Oblivion first time modded or vanilla

[Valdetiosi]

but after 10 hours or so it's been very stable

It's Russian Roulette with me, since sometimes the game is nice, sometimes it wants to crap on me every other minute.
I'm playing with necessary mods now, rather than add fluff as I am afraid to trigger the bomb.

 

[Funposter]

but after 10 hours or so it's been very stable

It's Russian Roulette with me, since sometimes the game is nice, sometimes it wants to crap on me every other minute.
I'm playing with necessary mods now, rather than add fluff as I am afraid to trigger the bomb.

We'll see how it goes. I remember when I did this a couple of years ago and everything seemed perfect until I went into an Oblivion Gate and the Oblivion weather just...never went away. No matter what I did. Ruined a 15 hour save.

 

[BruceVC]

Looks nice, though I myself stopped giving shit about graphics mods and just went with Upscaled textures and OR.
So mod load order for me is like 20 plugins. Mainly its because Maskar's Overhaul does so much already I don't feel I need any other mod to go with it. It's the overhaul that gives the content to the game that it lacks, but without having multiple mods installed, just one package.

I could probably cut my load order in half and barely notice tbqh, which is usually the way that things go with modding. You have 5-10 plugins doing all of the heavy lifting and then a bunch of minor additions to fill in the gaps. MOO increases enemy variety a lot but there's mods to add Dark Seducers to Oblivion Gates, and then mods to add Herne and Morphoid Daedra into the game. 3 whole plugins just to slightly increase enemy variety in one particular dungeon because it's the type that MOO changes the least. None of those Unique Landscape plugins are strictly necessary but they make the overworld a nice place to run around in. All of those dialogue tweaks are pretty much pointless, but I like them. If you put a gun to my head and told me to use 10 plugins or less (not including official DLC and the unofficial patches), I could probably cut it down to MOO, OCO, Radiant AI Overhaul and Ultimate Levelling.

It might seem like a big list, but after 10 hours or so it's been very stable. The only crashes I've had were a random one, early on in the Imperial City (none since) and then the rest all came when I kept reloading a save game over and over to try and beat a Wanted NPC that I was definitely way too underlevelled to fight.

Your graphics look great, beautiful actually

Mine are impressive but not quite on your level but because my game is so stable Im not going to change anything. I have added a few more mods like GECKO sound mod and additional fighter, DB and magic guild quests. I will post my working mod list later( Im using about 60 or so mods ) Maskars mod as Valdetiosi recommended is probably the best Oblivion mod I have ever used, I am 130 hours into the game and Im only on level 11. Im really taking my time and just randomly exploring and doing arbitrary and fun quests and I have joined all the guilds including Dark Brotherhood

Interesting enough I have also worked out what causes 80-90% of my CTD, its my adult Viconia companion mod. So sometimes I still get CTD between loading areas but all I do is I unsummon her and then go into the loading area that CTD and the save the game and summon her again and its stable

Oblivion is such a great gaming experience when you can mod it , its a pity more members dont enjoy it

 

[Valdetiosi]

Also it's just that I stopped playing Oblivion and decided to go for Morrowind.
As much as I play Oblivion I prefer Morrowind everyday, all day.

Also don't need to play Russian Roulette with it.

 

[Funposter]

Also it's just that I stopped playing Oblivion and decided to go for Morrowind.
As much as I play Oblivion I prefer Morrowind everyday, all day.

Holding off on more Morrowind until the next TR update, which will pair nicely with all of the neat stuff being released for the May Modathon. Morrowind is definitely a lot easier to deal with in terms of stability, but I also find that less mods are needed generally because it's just a much better game. Modding Morrowind is about improving the core experience, rather than trying to somehow fix it or totally overhaul it like you do with Oblivion.

 

[BruceVC]

Also it's just that I stopped playing Oblivion and decided to go for Morrowind.
As much as I play Oblivion I prefer Morrowind everyday, all day.

Also don't need to play Russian Roulette with it.

I played Morrowind for a second time about a year ago and it was a great gaming experience, I still prefer Oblivion overall but the Morrowind narrative is better

Is their a similar mod like Maskars for Morrowind?

 

[Funposter]

Is their a similar mod like Maskars for Morrowind?

Not anything so all-encompassing, although I suppose you could put together a modlist that imitates it somewhat. The question is why you would really want to with Morrowind, since the beauty of that game is its itemization, handcrafted locations and various faction/roleplaying options rather than being a quasi-dungeon crawler like Oblivion. If you listed the features from Maskar's that you wanted, you could probably find mods that implement all of them on some level and that are disparate enough to not conflict with one another.

 

[Funposter]

My love of Weapon Types - Redone has been my undoing. A visit to an Oblivion Gate near Bruma at Level 12 has rewarded me with an Ebony War Axe of Blizzards and a Daedric Longsword of Inferno, neither of which I can use because my character is specialized in Heavy Weaponry.

Troll loot, featuring better looking axes and more logical longswords:

Spoiler

 

[Funposter]

An update from MOO land. I finally found an Ebony Mace that I could use after running into a Bone Knight in Vilverin, of all places. I really didn't expect to find such good loot given how close it is to the Imperial City, but the spawns around the IC seem to be a bit screwy. It's like anything on the Imperial Isle is (rightly) considered low level, but as soon as you get to the other side of Lake Rumare, all bets are off. Shock Damage + Ebony Weapon is a hilarious combo for running Oblivion Gates, since Slayer damage combines with most Daedra's inherent Shock weakness to just make the whole experience ridiculously easy. Daedroth are going down in four hits. I also started doing Knights of the Nine, and decided that I would do the entire Pilgrimage quest without fast-travelling, and only stopping off at inns in order to sleep. No stops in town to re-stock on potions or hammers. That took about five in-game days, went across three play sessions, and ended up with about 30,000 gold worth of loot sitting in my horse's saddlebags from various overworld encounters, running a couple of dungeons and closing a few Oblivion Gates I came across. Alchemy + Armorer is a great combo for being totally self-sufficient for long periods, so combined with Simple Horse Utilities you can spend more time dungeon crawling (maybe three at a time) and less time going back and forth between town.

Below is a rough map of my route, starting at Anvil and going along the road past Kvatch, resting the night at Gottshaw Inn. The next day I continued to Skingrad, and then took the wilderness track up along the River Ethe Unique Landscapes module, before ducking into Weynon Priory to rest for the night and to start the KOTN-related quest mod, A Posthumous Request. The next day was just picking mushrooms along the picturesque Orange Road, closing an Oblivion Gate and then resting at the Roxey Inn. The next leg of the trip was the long one, and the part that I knew would be most difficult, since the Nibenay Basin and Blackwood are generally one of the areas where you can reliably find difficult overworld encounters. The trip along the shores of Lake Rumare was uneventful, but shortly after the Wayshrine of Kynareth a pack of five Dire Wolves attempted to gang rape me, and I was really only saved by the fact that I'd managed to acquire two Reflect Damage items, so I could heal through the damage as they continually staggered me and basically let them kill themselves. I also got diseased. Twice. I stayed at the Imperial Bridge Inn before attempting to fight the Necromancers in Cadlew Chapel and traverse the mod-added caverns below, and after emerging, continued down the Yellow Road into Blackwood. It was getting dark, had begun running and I encountered a Baleful Spirit on the road. So far, this has been the only encounter that I have really just had to give up against. It damaged me too quickly most of the time, and on the off-chance that I did manage to kill it, it was only because it had been distracted by my horse, which always resulted in my horse being killed (usually by an AOE blast that took off half of my health) and 30,000 gold worth of loot now being stranded in the wilderness. I opted to run, and I have to tell you, running away from a pissed off cloud that you can barely see, in a swamp, during a pitch-black, rainy night is a surprisingly fun experience. I managed to lose the Baleful Spirit after crossing the rope bridge across the Niben River, and made it to the Wayshrine of Stendarr without further incident. There wasn't too much issue on this side of Blackwood apart from the occasional bandit or roaming Daedra, and I completed the rest of the pilgrimage without incident, coming across Sir Roderic and his squire just before I made it to the Wayshrine of Talos.

Obviously I would never recommend doing this in a vanilla playthrough. You'd spend the entire time fighting Ogres and Minotaur Lords and at no point would any of it feel interesting or eventful in any particular way. But with MOO, the overworld encounters are so much more varied and the feeling of danger as you get further away from civilization is genuine. I've mentioned in this thread that MOO's "encounter zones" can be a little bit wonky, but I think this was the most fun that I've had with Oblivion since I first played it fifteen years ago. In a game where you spend most of your time fast-travelling between towns and trying to avoid spending time in the overworld as much as possible, grabbing a horse and just going out to experience it is actually worthwhile as a change of pace and an experience in and of itself. Obligatory pretty screenshots below for all hiking simulator fans (warning, there's A LOT).

Spoiler

 

[BruceVC]

Great story around your adventures, I recognize many names like Roxey Inn

I have initiated the Knights of the Nine quest by visiting the shrines and I think going forward I am going to take your advice to not use quick travel and travel manually on my trusty horse with my beautiful and seductive Viconia companion

As far as the main quest is concerned I have only just exposed the Mythic dawn and found the 4 books so its still early days ...lots of adventuring left for me

 

[Funposter]

I have initiated the Knights of the Nine quest by visiting the shrines and I think going forward I am going to take your advice to not use quick travel and travel manually on my trusty horse

I don't think it's always a worthwhile endeavour to simply ignore fast travel and use the overworld, since a lot of that can just be tedious, but I do think it's worth only fast travelling to cities/settlements/inns and then finding your way from there. Nothing destroys the wonder of the world more than just treating Fast Travel like a teleport button that can take you to a wilderness location that is a 30 second jog away from your quest objective. I also think that the developers intended for the player to actually roleplay with the KOTN pilgrimage and do it all on foot, hence the inclusion of Sir Roderic who has a schedule taking him to all of the different shrines, prayer animations, a lot of recorded dialogue referring to the specific wayshrines on the Prophet's map and even an invitation for the player to join him on his way. I believe he travels counter-clockwise though, which is why I only encountered him at the end.

I'd also look into the Fast Travel Costs mod by the same author of Simple Horse Utilities which I linked above. It helps to make Fast Travel less of a teleport button, especially in the early game when you're short on cash, and does it without being potentially incompatible like carriage mods etc.

 

[BruceVC]

Im making huge progress in my exciting and wonderous journey in Oblivion. I have started closing the Oblivion gates to get support for Bruma and I decided to make Frostcrag Spire my home. I have upgraded it and its ideal for R&R after a hard day at saving the world

I am loving the following mods apart from the " must have " Maskars overhaul mod

• Ultimate Leveling : It uses XP points and makes exploring and most adventuring activities rewarding
• Midas Magic Mod : This is the most perfect and lore friendly mod to enhance all spell castings. Its adds hundreds of new spells, a dungeon, quests and monsters you need for ingredients. It has an exciting spell creation system that you use at a new Midas Shop at the Arcane University ....gems and other jewelry never became so important
• Alchemy Advanced : It makes everything about creating potions more complex and worthwhile ....highly recommended if you enjoy the art of alchemy

I had one potential " ground breaking " bug where I couldnt initiate the Mythic Dawn attack on Weynon Priory but I used a console cheat to finish this quest but that in turn created another bug where I didnt get the key for Cloud Ruler Temple. But I solved this by using another console cheat to unlock the temple door in Cloud Ruler and then spoke to Jauffre to complete the quest

 

[anvi]

Those first 2 mods would make me want to play this again. Blows my mind that they couldn't have had spells like that in these games to begin with.

 

[BruceVC]

Those first 2 mods would make me want to play this again. Blows my mind that they couldn't have had spells like that in these games to begin with.

The Midas mod has some amazing spells like magic carpet, a myriad of new summoning creatures and then some D&D similar spells like magic missile

And their is this whole new Astral Zone which I havent even began to explore and understand its purpose

 

[anvi]

Im making huge progress in my exciting and wonderous journey in Oblivion. I have started closing the Oblivion gates to get support for Bruma and I decided to make Frostcrag Spire my home. I have upgraded it and its ideal for R&R after a hard day at saving the world

I am loving the following mods apart from the " must have " Maskars overhaul mod

• Ultimate Leveling : It uses XP points and makes exploring and most adventuring activities rewarding
• Midas Magic Mod : This is the most perfect and lore friendly mod to enhance all spell castings. Its adds hundreds of new spells, a dungeon, quests and monsters you need for ingredients. It has an exciting spell creation system that you use at a new Midas Shop at the Arcane University ....gems and other jewelry never became so important
• Alchemy Advanced : It makes everything about creating potions more complex and worthwhile ....highly recommended if you enjoy the art of alchemy

I had one potential " ground breaking " bug where I couldnt initiate the Mythic Dawn attack on Weynon Priory but I used a console cheat to finish this quest but that in turn created another bug where I didnt get the key for Cloud Ruler Temple. But I solved this by using another console cheat to unlock the temple door in Cloud Ruler and then spoke to Jauffre to complete the quest

I'm having a lot of fun! It's waaaay better than Skyrim in a lot of ways. I just found Frostcrag Spire too and it's really nice, I've never cared about having a home in a game before but this is like a gameplay improvement as well as a nice place to be. I'm using Midas Magic, not sure what's different as I'm still only level 4 or so, but things seem a lot better than when I last played (when it was new). I didn't do the leveling XP mod though, sounds perfect for me but I wasn't sure how it would work and whether it might screw up the game.

 

[Funposter]

I'm having a lot of fun! It's waaaay better than Skyrim in a lot of ways. I just found Frostcrag Spire too and it's really nice, I've never cared about having a home in a game before but this is like a gameplay improvement as well as a nice place to be. I'm using Midas Magic, not sure what's different as I'm still only level 4 or so, but things seem a lot better than when I last played (when it was new). I didn't do the leveling XP mod though, sounds perfect for me but I wasn't sure how it would work and whether it might screw up the game.

Ultimate Levelling is definitely the way to go over the vanilla system, especially if you're using certain magic schools such as Restoration, or want to advance non-combat skills without insane amounts of grinding. The XP reward for beating quests also encourages you to do things that normally don't give a very good reward, and adds an extra incentive to close Oblivion Gates.

 

[Funposter]

I'm having a lot of fun! It's waaaay better than Skyrim in a lot of ways. I just found Frostcrag Spire too and it's really nice, I've never cared about having a home in a game before but this is like a gameplay improvement as well as a nice place to be. I'm using Midas Magic, not sure what's different as I'm still only level 4 or so, but things seem a lot better than when I last played (when it was new). I didn't do the leveling XP mod though, sounds perfect for me but I wasn't sure how it would work and whether it might screw up the game.

Ultimate Levelling is definitely the way to go over the vanilla system, especially if you're using certain magic schools such as Restoration, or want to advance non-combat skills without insane amounts of grinding. The XP reward for beating quests also encourages you to do things that normally don't give a very good reward, and adds an extra incentive to close Oblivion Gates.

I should clarify with this, though, that I wouldn't use Ultimate Levelling without a mod that also affects level scaling in some way (OOO, MOO, Ascension etc.) since you really need to be grinding for 5x multipliers in vanilla, at least for Endurance, and Ultimate Levelling by default gives you 11 points to distribute per level up.

Edit: Also if anyone wants a quick update on my adventures, I just picked up the final Crusader's Relic in what was a really underwhelming fight. I brought Lathon with me and rode my horse to Underpall Cave all the way from the Priory in an attempt to ROLEPLAY~ but Lathon really enjoyed bugging out and doing weird shit like randomly getting off his horse and trying to walk back home to the Priory of the Nine. I'm Level 21 or so, so I'm going to finish KOTN, quickly blast through the main quest and then I'll be done with this playthrough.

 

[BruceVC]

Im making huge progress in my exciting and wonderous journey in Oblivion. I have started closing the Oblivion gates to get support for Bruma and I decided to make Frostcrag Spire my home. I have upgraded it and its ideal for R&R after a hard day at saving the world

I am loving the following mods apart from the " must have " Maskars overhaul mod

• Ultimate Leveling : It uses XP points and makes exploring and most adventuring activities rewarding
• Midas Magic Mod : This is the most perfect and lore friendly mod to enhance all spell castings. Its adds hundreds of new spells, a dungeon, quests and monsters you need for ingredients. It has an exciting spell creation system that you use at a new Midas Shop at the Arcane University ....gems and other jewelry never became so important
• Alchemy Advanced : It makes everything about creating potions more complex and worthwhile ....highly recommended if you enjoy the art of alchemy

I had one potential " ground breaking " bug where I couldnt initiate the Mythic Dawn attack on Weynon Priory but I used a console cheat to finish this quest but that in turn created another bug where I didnt get the key for Cloud Ruler Temple. But I solved this by using another console cheat to unlock the temple door in Cloud Ruler and then spoke to Jauffre to complete the quest

I'm having a lot of fun! It's waaaay better than Skyrim in a lot of ways. I just found Frostcrag Spire too and it's really nice, I've never cared about having a home in a game before but this is like a gameplay improvement as well as a nice place to be. I'm using Midas Magic, not sure what's different as I'm still only level 4 or so, but things seem a lot better than when I last played (when it was new). I didn't do the leveling XP mod though, sounds perfect for me but I wasn't sure how it would work and whether it might screw up the game.

With Midas magic mod you need to unlock it at the new Midas Shop which is a shop at the Arcane University but that means you meet Midas and you can buy books from him around spells and how to create spells, I only started using magic from Midas from about level 10

 

[Jack Of Owls]

Im making huge progress in my exciting and wonderous journey in Oblivion. I have started closing the Oblivion gates to get support for Bruma and I decided to make Frostcrag Spire my home. I have upgraded it and its ideal for R&R after a hard day at saving the world

I am loving the following mods apart from the " must have " Maskars overhaul mod

• Ultimate Leveling : It uses XP points and makes exploring and most adventuring activities rewarding
• Midas Magic Mod : This is the most perfect and lore friendly mod to enhance all spell castings. Its adds hundreds of new spells, a dungeon, quests and monsters you need for ingredients. It has an exciting spell creation system that you use at a new Midas Shop at the Arcane University ....gems and other jewelry never became so important
• Alchemy Advanced : It makes everything about creating potions more complex and worthwhile ....highly recommended if you enjoy the art of alchemy

I had one potential " ground breaking " bug where I couldnt initiate the Mythic Dawn attack on Weynon Priory but I used a console cheat to finish this quest but that in turn created another bug where I didnt get the key for Cloud Ruler Temple. But I solved this by using another console cheat to unlock the temple door in Cloud Ruler and then spoke to Jauffre to complete the quest

I'm having a lot of fun! It's waaaay better than Skyrim in a lot of ways. I just found Frostcrag Spire too and it's really nice, I've never cared about having a home in a game before but this is like a gameplay improvement as well as a nice place to be. I'm using Midas Magic, not sure what's different as I'm still only level 4 or so, but things seem a lot better than when I last played (when it was new). I didn't do the leveling XP mod though, sounds perfect for me but I wasn't sure how it would work and whether it might screw up the game.

With Midas magic mod you need to unlock it at the new Midas Shop which is a shop at the Arcane University but that means you meet Midas and you can buy books from him around spells and how to create spells, I only started using magic from Midas from about level 10

I remember installing this when I was heavily into heavily modded Oblivion. I went into a mage's shop, stole an item, got caught by the mage shopkeeper who immediately started relentlessly zapping me with heavy briiliant pink arcs of electricity from his fingertips. He chased me upstairs and finished me off. That's how I knew the mod was activated and working as intended,.

 

[BruceVC]

I'm having a lot of fun! It's waaaay better than Skyrim in a lot of ways. I just found Frostcrag Spire too and it's really nice, I've never cared about having a home in a game before but this is like a gameplay improvement as well as a nice place to be. I'm using Midas Magic, not sure what's different as I'm still only level 4 or so, but things seem a lot better than when I last played (when it was new). I didn't do the leveling XP mod though, sounds perfect for me but I wasn't sure how it would work and whether it might screw up the game.

Ultimate Levelling is definitely the way to go over the vanilla system, especially if you're using certain magic schools such as Restoration, or want to advance non-combat skills without insane amounts of grinding. The XP reward for beating quests also encourages you to do things that normally don't give a very good reward, and adds an extra incentive to close Oblivion Gates.

I should clarify with this, though, that I wouldn't use Ultimate Levelling without a mod that also affects level scaling in some way (OOO, MOO, Ascension etc.) since you really need to be grinding for 5x multipliers in vanilla, at least for Endurance, and Ultimate Levelling by default gives you 11 points to distribute per level up.

Edit: Also if anyone wants a quick update on my adventures, I just picked up the final Crusader's Relic in what was a really underwhelming fight. I brought Lathon with me and rode my horse to Underpall Cave all the way from the Priory in an attempt to ROLEPLAY~ but Lathon really enjoyed bugging out and doing weird shit like randomly getting off his horse and trying to walk back home to the Priory of the Nine. I'm Level 21 or so, so I'm going to finish KOTN, quickly blast through the main quest and then I'll be done with this playthrough.

Its so coincidental but I finished Knights of the Nine yesterday, I was on level 20

The final battle was easy but Im fine with that reality because its better than level scaling. Now Im going back to main quest, I still have have 2 Oblivion gates to close in the "Aid for Bruma "

I am also using MOO and Ultimate leveling and its slow but it really is the most effective way to make you explore and it makes exploration rewarding and remember you dont just get 11 points, thats for your attributes. You also get points for both your major and minor skills

 

[BruceVC]

Im making huge progress in my exciting and wonderous journey in Oblivion. I have started closing the Oblivion gates to get support for Bruma and I decided to make Frostcrag Spire my home. I have upgraded it and its ideal for R&R after a hard day at saving the world

I am loving the following mods apart from the " must have " Maskars overhaul mod

• Ultimate Leveling : It uses XP points and makes exploring and most adventuring activities rewarding
• Midas Magic Mod : This is the most perfect and lore friendly mod to enhance all spell castings. Its adds hundreds of new spells, a dungeon, quests and monsters you need for ingredients. It has an exciting spell creation system that you use at a new Midas Shop at the Arcane University ....gems and other jewelry never became so important
• Alchemy Advanced : It makes everything about creating potions more complex and worthwhile ....highly recommended if you enjoy the art of alchemy

I had one potential " ground breaking " bug where I couldnt initiate the Mythic Dawn attack on Weynon Priory but I used a console cheat to finish this quest but that in turn created another bug where I didnt get the key for Cloud Ruler Temple. But I solved this by using another console cheat to unlock the temple door in Cloud Ruler and then spoke to Jauffre to complete the quest

I'm having a lot of fun! It's waaaay better than Skyrim in a lot of ways. I just found Frostcrag Spire too and it's really nice, I've never cared about having a home in a game before but this is like a gameplay improvement as well as a nice place to be. I'm using Midas Magic, not sure what's different as I'm still only level 4 or so, but things seem a lot better than when I last played (when it was new). I didn't do the leveling XP mod though, sounds perfect for me but I wasn't sure how it would work and whether it might screw up the game.

With Midas magic mod you need to unlock it at the new Midas Shop which is a shop at the Arcane University but that means you meet Midas and you can buy books from him around spells and how to create spells, I only started using magic from Midas from about level 10

I remember installing this when I was heavily into heavily modded Oblivion. I went into a mage's shop, stole an item, got caught by the mage shopkeeper who immediately started relentlessly zapping me with heavy briiliant pink arcs of electricity from his fingertips. He chased me upstairs and finished me off. That's how I knew the mod was activated and working as intended,.

Definitely, no doubt the Midas mod was working :D

I love the outrage when you get confronted by a guard " STOP Thief " !!!

 

[anvi]

I love it, I am higher level than I thought. I got some extra mods that seem worth having, "A to loot all", and "Toggleable Quantity Prompt" - makes it so you can buy and sell stuff without the annoying confirmation!

I made some spells, I'm still too low for anything too exciting but I made one that does fire weakness for 4 seconds and fire damage for 4 seconds. It's really satisfying to touch an imp or something with it and then run away and watch it run around burning. I mostly use the badass summons though. Summon Dremora for now. There have been a few good battles already.

 

[BruceVC]

I love it, I am higher level than I thought. I got some extra mods that seem worth having, "A to loot all", and "Toggleable Quantity Prompt" - makes it so you can buy and sell stuff without the annoying confirmation!

I made some spells, I'm still too low for anything too exciting but I made one that does fire weakness for 4 seconds and fire damage for 4 seconds. It's really satisfying to touch an imp or something with it and then run away and watch it run around burning. I mostly use the badass summons though. Summon Dremora for now. There have been a few good battles already.

Sounds like a great Oblivion gaming experience and thats what gaming is about, having fun

You are using Maskars Overhaul?

 

[anvi]

Just Midas magic, leveling, and the quality of life stuff. That Maskars sounds great, I might get that now. I was reading OOO too.

 

[Azdul]

Did they ever make a mod that allows you to use mods that don't crash your game once you hit that 4GB memory limit with the NTCore 4GB patch? I use to actually have an OSR in-game that monitored my system ram and I felt powerful and omniscient, like the Amazing Criswell, knowing the exact moment when Oblivion would crash on me once I hit 4GB.

A big part of Oblivion Reloaded is its memory management. There's also the memory purger function for if you want to manually do things. You can set it up to purge memory at regular intervals or even bind it to a key and do it yourself.

Edit: This means that if you really want, you can run OR without any of the shaders active and use it purely to handle memory management.

I'm using Oblivion EGL - and it had not crashed on me once in last 40 hours - while basically every other solution sooner or later started crashing. EGL is combination of Vulkan renderer, ReShade, ENB, OBSE, OSR, EAX emulator - compiled into single alternative EXE.

I'm using MOO + OOO + WAC + OCOv2 - so it is not exactly light setup. Previously I was always blaming one mod or the other - but with EGL they all magically became stable. I had only one issue with ENB frame limiter cutting my framerate to 30 FPS - but after disabling it I get 60 fps everywhere.

Modded Oblivion is much better 3d fantasy roguelike than Morrowind or Skyrim - as 'generic' art style allows to seamlessly blend creatures and items from various mods with vanilla content. In other games you cannot get the same experience where you're never quite sure what you will find in the dungeon or in the wilderness.

Maybe Beyond Skyrim + Requiem / Wildlander will one day offer something even better - but most Beyond Skyrim provinces are years from completion.