The Elder Scrolls
IV: Oblivion
Version 1.2
The Update 1.2 notes apply to both the
PC
and Xbox 360 versions of Oblivion
Index:
- Known Issues and Troubleshooting
- Manual Errata and Addendum
- Performance Tuning
- System Requirements
- Update 1.2.0416 Notes
- Update 1.1 Notes(Bug, Quest & Plugin Fixes)
- Update 1.2 Notes
1. Known Issues and Troubleshooting
Installation Issue
If you repeatedly uninstall and re-install Oblivion, certain systems will display
an error message if you try to uninstall Oblivion again. To fix this, put your
Oblivion disk in and run setup.exe. This will clear up the error and you can
uninstall and reinstall the game.
Saved Games
Your saved games are located in your \My Documents\My Games\Oblivion directory.
Prior to Installing the Game
Before attempting to install Oblivion, please verify that your computer meets
system requirements.
We also recommend that you prepare your hard drive for installation by running
ScanDisk and Disk Defragmenter prior to installation. These utilities are part
of Windows® and can identify and resolve problems with your disk drive
which could hinder installation and/or playing of the game.
To launch these programs and optimize your hard disk drive:
- Open "My Computer".
- Right-click the disk drive you
wish to install the game onto (usually C:).
- Click on "Properties".
- Select the "Tools" tab.
- Click "Check Now" to
launch Scandisk.
- When Scandisk has completed, follow steps 1-3
and click "Defragment
Now" to launch Disk Defragmenter.
Note that defragmenting your disk drive can take a long time. It's
a good idea to start disk defragmenter and let it run overnight.
ATI Crossfire
Performance on systems using ATI Crossfire will be reduced until ATI releases
an updated driver with Oblivion listed as a Crossfire Compatible game.
Error messages when launching Oblivion:
This will appear as a missing dll error similar to "d3dx9_27.dll
not found."
This can be corrected by Exploring the Oblivion DVD. On the disk
there is a folder named DXREDIST. Open the folder and run the DXSETUP.exe.
This will install the version of DirectX required to run Oblivion.
Unable to make new saves
If the Tab key is pressed while entering a name during character creation,
a problem may occur when the game goes to write a save to the save location.
This is because the name of the character is included in the name of the
save file used in Windows. This is most commonly a result of attempting to
Alt-Tab out of the application during name entry. If this occurs, autosaves
and quicksaves will continue to function correctly, but saves made through
the menu will not. The issue will be fixed if the Tab is deleted when renaming
the character before exiting the sewer at the end of the character generation.
The following may also be of assistance if the character has
progressed beyond character generation:
The player name can be changed through the console by pressing
the ` (tilde) key, and entering the following: player.SetActorFullName "Player
Name" (where Player Name = the name of the character). Press
RETURN, and then exit the console by pressing the tilde again.
Also, saves can be made through the console by pressing the `
(tilde) key, and entering the following: save filename (where filename
= the name of the save that you would like to make). Press RETURN,
and then exit the console by pressing the tilde again.
Input Problems
Keyboard input problems could be the result of a control peripheral. Editting
the Oblivion.ini may correct this issue. The Oblivion.ini file is located in
the My Documents\My Games\Oblivion directory. In the [Controls] section, change
the “bUse Joystick=1” setting to “bUse Joystick=0” or
simply disconnect the peripheral. Make sure the settings are saved. Note, changes
to the Oblivion.ini file will not be saved if Oblivion in running when the
changes are made.
Frequent Crashing possibly due to old system file
Some users may experience frequent crashing due to an older system file. These
crashes may be attributed to the 'mpeg2dmx.ax' file. Simply renaming the
file to "mpeg2dmx.ax.old" may correct this issue.
Frequent Crashing possibly due to connected HP printer
A program related to HP printers may cause Oblivion to crash. Before running
Oblivion: Press Ctr-Alt-Del to bring up the task manager. Go to the Processes
Tab. Right click on any process starting with the letters HP and select End.
Running Oblivion at this point may have this issue corrected. Note: The PC
will need to be restarted to reinitialize printing or imaging.
"FF" icons in the system tray
Some users have reported having numerous "FF" icons in their taskbar
during or after playing Oblivion. These icons are from a seperate video/audio
decoder you may have installed in the past called "FFDShow." This
program is processing the sound files for Oblivion, which some users have reported
slows down the game, and can leave the icons in their system tray. Simply moving
the mouse over those icons will get rid of them after you stop playing Oblivion.
Uninstalling FFDShow can fix this, but it is NOT necessary. You can follow
the steps below to tell FFDShow not to handle sound for Oblivion.
Instructions for disabling the FFDShow for Oblivion without fully
removing it:
- Click Start
- Click "All Programs" (or just Programs,
depending on the version of Windows, whether they're using "classic," etc.)
- Go
to the ffdshow folder.
- Click "Audio decoder configuration."
- In the left hand pane, click "Info & debug." This
is the second entry in the list.
- In the right hand pane, near
the bottom, find a check box labelled "Don't use ffdshow
in:"
- Check that box, and in the text box underneath (it lights
up when you check the check box), add "oblivion.exe" (don't
include the quotes). If there is already something in that box,
put a semi-colon ( ; ) after what's already there, and oblivion.exe
after that. Do NOT use spaces, since ffdshow will think that's
part of the filename. A valid entry would be "explorer.exe;oblivion.exe" (without
quotes).
- Finally, click "Ok" and start Oblivion.
Game Pad Functionality
Although the PC version of Oblivion handles best when played with
a keyboard and mouse, it is possible to play the game with an assortment
of game pads as well. Due to the variance in these game pads, it
may be necessary to make a few changes to the Oblivion.ini file
located in My Documents\My Games\Oblivion. Below is a list of the
settings that can be changed to make a Xbox 360 controller attached
to a PC, function better with Oblivion. It should be noted however,
that because the PC version of the game was optimized to play with
a keyboard and mouse, the experience will NOT be the same, as using
a 360 controller on the Xbox 360 version of the game. Additionally,
these settings can be applied to other game pads, but the values
represented may need to be tweaked further. Finally, the mapping
of the buttons will need to be determined when entering the game,
and can be changed in Options - Controls, from the Main Menu -
Do NOT map the directional controls (Forward, Backward, Left, Right),
as this will overwrite certain changes made in the Oblivion.ini
file.
These are the default settings in the Oblivion.ini:
;X = 1, Y = 2, Z = 3, XRot = 4, YRot = 5, ZRot = 6
iJoystickMoveFrontBack=2
iJoystickMoveLeftRight=1
fJoystickMoveFBMult=1.0000
fJoystickMoveLRMult=1.0000
iJoystickLookUpDown=6
iJoystickLookLeftRight=3
fJoystickLookUDMult=0.0020
fJoystickLookLRMult=0.0020
Change to these values to get better functionality from a 360
game pad connected to a PC.
;X = 1, Y = 2, Z = 3, XRot = 4, YRot = 5, ZRot = 6
iJoystickMoveFrontBack=2
iJoystickMoveLeftRight=1
fJoystickMoveFBMult=2.0000
fJoystickMoveLRMult=2.0000
iJoystickLookUpDown=5
iJoystickLookLeftRight=4
fJoystickLookUDMult=0.7500
fJoystickLookLRMult=0.7500
Make sure the settings are saved. Note, changes to the Oblivion.ini
file will not be saved if Oblivion is running when the changes
are made.
Updated Oblivion Launcher
The updated launcher now includes options for changing your auto
detect settings for Video Quality. The presents are Very Low,
Low, Medium, High and Ultra High. If you select Reset to Defaults,
it will restart the auto detect and offer the best settings for
your system.
2. Manual Errata and Addendum
New Quick Keys. Press F1 - F4 to access your Journal and Stats
menu
F1 - Stats
F2 - Inventory Menu
F3 - Magic Menu
F4 - Maps and Quests
Page 20 states the Governing Attribute for Block is Agility.
It should be Endurance.
3. Performance Tuning
There are several things you can do to increase game performance.
- Make sure you have no other programs running in the background.
- Lower the game resolution. The game runs faster at 640x480
and 800x600.
- Go to your Options menu and select Video. Try the following
options to improve performance: Set View Distance as low as possible.
Your framerate and load times will improve but you will not be
able to view as far.
- Set Tree, Actor, Item and Object Fade as low as possible.
This will cause certain objects in the world to fade away sooner.
This
will increase your framerate but degrade visual quality.
- Set Texture Size to Medium or Small. Textures on objects
will not appear as sharp when this setting is reduced. This will
increase
your framerate but degrade visual quality.
- Set Grass slider as low as possible. This will cause less
grass to be displayed around your character. This will increase
your
framerate but you will see less grass displayed.
- Set Distant LOD to OFF. This will reduce your view distance,
but your framerate and load times will improve.
- Set Distant Buildings to OFF. You will not see cities or
the Imperial City in the distant landscape but your framerate
and load
times will improve.
- Set Distant Trees to OFF. You will not see trees in the distant
landscape but your framerate and load times will improve.
- Set Interior Shadows as low as possible. This will decrease
the number of characters that cast shadows while you are in
interiors, improving your framerate.
- Set Exterior Shadows as low as possible. This will decrease
the number of characters that cast shadows while you are in
exteriors, improving your framerate.
- Set Self Shadows to OFF. The Player and other characters
will no longer cast shadows on themselves, but will still cast
shadows
on the environment. This will improve your framerate.
- Set Grass Shadows to OFF. Shadows will no longer display
on grass. This will improve your framerate.
- Set Tree Canopy Shadows to OFF. The forests will no longer
cast shadows on the landscape, improving your framerate.
- Set Shadow Filtering as low as possible or off. This will
reduce the amount of softening the shadows receive, but increase
framerate.
- Set Specular Light as low as possible. This will cause objects
to lose their shininess at lower distances, improving your
framerate.
- Set HDR Lighting to OFF. This will increase your framerate
but degrade visual quality.
- Use Bloom lighting instead of HDR, or turn Bloom off. Bloom
is a less intensive version of HDR. Turning it off will improve
framerate but degrade visual quality.
- Make sure Water Detail is set to Normal. High detail water
will decrease your framerate.
- Set Water Reflections and Ripples to OFF. This will increase
your framerate while you are near water, but the water will not
show reflections or react to objects interacting with it.
- Set Window Reflections to Off. This will remove the subtle
reflections from windows but improve framerate.
- Set Blood Decals to Medium or Low. At Medium, decals do not
get applied to characters, only landscape. At Low, no decals
get applied at all. These will increase your framerate in combat
situations.
- Turn anti-aliasing down or off. This will degrade overall
visual quality but improve your framerate.
- Turn off music
The music is mp3 format and can slow the game down.
4. System Requirements
Minimum System Requirements:
Windows XP
512MB System RAM
2 Ghz Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent processor
8x DVD-ROM Drive
4.6 GB free hard disk space
DirectX 9.0c (included)
128MB Direct3D Compatible Video card
and DirectX 9.0 compatible driver
DirectX 8.1 Compatible Sound
Card
Keyboard, Mouse
Recommended System
Requirements:
3.0 Ghz Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent
processor
1 GB System RAM
ATI X800 series, Nvidia GeForce 6800 series,
or higher video
card
Supported Video Card Chipsets:
ATI X1900 series
ATI X1800 series
ATI X1600 series
ATI X1300 series
ATI X850 series
ATI x800 series
ATI x700 series
ATI x600 series
ATI Radeon 9800 series
ATI Radeon 9700 series
ATI Radeon 9600 series
ATI Radeon 9500 series
NVIDIA Geforce 7800 series
NVIDIA GeForce 6800 series
NVIDIA GeForce 6600 series
NVIDIA GeForce 6200 series
NVIDIA GeForce FX series
VIDEO
Regardless of your video card, make sure to download the latest
drivers from your manufacturer.
INPUT
ALT+TAB may cause some game instability with some hardware configurations
and is not advised.
5. Update 1.2.0416 Notes
Bug Fixes
Fixed a crash caused by bad form IDs
Fixes an issue where the game would try to use a form IDs that was either restricted or not available yet.
Fixed an issue where form IDs were not being marked as free properly, causing objects to disappear in game.
6. Update 1.1 Notes (PC and Xbox 360)
Bug Fixes
Fixed an issue with falling through collision in Fort Wooden Hand.
Fixed issue with remapping controls in French, German, Italian
and Spanish versions.
Fixed issue with some shadows not lining up.
Going to jail while equipped with bound armor or weapons no longer
crashes the game.
Fixed issue with bound weapons not dispelling properly after dismounting
a horse.
Fixed issue with player shadow being delayed after fast travel.
Fixed infinite gold issue on some dead NPCs.
Fixed issue with disease resistences that made it impossible to
contract vampirism under certain circumstances.
Fixed an issue where occasionally skills would not increase properly
after you received an increase in a way other than skill uses like
as a quest reward.
Fixed issue where spells, powers and lesser powers were being
improperly resisted when the player cast them on themselves.
Fixed an issue where creatures and NPCs would not go into combat
properly after being hit by a projectile.
Fixed an issue with duplicating items and unequiping the bow.
Fixed an exploit that allowed you to sell equipped items to a
vendor more than once while on a horse.
Fixed an issue with items reappearing in dead bodies after saving
and reloading.
Fixed crash when NPC with active light spell on them unloaded
from memory.
New Very Low Quality graphic setting available under Launcher
options with improved support for low end FX cards (5700 and lower).
To use this setting, go to the Launcher, select Options and click
Reset to Defaults to allow the auto detect to check your system.
Implemented SLI-mode optimizations on Nvidia cards, and Crossfire
optimizations for ATI cards.
Fixed a crash issue where loading a save would crash if the player
had extra data on them.
Fixed an issue for LOD art for city was not unloading quickly
enough when exiting an interior.
Fixed an issue where Aylied doors would not open when activated
in Miscarcand.
Quest Fixes
If you are permanently expelled from Mages Guild, you can now
go back into the Mages Guild buildings.
In The Siren's Deception, the door to Gweden farmhouse is prevented
from locking too soon if player exits too quickly.
In the Light the Dragonfires quest, player controls are prevented
from being locked if player accidentally hits Ocato during the
final battle in the Imperial Palace.
In the Confront the King quest, fixed an issue where Mannimarco
would occasionally stop fighting the player while the player's
controls are locked.
In Corruption and Conscience, fixed an issue if player got to
Llevana's house earlier than expected and she would initiate trespass
behavior rather than move the quest forward.
In Theranis' Mistake, it is no longer possible to get multiple
copies of Ahdarji's ring. Also, fixed an issue with player receiving
Blood Price topic too early in the quest.
In the Leyawiin Recommendation quest, it is no longer possible
to bypass Kalthar in Fort Blueblood.
In Revenge Served Cold, Corrick will now recognize when player
had the jade amulet in their inventory if No Stone Unturned quest
had been previously completed.
In Infiltration, player can no longer kill Blackwood Company members
and stop progress in Fighter's Guild.
In Dark Brotherhood, if you kill fellow members and get kicked
out of the guild, you can no longer continue to progress in the
questline until you redeem yourself and get back in.
In The Master's Son, the player now properly receives their reward
when completing the quest.
In Caught in the Hunt, fixed an issue where NPCs would not go
into combat properly.
In the Cheydinhal Recommendation quest, fixed an issue where Vidkun's
body would disappear if you left the well.
Getting disqualified from the first Arena match no longer blocks
you from further matches.
In Till Death Do They Part, the Count no longer rewards player
with gold more than once. Fixed an issue with not receiving the
Vampire Ashes topic if the player picked up vampire ashes before
getting the quest. Fixed issue where Bloodgrass topic was not added
if player finished the Main Quest before starting quest. Hal-Liurz
will now follow player properly when asked about the cure.
In Mystery and Harlun's Watch, the dead body you are supposed
to find will no longer disappear from Swampy Cave if you cleared
out the dungeon before starting the quest.
In Blood of the Daedra, Martin will now recognize Spellbreaker
as a Daedric artifact.
In When the Vow Breaks, additional instance of Rockshatter are
now prevented from appearing on Bjalfi's dead corpse after saving
and reloading.
In Paranoia, game no longer crashes when Bernadette Peneles exits
the city while you are following her.
For Clavicus Vile quest, fixed crash with giving or refusing to
give Umbra to Clavicus Vile.
Plugin Fixes
Fixed issue with saving your game while an actor is in a new interior
cell created in a plugin, and re-loading the save game without
the plugin.
Fixed issue with loading previous saves with plugin that contains
new base objects that are containers, NPCs and creatures.
Fixed issue with linked pathpoints scripted to switch on/off that
are modified by a plugin.
NPC's companions no longer disappear when they fast travel with
player to an exterior cell that is modified by a plugin.
New scripted spell effects created in a plugin now work properly.
7. Update 1.2 Notes
New Features
10 new Xbox 360 Achievements for Shivering Isles
Bug Fixes
Improved LOD visual quality for landscape.
Optimizations to file loading system.
Taking items from dead owned creatures is no longer a crime.
Fixed issue where lock/unlocked states on doors would occasionally be stored incorrectly in a save game.
NPCs no longer pop into view after player cancels out from the Wait menu.
Fixed memory leak with sitting in a chair multiple times.
The reflection from the environment map in windows now displays properly.
Fixed an issue where player is still in combat even though the creature is no longer present.
Player can no longer fast travel when paralyzed.
Fixed infinite dialogue loop when arrested by guards who have high disposition to you.
Fixed issue where guards would not properly report crime if they were pickpocketed.
Summoned creatures properly fade away when they are created from a leveled list.
Fixed issue where stolen items would lose their stolen status if the player character was female.
Fixed crash that would occur with NPCs loading in with arrows.
Pickup sound effects no longer play during the loading screen.
If you attack a creature owned by you, crime is no longer reported.
Fixed issue with LOD not loading in properly when entering/exiting worldspaces.
Fixed infinite soul gems exploit by dropping and picking up stacked soul gems.
Fixed a crash with summoning a creature and immediately exiting the cell.
Fixed a crash with stealing an object, exiting and immediately
re-entering an interior.
Fixed issue where an NPC would occasionally not perform the proper idle animation.
Fixed an occasional crash when a creature loses detection on the player.
Fixed an occasional crash with NPCs who were not loaded going into combat.
Quest Fixes
In Light the Dragonfires, fixed issue where improper journal would appear if you closed an Oblivion gate.
In Till Death do They Part, fixed an issue where Melisande would not properly give you Cure Vampirism potion. |