Oblivion/Morrowind not working on Vista - no reason!

[Jenesis]

This has been driving me crazy all day.

Long story short, I can't get Oblivion to run. It plays the "Bethesda" intro movie and then crashes to desktop with "Oblivion has stopped working". Of course, Bethesda don't want to know (don't even get me started on their unbelievably shite customer service...).

I know that some people have gotten this game to work properly in Vista Ultimate x64. I don't know how my system is different so that it doesn't work.

Morrowind doesn't work either (have tried the same steps as with Oblivion, and it has the same error) but I'm a little more accepting of that since it's such an old game.

My specs are in the drop-down menu on the left. I have also tried (as recommended on the official Bethesda forums):

a) Installing Oblivion in Safe Mode
B ) Installing and running as Administrator
c) Installing and running in XP SP2 Compatibility mode
d) Running with Desktop Composition off
e) Running with UAC both on and off
f) Installing in Program Files rather than Program Files (x86)
g) Copying the data files from the DVD to the HDD directly
h) Using a different mouse/keyboard/monitor
i) Installing it on my XP laptop in case it was a disk error

...With the same (negative) result!

Before you all tell me to just play it on my laptop, I can't. The game will install and will run, but the hardware barely handles it and the framerate is unplayably slow even on minimum settings.

This is making me mad in particular because every single game I have works on Vista - except for Oblivion, Morrowind and Call of Cthulhu. The common factor? They are all Bethesda games.:mad:

Anyway, can anybody offer advice on this? (Apart from "Go back to XP you n00b"?)

[ChaoticBlankness]

Have you been keeping up on that latest drivers and game patches?

I've personally played Oblivion on Vista x64 with no extra steps and it worked perfectly fine for me. However I'm sure my hardware is very different from yours.

[Jenesis]

Yep, latest drivers! :( And I've tried every combination of patched/unpatched games. It's all very frustrating, especially as I built this system as a mid-to-high range gaming rig...

[ChaoticBlankness]

I have to ask, do you have any other games on this system that runs? (i.e. Is this an elderscolls 3 & 4 only issue?)

I recently updated my graphics drivers (ATi 7.7) and everything went to shit and downgraded to v7.6. According to you profile you use Nvidia, but the point still stands... be sure to try an older graphics driver too. Possibly one to two versions old will do.

[mello_newf]

I had the same problem. With mine it was the OC I had on my processor after dropping it a bit I was able to play it without a problem. It was strange because the original OC was stable and passed a stress test for over 5 hours but Oblivion had a problem with it ...

[Jenesis]

I have to ask, do you have any other games on this system that runs? (i.e. Is this an elderscolls 3 & 4 only issue?)

I recently updated my graphics drivers (ATi 7.7) and everything went to shit and downgraded to v7.6. According to you profile you use Nvidia, but the point still stands... be sure to try an older graphics driver too. Possibly one to two versions old will do.

I have many games on this system - S.T.A.L.K.E.R, F.E.A.R., Tomb Raider Anniversary and Legend, Rollercoaster Tycoon 3, World of Warcraft, Doom 3, Silent Hill 4 and The Sims 2 to name a few - and they all work apart from the Elder Scrolls games. (Also the other Bethesda game, Call of Cthulhu, doesn't work, but that's not such a huge loss ;)).

I actually first tried to install/run Oblivion when I first built this system back in May, before nVidia released the better drivers (i.e. it was one or two driver versions ago), and it didn't work then either. Grrr :banghead:

mello_newf, my system is not OCd at all, but thank you for your suggestion!

[ChaoticBlankness]

It appears that Bethesda is conspiring against you then... I would write them a very angry letter that 3 of the 3 games you own of theirs simply won't run.

Until you get it fixed I guess you'll just have to pretend your killing bandits and raiding caves.. or perhaps you wouldn't have to "pretend". ;)

*reads paper about random medieval style murders in your area* Hmmmmm.......

[Dandel]

Actually, i don't think it's Bethesda's fault, it's *cough*Microsoft's*cough* due to major changes in vista... I'd wait until the SP1 for vista comes out, because when that happens they will reduce a lot of the DRM to help fix up some of these issues.

[JC316]

I used to have this problem, it was always corrupted video drivers, on game INI. Try reinstalling the video drivers and offloading the INI file directly off from the disc.

[Ketxxx]

Go back to XP you n00b :p :D seriously though, bethesda games are known for being quite unstable. You have done a lot already to get oblivion going without success. At this stage I would be inclined to think Vista is the main culprit. In which case waiting till Vista SP1 may be all you can do. in the meantime hers some ideas shooting from the hip;

How much RAM does your system have?
Are you running OCd?
Have you updated all your drivers?
Have you verified your system is absolutely stable by running memtest etc?
Do you have oblivion patched?

[Snipe343]

Why dont you duel boot XP with Vista so you can play Oblivion and Morrowind, and here is a guide on how too. [url]http://www.pro-networks.org/forum/about88231.html(only if you know your system will run XP) read the page first

[Oliver_FF]

I've just installed Oblivion in Vista, i'm using the latest Nvidia drivers and it all works fine straight off... (without the disc ;) ) Have you tried using the compatibility modes at all?

[EviLZeD]

oblivion ran fine for me too on vista premium 64bit not sure what could be causing the problem but im currently dual booting

[Jenesis]

How much RAM does your system have?
Are you running OCd?
Have you updated all your drivers?
Have you verified your system is absolutely stable by running memtest etc?
Do you have oblivion patched?

- I have 2GB of RAM.
- Nope, no OCing.
- Yep, updated drivers to latest version.
- I can't run memtest, I try to run the floppy installer and it says it's not compatible with 64-bit systems. System seems to be stable though.
- I have tried "vanilla" Oblivion with no patches, and Oblivion with patches applied. Still the same problem.


I used to have this problem, it was always corrupted video drivers, on game INI. Try reinstalling the video drivers and offloading the INI file directly off from the disc.

What do you mean by offload the file, please?

I've just installed Oblivion in Vista, i'm using the latest Nvidia drivers and it all works fine straight off... (without the disc ;) ) Have you tried using the compatibility modes at all?

Yes, I've tried running both the setup.exe and the game exe in XP SP2 compatibility mode, still no result.