Oblivion Mod:Complete Installation Guide for Oblivion/Part 1/Install Utilities

Install Utilities

Dont's worry about any "beta" tags here. The following utilities all have well-established positions in the mods community.

Since this is a very focused guide, intended to help users build a working setup with as few uncontrolled factors as possible, many important details may be skipped. However, there is a more general page on the site that is directly related to each discussed subject. As for this page, unless you are already familiar with the available mod management utilities reading the first section of Preparing for Mods should prove very worthwhile. After this step, the rest of the guide, up until the last few (modified) setup steps, will be focused using a primary installation tool.

General Terms, Acronyms and Nick Names

• Bash - short for Wrye Bash, a mod management utility and much more
• BOSS - load ordering utility
• CTD - crash to desktop
• "Data files" - This term generally refers to files contained in any of the default folders, BSAs, INI files, or folders that contain INI files. In other words, it refers to all parts of the actual mod (not the doc files) excluding plugins.
• Data folder - Oblivion\Data
• Oblivion folder - the Oblivion installation folder
• Plugins - ESPs and ESMs, does not include OBSE plugins, sometimes is used interchangeably with "mods"
• Load Order (LO) - the order in which your plugins are loaded into the game (which is determined by their "date modified" status)
• OBMM - Oblivion Mods Manager, mod management utility and much more
• Install Order - this has nothing to do with load order, but is the order in which mods should be installed
• TESCS - The Elderscrolls Construction Set, a mod (really plugin) editing and making utility
• "Vanilla" - refers to default, out-of-the-box Oblivion

Utility Installation Steps

The utilities and the configurations for the utilities presented below are not specific to your preferred installation method. More specific instructions will be given later.

Install 7-zip (or another archiving utility)

Many mods are packaged in .7z archives, which WinZIP and non-full version of WinRAR cannot handle, and this file archiver is fast and free.

1. Download 7-zip.
2. Run the executable, which may require a reboot.
   • The installation may prompt you to restart your machine. Do that now, as you will need it in later steps.

Install a C++ Runtime Library Update

This update is required for some utilities and many mods, most notably OBSE.

1. Download Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime Library 2008 SP1 Redistributable Package .
   • This is a commonly-installed update. If it is already installed, the installer will discover it and abort the installation, which is fine.
2. Run the executable.

(OPTIONAL) Install The Elder Scrolls Construction Set

This is the "official" plugin-editing utility. If you want to make mods or tweak plugins, this is a useful tool.

1. Download TESCS.
2. Run the executable.
   • Windows 7 and Windows Vista users, right-click on TESConstructionSet.exe (in the Oblivion folder) and flag it to 'Run as Administrator'.

Install Oblivion Mod Manager

OBMM, Timeslip's mod managing utility is probably the oldest, most-respected utilities for Oblivion. It is a new mod user's best friend.

1. Download OBMM (executable version).
2. Run the installer.
3. Launch OBMM.
4. Go to "settings" (in the right sidebar).
5. (Still in settings) check "Never modify load order" (unless you have no intention of installing Wrye Bash)>> notes: This step anticipates using BOSS and Wrye Bash to modify your load order
   BAIN users should skip the rest of the OBMM configuration steps.
6. Click on Utilities, in the sidebar.
7. Choose 'Archive Invalidation'.
8. Select 'BSA Redirection'.
9. Close OBMM.

Install TES4Edit

This is a powerful plugin-editing tool. If you want to investigate inter-plugin conflicts or make a quick patch, this is the utility to use. It is not necessary to get your first modified setup running, but later on you will probably hear about its usefulness for cleaning and tweaking plugins.

• Download TES4Edit.
• Extract the archive into the Oblivion folder.

Install Better Oblivion Sorting Software

BOSS is a load ordering utility. Maintaining an organized load order is very important and a non-trivial task.

Note: If you have Microsoft Word 2003 or a later version, you may want to check out BOSS' companion, BOSS Masterlist Manager.

(OPTIONAL) Install TES4LODGen

This application generates distant LOD data based a your mod list.

1. Download TES4LODGen.
2. Extract the archive into the Oblivion folder.

Install OBSE

OBSE and its plugins are not "regular" mods and require a different kind of installation, which is why their installation is covered here. Most of the following are stabilizers, all highly recommended. The two most vital OBSE plugins are Fast Exit V2 and OSR!

The DLLs for all OBSE plugins are installed in Data/OBSE/plugins. Some OBSE plugins have dependencies (DLLs) in subfolders as well.

1. Download Oblivion Script Extender (OBSE) to the Oblivion folder
2. Extract it there. (It will add a folder containing the OBSE files.)
3. Copy the following up into the Oblivion folder: "obse_1_2_416.dll", "obse_editor_1_2.dll", and "obse_loader.exe." If you use the Steam version, move "obse_steam_loader.dll" as well. >> note: Steam users do not need the EXE to launch the game with OBSE, but some scripts (primarily OMOD scripts) check for the presence of that files. The presence of the EXE will not break anything.
4. Delete the folder and the archive it added
5. Make a shortcut pointing to obse_loader.exe.
   1. Right-click on the file.
   2. Choose copy from the context menu.
   3. Right-click on the location.
   4. Choose Paste shortcut here from the context menu.

To run the game with OBSE, use the obse_launcher.exe to launch your game; otherwise, if you launching the game with OBSE-dependent plugins (not OBSE plugins) the game will crash. Unless you are troubleshooting there is no harm in always launching through the OBSE launcher.

Note: If upon launching, it errors about needing the latest version of Oblivion installed (1.2.0416), you need to install the latest official patch.

Install OBSE Plugins

Warning! Requires OBSE

Again, the OBSE plugins folder is Data/OBSE/plugins. The following are all recommendations, and they are strongly recommended but not at all necessary.

Download Recommended OBSE plugins

• Elys' Universal Silent Voice (USV) - extends time text is displayed on screen for unvoiced dialog, so that it does not just flash
• Fast Exit v2 - prevents CTD on exit
• Oblivion Stutter Remover (OSR) - manages memory at a low level, reducing stuttering in-game
• Pluggy - extends OBSE, especially for debugging, for mods and the user

Install the archives

Pay attention the folder into which the downloaded archive is extracted because the archives vary in their packaging.

1. Extract Fast Exit and OSR in the Oblivion folder.
2. Extract Elys' USV in the Data folder.
3. Extract Pluggy into the OBSE plugins folder, which you may have to create. All of the DLLs should end up directly in the Plugins folder (except for OSR's component DLLs which should be in their own subfolder.)
   • Find the "Oblivion Stutter Remover" thread on the BethSoft forums before tweaking the INI file.
   • The safest edit you can make is to raise the FPS cap; therefore, if, for example, you have a very good computer, you may want to raise the cap to 60 FPS.
   • If you use Streamline, turn off Streamsmooth or set SL's FPS range inside of OSRs. OSR is more robust, sd they can cause bad conflicts when vying to handling memory management.

Special Mention

Since it's so popular... If you are going to use Elys' Uncapper--uncaps the level for the PC skills and attributes, raising the limit from 100 to 200 or 255) extract it to (or in)--extract the downloaded archive into the OBSE plugins folder.