Modding Oblivion

This is just something I wished to share with those of interest in Oblivion and or the mods of Oblivion. 

As much as I liked the default Oblivion, I can't say I liked it any where near what I do now... Now that I've modded the hell out of it.  I find it truly amazing that just a few mods, can make a great game even greater then I ever imagined.

The testing and researching of these mods can be quite a pain in the arse, really.  But finally, I've found a perfect, complimenting assortment of mods that really change the whole Oblivion experience.  The only mods I didn't bother with, were the mods that had to do with graphics(mostly).  I'm running the game on an average system, so I was a little bit fearful to start improving on some settings... Seeing as how they are running just fine, the way they are.

There are a ton of mods for Oblivion(and I've tried a lot of them!) but obviously there are just too many to ever get around to them all, so... Here's my magic combo...

KT custom race fix, Ren's beauty pack, Eshme's body and clothes, Valeria (companion ring version), Third person cross hair(small), Ethereal horses and lastly... OOO 1.3.

I do have some others that are compatible but I didn't want to go over kill as OOO adds a lot already.  For me, this combo is a  nice variety and adds what was missing from Oblivion... For me.  I am considering using the BT mod as my last mod, however. 

Below, in my sig, is my character for this current combo, for those that might wonder what Ren's beauty pack and Eshme's mods do...

So... What works for you?  What mods really make Oblivion what it wasn't for you?

I use an ATI X1600Pro 512MB card.  For the most part, this card really takes most of the stress on my system... Which is a P4 2GHz with 1280 Ram.

How good is the Third person camera mod?  The camera was one reason why I used the cross hairs mod and it helps a lot.

The no psychic guards sounds awesome...

The TPC mod makes it so the camera doenst "slide" around in third person. Its a must have for those who use third person view alot. I highly suggest BTmod, makes the invintory a godsend. Or you could try wz_Invintory, it makes the inventory more like Morrowinds, and it is highly custmizable as well. There is also a mod I belive called Wiseman's Reduced Textures... makes it so the game runs better on the video card without looking too bad at all. There is a better one out there though that makes the medium/low settings look closer to high with very good performance, but i cant remeber the name. Shorter grass and Low Poly grass is a must have, increases tons of performance without mkaing grass look bad. No Psycick Guards are also a must have, makes it so guards will not just randomly run up to you in the middle of nowhere for a crime. Martigen's Monster Mod is one of the best out there, adds tons of creatures, compatable with OOO, and best of all, it makes it so some creatures will be more agressive twords each other than you. Not to mention undead have a chance of regenerating in dungions, each creature+race is a different size, and has different stats depending on thier sizes, ect. Run the "LowSpawns" add-on for the mod (its included in the download) if you get bad performance on the mod or just dont like having to fight an army of Imp's of various sizes and classes every 50 feet :) There are tons more that are just great... go to http://planetelderscrolls.com and http://www.tessource.net , they have mods orginized in catergories and have TONS of them (atelast over 1000)!KorJax

Well, I tried out the 3rd person camera today and I have to agree, it does make things much nicer.  And I like playing in 3rd person, so this just made my Oblivion experience that much better, especially with the 3rd person cross hairs.

I'm definitely going to try out the BT mod but I'm unsure of the MMM mod's compatibility with OOO.  I was just looking at the features for MMM and it seems there may be some conflicts with OOO's features. (I'm gonna dig deeper on that one)  But the idea of taking on a lot more mobs at once and more of a variety sounds great.

I'm definitely looking into Wiseman's but I would love to know what the other better mod was!  Also, going to download the no psychic guards and low poly grass!  Thanks for the tips guys.

First off, the 360 version has no online mode and niether does the PC... But I did hear of a mod enabling co-op play for PC Oblivion...

Secondly, all I can say right now is try some of the mods these guys have suggested above.  Or you can try turning down some settings like shadows.  Shadows, grass, resolution and texture size play large rolls in performance.

Some of the mods are really wonky (and Gamespot seems to have incomplete versions of others, like BTMod - they don't actually have the main mod, only the addon). I can't get the LOD mod to work, since the mountains around Bruma are as hideously low-res as ever, full view distance or not. Either the instructions are wrong or I'm missing the actual mod file.

I tried the low-poly grass mod today too, and it's great. The game runs a lot smoother outside now, without the grass looking any worse.

It was kind of funny... I was by Eshme's Boutique(another mod), when I booted up for the first time with the grass mod.  I could sware that there was no difference, it actually appeared to be more grass - LOL - but then I noticed when I traveled to other places, the grass was smaller and loaded in nicely.

Yeah, I don't think this Wiseman's mod is working at all.  I have the BT mod but this one stumps me.  It tells you where to copy and paste the files but the destination it gives, just doesn't exist!!!  Oh well.

It was kind of funny... I was by Eshme's Boutique(another mod), when I booted up for the first time with the grass mod. I could sware that there was no difference, it actually appeared to be more grass - LOL - but then I noticed when I traveled to other places, the grass was smaller and loaded in nicely.

Yeah, I don't think this Wiseman's mod is working at all. I have the BT mod but this one stumps me. It tells you where to copy and paste the files but the destination it gives, just doesn't exist!!! Oh well.

Terami

I use an ATI X1600Pro 512MB card. For the most part, this card really takes most of the stress on my system... Which is a P4 2GHz with 1280 Ram.

How good is the Third person camera mod? The camera was one reason why I used the cross hairs mod and it helps a lot.

The no psychic guards sounds awesome...

Terami

[QUOTE="Terami"]

I use an ATI X1600Pro 512MB card. For the most part, this card really takes most of the stress on my system... Which is a P4 2GHz with 1280 Ram.

How good is the Third person camera mod? The camera was one reason why I used the cross hairs mod and it helps a lot.

The no psychic guards sounds awesome...

nukethegnomes

Yeah, I am running the low poly grass mod... I like it a lot.  It really helped a lot.

Thank you for the tips, I'll look into them.  I will say this though... I know my P4 is pretty much my biggest road block but this PC suprisingly runs Oblivion really well.  I just recently tried it with FRAPS and got decent results. 

I play most games in 1280x1024 but with Oblivion, I lowered it to1024x768 to bump the performance up a little.  I also dropped my shaddows to 25% but left everything else 75% to 100% with large textures.  I also haven't decided between HDR or bloom lighting as of yet... I'm still trying them out.  I also play with no AA on as I feel it makes the game look blurry and I don't like it.  Most other games I use it though, it's kind of weird lol.

Anyway, using FRAPS, I managed 15 to 20 fps with those settings in 1280x1024 and I average 20 to 25 in 1024x768.  I really can't see much of a difference in graphics between those two resolutions, oddly.  So, having said that, I think it's doing pretty darn good.  A few extra tweaks here and there may even help it more. 

Thanks again.

[QUOTE="Terami"]

I use an ATI X1600Pro 512MB card. For the most part, this card really takes most of the stress on my system... Which is a P4 2GHz with 1280 Ram.

How good is the Third person camera mod? The camera was one reason why I used the cross hairs mod and it helps a lot.

The no psychic guards sounds awesome...

nukethegnomes

Yeah, I am running the low poly grass mod... I like it a lot.  It really helped a lot.

Thank you for the tips, I'll look into them.  I will say this though... I know my P4 is pretty much my biggest road block but this PC suprisingly runs Oblivion really well.  I just recently tried it with FRAPS and got decent results. 

I play most games in 1280x1024 but with Oblivion, I lowered it to1024x768 to bump the performance up a little.  I also dropped my shaddows to 25% but left everything else 75% to 100% with large textures.  I also haven't decided between HDR or bloom lighting as of yet... I'm still trying them out.  I also play with no AA on as I feel it makes the game look blurry and I don't like it.  Most other games I use it though, it's kind of weird lol.

Anyway, using FRAPS, I managed 15 to 20 fps with those settings in 1280x1024 and I average 20 to 25 in 1024x768.  I really can't see much of a difference in graphics between those two resolutions, oddly.  So, having said that, I think it's doing pretty darn good.  A few extra tweaks here and there may even help it more. 

Thanks again.

[QUOTE="Terami"]

I use an ATI X1600Pro 512MB card. For the most part, this card really takes most of the stress on my system... Which is a P4 2GHz with 1280 Ram.

How good is the Third person camera mod? The camera was one reason why I used the cross hairs mod and it helps a lot.

The no psychic guards sounds awesome...

nukethegnomes

I shut off the indexing and found better performance all across the board... Very nice.  Thanks!

As for the ATI options, I wasn't able to find anything like that, unfortunately.

Hi all,

I want to install the following mods on oblivion,

BT Mod
Well Used Map
LOD Replacement
Natural Environments
Grass Without Tiling
ATI Chuck Patch

Ive read the Oblivion Make It Pretty Feature here on GS, but I dont understand it, so could someone please show me where to get those mods and how to install them when I have donwloaded them?

All replies would be really be appreciated,
Thanks.
Bennycal.

Oh and btw could someone please tell me where to get the No Pyscic Guards mod and how to install it?

Thanks.