweak your oblivion ini file. Do this pronto.
3. Try Oblivion Mod Manager. It gives a seperate way for loading Obivion so that mods won't screw up, but since it bypasses regular menu screen, you might be able to use it..........

Try all three. Tell us if any works.

Try all of these in order.
 
Godofdestrcution said:
Here's three things you can do:

1: If you have an old version, uprade to new Oblivion.
2: Use Tweakguides. Yes, ugo to tweakguides.com. Tweakguides helps tweak your system so that oblivion will run good. Don't worry about all the ingame tweaking crap, just go to advanced tweaking, and tweak your oblivion ini file. Do this pronto.
3. Try Oblivion Mod Manager. It gives a seperate way for loading Obivion so that mods won't screw up, but since it bypasses regular menu screen, you might be able to use it..........

Try all three. Tell us if any works.

Try all of these in order.
Click to expand...

1. He is patched.
2. Tweakguides is for performance, he can't even get into the main menu.
3. OBMM is for mods, he likely has none installed.

Your advice is good if he could get ingame, but most likely will not help his current situation.
 
Oblivion Mod Manager bypasses the first loading screen. May help.

And tweaking his pc may help too. I said to tweak because he may find a problem within his oblivion ini file and can fix it.....
 
Godofdestrcution said:
Oblivion Mod Manager bypasses the first loading screen. May help.

And tweaking his pc may help too. I said to tweak because he may find a problem within his oblivion ini file and can fix it.....
Click to expand...

He can go through the first screen (launcher).

The game should be creating his ini so I don't see how tweaking it would fix any problems; instead, I would think it may create more.

But like you said, it may help and doesn't take long to do.
 
there's no main menu because you're too late. tamriel has been overrun by daedra, and theres nothing you can to do save it.
 
dj_2004 said:
He can go through the first screen (launcher).

The game should be creating his ini so I don't see how tweaking it would fix any problems; instead, I would think it may create more.

But like you said, it may help and doesn't take long to do.
Click to expand...

Actually, that's possibly a good point. If it's bombing out creating his .ini file, it could be permissions related.

The game requires administrative rights to the 'Documents and Settings' folder - if you are running under a 'limited' or 'guest' user account, it won't work. For XP Home, that means the only option to run the game is an 'Administrator' role. (For XP Pro, you can customize permissions better, so there are more options)

Looking forward to Vista, when this type of thing won't be a problem!
 
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