Hi,

I'm pretty new to Oblivion (late I know ) but was really beginning to enjoy the game until this started happening. Basically, it seems to occur if I enter any new areas via a doorway (i.e. it doesn't happen if I travel between places on foot, or if I enter somewhere without it needing to load a new area). All that happens is the bottom menu (with map, health etc.) remains completely visible but everything else disappears (so the screen is 99% pitch black). It lets me open the main menu so I can get out of the game when it does this and I can still hear myself moving around, punching, changing load out, firing arrows etc. if I use the controls I just can't see anything. It's really annoying because it appears to infect load files (seems to mainly occur upon Autosave, and the autosave is always corrupt so if I play it it just appears black, but if I then load any saves close to the autosave they also black out and become corrupt :/).

It's getting really annoying because I can't just save and then enter somewhere, because if it blacks out that save also corrupts it seems, meaning I have to keep four saves running at all times and often have to go back to the earliest one losing hours of work...

I do have some mods running, mainly because there were some things that annoyed me quickly in the game. I can provide a list if needed. I'm also using the Game of the Year edition with Shivering Isles and Knights of the Nine installed, as well as the Fortress add-on content. The largest mods I'm running are OOO, the unofficial patches for Oblivion and SI and the Theif mod. Has anyone ever come across this issue before? I do have quite an old PC so could it just be hardware isn't up to the job? (although I do still meet the optimum requirements let alone the minimum ones).

Any help would be greatly appreciated, even if it is just a way to uncorrupt the blacked out save files.

My first thought was Natural Interiors, for some reason when I enter (namely the waterfront shack) my screen blacks out but will come to life shortly afterward. Do you have any lighting mods installed perhaps? Other than that suggestion, I'm at a loss but I'm new to the TES world anyway. Best of luck.

Sounds to me like you've got a nVidia graphics card. You need to install Kivan's latest patches (UOP, UOMP, & USIP). They all have the "nVidia Black Screen Fix" mod merged into them.

Load-order your mods, also. FCOM Helper + OBMM is one of the best combinations.

If you're using a 7-Series nVidia GeForce, let me know.

Thanks, I think OOO does have some lighting changes in it, not entirely sure, and I know Theif mod does.
A classic example just happened to me where I was in the Chorral chapel, had entered fine and was talking to an NPC, finished, turned right and WHAM blackout. Anyway I rotated 360 and found the door symbol popping up to move outside...shouldn't have clicked it, now my Autosave is corrupted. And so is the Quicksave I did before entering the chapel (a good two minutes prior). Luckily it seems my last full save is intact this time, but it still loses me about six minutes of play time that I will have to redo now :/

Didn't see your reply Varus. Could you explain slightly more (and yes I am running a 7 series nVidia, a 7300 GS). I know OBMM is the Mod Manager which I don't use (didn't see the point as manual installation was so easy), but FCOM? UOP? lol I sound like a complete noob

Naah, you're not a noob. Everyone starts somewhere.

OK, Kivan hangs out on the Bethesda Forum. He & Quarn have a ton of fame for making the "Unofficial Patches" that fix thousands (Yes, 1,000s) of bugs & glitches left after Bethesda issued their final Official Patch (1.2.0416).

First of all, make sure your game is Official Patched to 1.2.0416.

The UOP fixes game problems. Unofficial Oblivion Patch

The UOMP fixes any DLCs you may have. Unofficial Official Mods Patch

The USIP fixes SI bugs. Unofficial Shivering Isles Patch

On the first link for the UOP, download both the 3.0.0 Self-Installer and the 3.0.1 Hotfix Self-installer. Run them in that order.

For the UOMP, (stay with self-installers, btw) only activate the fixes for the DLCs you actually have. If you try to activate ones you don't have, you'll be in for a lot of problems.

FCOM Helper is a utility for Oblivion that will Load-order your mods based upon what they actually change within the game. FCOM Helper

Please read the Description for it closely, as there is a URL in there for you to copy & paste into your address bar so you can get the Microsoft C++ files it needs in order to run on your PC.

You run it from the Oblivion\Data folder by the .BAT file (not the .EXE!!). If you've done everything correctly, Notepad will open up with your load-order results, and then you'll notice a quick flash (text files being written to your drive).

OBMM is the Oblivion Mod Manager. A fine utility to use. OBMM Download

Self-installer again.

It needs Microsoft .NET Framework Version 2.0 to run. That should be easy enough for you to find.
(btw, after installing Microsoft .NET Framework Version 2.0, run Microsoft Update & click the "Custom" button. This is so you will see any patches or security fixes you'll need to install for it.)

You run OBMM after FCOM Helper is finished, then close it after about 10 seconds. Reason: Oblivion uses a hidden file (Plugins.txt) that lists all your DLCs & mods. It will load using the order in that file. OBMM will modify that list so it will have the FCOM Helper load-order.

Don't forget to activate the UOP, UOMP, & USIP .esp files so Oblivion will run them!

Finally, since you're using a 7-Series card (like my 7800 GTX), you'll need to go into Windows Explorer, (C:\Program Files\Bethesda Softworks\Oblivion\Data\Meshes\Dungeons) and go through all the subfolders & files inside. Look for any "Cobweb.nif" files.

Delete all of those Cobweb.nif files. Won't hurt your game. The problem is those files are basically telling your card to do something it can't (8-Series & higher). Just make sure they say "Cobweb.nif". Any .nif files other than Cobweb are OK, so leave them be.

OK well I think I did everything My only problem is, I had already installed the UOM and USIP and not sure I chose to fix the nvidia blackout problem. Is there any way I can change this, or should I reinstall them?

Oh, and kudos to you

In fact come to think about it was only after installing UOM I got this problem...

EDIT: just found another report online where UOM actually causes this problem. Hopefully everything I've done will fix it but if not, bye bye UOM

Oh, no! If you remove the UOP, then you will allow 1,600 bugs back into Oblivion!

That's why I mentioned for you to install the 3.0.1 Hotfix. It has the nVidia Black Screen Fix inside.

As Far as the UOMP goes, you can uncheck any of the .esp files on your DLCs, but again, you're letting bugs back into Oblivion.

You say UOM, but which is it? UOP, or UOMP?

I would ask that you give it one more shot. Go to TESNexus, log-in, and go to one of Kivan's fixes. Select "Contact the Author", and write to him. He's good about answering. The UOMP has the black screen also.

OK, there is one more thing you can do. Wrye Bash has a "nVidia Fog Fix" for mods that change interior cells. Wrye Bash needs both WxPython & Python 2.5 to run.

Did you delete all of those Cobweb.nif files?

Oh, and yes, you can do a reinstall.

OK well I installed the nVidia Black out patch/fix on top of the UOP et al. and I haven't had any more problems. Yes I did delete the cobwebs (About 9 of them in total). and thanks once more for all your help

Welcome. Glad I could help, and I'm even more glad your game is running OK.

Nice move on installing the mod on top of the UOP. I haven't needed to do that as of yet, because all of the black screen locations I had were fixed by the UOP & UOMP. But I'll keep that in mind if I run into any more.

**knocks on wood** I hope I never find any more black screens.

Hmm, well I just installed some more Mods largely to pre-empt a new GPU upgrade that should allow me to boost some settings and guess what's back
Interestingly it very definitely occurs when ScreenEffects loads. Odd though that even if I untick it in the Mod Manager, still getting the problem :/ I only have it loaded for the Enhanced Weather mod which I do really want but hey ho, if its causing this level of problem...

As I mentioned before, you can download & install WxPython, Python, and Wrye Bash 193. Wrye Bash has a "nVidia Fog Fix" that you can run on mods that change interior cells. It resets the Fog so it won't cause black screens.

Wrye Bash 193

I haven't yet had to fix any Fog settings. You might if you want to stay with environmental mods.

Speaking of upgrades, there's a new graphics driver at nVidia for 32-bit XP (don't know about Vista, don't have any use for it myself).

nVidia 7-Series driver for XP 32-bit

Oh well seems I can't give you any more Kudos though would if I could yet another superb answer Thank you!

You're welcome.

I just got lucky, you asked a question I knew the answer to. Kivan helped me out on black screens, so I passed it forward.

I had the black screen bug the other day along with stuttering and texture warping (Khajiit tails stretching off into the middle of nowhere) I tried the Nvidia black screen fix, Which I am told only fixes vanilla oblivion cells and interiors But a few mods I had were experiencing the same problem, I found a topic that said to use wyre bash to change the fog settings on the new mods, Which to be honest I couldn't be bothered to use as evrytime I installed a new mod I would have to update the mod to remove the bug. I decided it was down to a persistant bug in nvidia's drivers that they havn't fixed. I am using a Nvidia gforce 8800 GT, I had the Latest drivers which didnt seem to help, Neither did any earlier ones, Game still stutered on full settings even though I knew it shouldn't. So yesterday I remembered when I had Ati cards I never used the official drivers I always used the omega tweaked Versions. So I went ahead and got the omega versions of the nvidia drivers and low and behold no more stuttering, Higher framerate with full graphics settings and no more texture warping or black screen bugs.

Warning tho, These are not official drivers and as such are not supported by nvidia. In the time I have used them I have never had any problems and they have never damaged whichever card I had in at the time, Personaly it has made my gaming experience much smoother and more fun.

This is just another avenue to explore as well as the ones mentioned here, If you are fine with using unofficial drivers I suggest you check out the site http://www.omegadrivers.net/

I'll stick with nVidia drivers. Mine work fine, since I have all of the Unofficial Patches installed (nVidia Black Screen Fix merged into all of them), plus the separate mod further down in the load-order.

Besides, nVidia always posts Beta Drivers after a WHQL Driver is posted.

Well I too, have also suffered from some of the issues listed here, thanks for the link to the omega drivers, I am going to give this a try as well. (elongated tails and spikes going off into the distance).

There is no one correct solution to this type of problem, but it is specific to your rig. There is no need to argue which is better as that is only determined by the one with the problem and the one that is best for one may not be the solution for another.

A driver may correct the issue and is easily rolled back or changed, but the offering of his experience may provide assistance to another with a like problem.

I once had a problem with a dirty registry that caused the game to be unplayable, but the indications I got from testing and analyzing was a bad vid card.

Buddah

I have been making my own mod recently and I have found that the omega drivers only seem to fix vanilla oblivion interiors and not modded interiors, No idea why, although the stuttering and texture warping has been fixed and\or improved significantly.

I still had to set the fog near value to 0.0001 to stop the bug from occuring in my mod.