Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Tweak Guide
[Page 4] Patches & Mods
Official Patch
Oblivion is such an incredibly complex and detailed game, it is inevitable that Bethesda will release a patch for it, if not several, over its lifetime. Morrowind received two official patches during its first year, primarily because of bugs and glitches with quests. Oblivion users have also reported that there are several quest glitches which will require patching. For the moment however, no patch is available, but Bethesda has said it is working on one, and as soon as it is released you will find full details of it on this page.
Importantly, I would recommend that you keep multiple save games as you progress through the game, so that if a patch is released which resolves a major quest bug, you can restore to a point before you started that particular quest and retry it for example. While patches are usually designed not to break quests, there is no guarantee that this won't happen, so better to be safe than to have to redo hours and hours of work from a very old saved game - save often and keep many different saved points.
No-CD Patch
Bethesda have taken a major step in the fight against stupid, intrusive copy protection systems by not using troublesome protection software such as SecuROM or StarForce on Oblivion. These copy protection systems cause many problems and performance issues on most PCs, however fortunately Oblivion avoids these and simply has a basic DVD check in place. I can't provide you with the details of how to obtain a No-DVD patch for Oblivion for legal reasons, but I can say that keeping the disc in the drive does not impact on your performance at all.
Furthermore, I want to stress that since Oblivion is arguably one of the best PC games available to date, noone should have any excuse for pirating this game. If you can afford a PC, and the game is available in your country, you can afford this game. A lot of people constantly whine about SecuROM or StarForce, but here we have a major games studio which has taken the gamble of not using such a restrictive protection system on such an amazing game - let's prove that they did not make a commercial mistake. Purchase a legitimate copy of the game as it will give you literally hundreds of hours of amazing gameplay, and given the way it can scale upwards, it will remain replayable for at least the next couple of years, ready to increase the eye candy for that next new machine or hardware upgrade you undertake.
Mods
One of the things which really makes the Elder Scrolls games popular is the way in which Morrowind, and now Oblivion, accommodate official and user-made modifications, or 'Mods' for short. These mods can add new areas to the game, new dungeons, new features, new objects, and entirely new storylines/quests. Mods mean that Oblivion, like Morrowind before it, has almost limitless gameplay potential.
If you're interested in developing mods for Oblivion, or altering any of the Oblivion files to add your own customizations or game world adjustments, you can download the free TES Construction Set (3.6MB), and then refer to the TES CS Wiki, where there is a range of information on how to use the construction set. Since it's a Wiki, you can even add your own information to it, to make it an excellent resource for all Oblivion modders.
If you're not in the mood to make any mods yourself, well then as you might expect Oblivion is already stirring up a lot of excellent mod action. Check these places for mods you can download:
Official Elder Scrolls Mods forum
Official Elder Scrolls Site Links
Highly Recommended Mods
The following are mods I highly recommend that you install. These are mods I have installed on my own system, and are safe and effective. From time to time I will add to this list of 'must-have' mods:
Landscape LOD Replacement (21MB) - This mod replaces all the distant blurry LOD landscapes with better looking higher resolution textures. This means you don't have to use the uGridsToLoad command, and hence you won't experience any major performance reductions or visual glitches. More details here.
Landscape LOD Replacement (Border Regions) (42MB) - By the same author as the mod above, this mod fixes all the blurry landscapes from the border regions as well. More details here.
LOD Normal Map Replacement (84 MB) - This mod replaces all the normal maps for distant land - basically it improves the shadows in all distant terrain, and is a great complement to the Landscape LOD Replacement mods further above.
Note: These LOD replacement mods will not work properly if you have certain optimizations enabled in your graphics card control panel - See 'Graphics Control Panel Settings' under the Neat Stuff & Conclusion section of this guide for details.
Load Message Mod (3KB) - This simple mod removes the made-for-console 'Loading Area' prompt, and other unnecessary text prompts.
I'm aware that there are plenty of other mods out there at the moment, however the list above will only contain those mods I consider "essential" and would personally install on my system due to safety and compatibility reasons. Feedback on some of the other mods indicates that they can have unusual effects on the game, including visual glitches and even crashes, so I will only provide the "safe" must-have mods here. Make sure to check out the Mod sites further above yourself to see what else is out there if you're after a particular modification for Oblivion.
Installing Mods
Installation instructions for each mod are usually included with the mod itself in a Readme.txt file. Where instructions may not be provided (perhaps a sign the mod isn't very professional), the procedure typically involves extracting the contents of the mod archive into your \Program Files\Bethesda Softworks\Oblivion\Data directory (and subdirectories as required), then using the Oblivion Launcher, selecting 'Data Files' and ticking the mod from the listing shown there. Note that you should make sure to run Defrag after installing larger mods to reduce stuttering in the game.
Be careful though, not all modders are experts, and sometimes installing a mod can bring with it odd effects or unexpected problems down the track. Choose mods carefully based on lots of user feedback and don't install many different mods at once - some are incompatible with each other. A badly installed mod can thoroughly ruin your saved games, so once again make sure to keep plenty of save points before installing a mod. The mods I recommend above are all proven to be relatively safe and thus I can recommend them for you to install. I do want to urge you though not to go nuts with mods.
The next section starts our look at the Oblivion In-Game settings in detail.
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