Oblivion Essential Knowledge
Technical issues about Oblivion - for beginners and everyone else!
Oblivion Installation
You will need about 4,5 Gb of free disk space to install Oblivion. You will need more if you are going to take lots of screenshots; screenshots are saved in .bmp format directly to game folder and take up a good deal of space.
It is highly recommended to defragment local disk to which you are going to install the game prior to game installation. To defragment, use Windows XP standard defragmentation utility or any 3rd party software that can accomplish the task. Note that XP defragmentator works very slowly with FAT disks, dealing with NTFS disks much faster (though not always efficient, so you may need to repeat defragmentation two or three times).
It might also be a good idea to defragment after game installation.
Don't forget to check free space on the disk where Windows is installed (usually C:). It will be needed both for memory swap file and for storing Oblivion save games and screenshots, if you'll make any. Oblivion game saves are stored not in the game folder, but in \My Documents\My Games\Oblivion folder. Configuration files for Oblivion (Oblivion.ini, BlendSettings.ini) and TES Contruction Set (ConstructionSet.ini) are stored in the same place.
Oblivion official system requirements are as follows:
Minimum System Requirements:
Windows XP
512MB System RAM
2 Ghz Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent processor
8x DVD-ROM Drive
4.6 GB free hard disk space
DirectX 9.0c (included)
128MB Direct3D Compatible Video card and DirectX 9.0 compatible driver
DirectX 8.1 Compatible Sound Card
Keyboard, Mouse
Recommended System Requirements:
3.0 Ghz Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent processor
1 GB System RAM
ATI X800 series, Nvidia GeForce 6800 series,
or higher video card
Supported Video Card Chipsets:
ATI X1900 series
ATI X1800 series
ATI X1600 series
ATI X1300 series
ATI X850 series
ATI x800 series
ATI x700 series
ATI x600 series
ATI Radeon 9800 series
ATI Radeon 9700 series
ATI Radeon 9600 series
ATI Radeon 9500 series
NVIDIA Geforce 7800 series
NVIDIA GeForce 6800 series
NVIDIA GeForce 6600 series
NVIDIA GeForce 6200 series
NVIDIA GeForce FX series
Download latest video drivers from ATI or NVidia web sites. I'd advise to avoid non-original drivers. Originals are Catalyst from ATI (current version 6.5) and ForceWare for NVidia (current version 84.21).
You may use an utility called Oldblivion to make the game run on older systems, or, to be more precise, on systems with graphic card not supporting modern technilogy that Oblivion uses. But stay warned that this program was not developed by Bethesda, and that you are using it on your own risk.
To avoid DirectX error messages, install DirectX 9.0c from DXREDIST folder located on your Oblivion disk. This might be required even if you already had DirectX 9.0c installed before you got Oblivion.
Oblivion Uninstalling
While uninstalling Oblivion your old game saves and configuration files will stay intact in \My Documents\My Games\Oblivion. If you want to get clear and initial ini files, you should delete your old configs and/or save files or back them up in a separate folder.
If you get an unexpected error message while trying to uninstall the game, launch Setup.exe from original Oblivion disk. This should fix the problem.
To uninstall completely, you might want to delete Oblivion sections in Windows registry. But keep in mind that those sections don't contain any configuration information and their removal is not necessary.
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\TES.Master - Oblivion Master Data File settings
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\TES.Plugin - Oblivion Plugin Data File settings
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\MenuOrder\Start Menu2\Programs\Bethesda Softworks - Start menu entry for all users
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Bethesda Softworks - Oblivion SOFTWARE entry, which appears to contain only path to the game
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\TES.Master - Oblivion Master Data File settings, no.2
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\TES.Plugin - Oblivion Plugin Data File settings, no.2
HKEY_USERS\***USERID***\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\MenuOrder\Start Menu2\Programs\Bethesda Softworks - Start menu entry for specific users
Important Hints
- Do not use Alt-Tab without special need. Like in many other 3D games, switching windows on many systems will cause game instability and performance decrease.
- If you have hard times setting up your character's face, use random generation. Several dozens of clicks may lead you to a face much closer to what you want than default one. After you find a better face, it's a good idea to customize it manually.
- There's no undo or autosave during character creation! Remember that you might spoil half an hour work on your character's beautiful face by one or two mouse clicks - without any possibility to recover. Conclusion: be careful and save when ready.
- Before you exit the first dungeon, you'll be prompted to change all settings for your character, including the name. This should be familiar if you ever created characters in Morrowind.
- Use .SetActorFullName "NewPlayerName" console command to change name of your character after you exit the first dungeon.
- Do not use Tab in your character name. This will screw game saves.
- To access console, use ~ key (Tilde). Use same key to exit console.
Will be updated in future.
Hotkeys
Download printable version (.doc)
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Change View (1st person – 3rd person) |
R |
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Change distance in 3rd person view |
Mouse Scroll |
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Free Camera |
Middle Mouse Button |
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Move Forward |
W |
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Move Backward |
S |
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Strafe Left |
A |
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Strafe Right |
D |
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Switch between walking and running |
Caps Lock |
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Temporarily change moving style (walk/run) |
Shift |
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Auto-move |
Q |
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Sneak |
L-Ctrl |
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Jump |
E |
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Prepare Weapon |
F |
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Attack |
Left Mouse Button |
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Block |
Right Mouse Button, L-Alt |
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Cast Spell |
C |
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Use/Loot/Open/Take |
Space |
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Grab Item |
Z |
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Rest |
T |
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Character Screen |
Tab |
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Character Stats tab |
F1 |
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Inventory tab |
F2 |
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Spells and Powers tab |
F3 |
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Map and Journal tab |
F4 |
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Drop Item |
Shift+Left Mouse Button |
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Assignable hotkeys |
1-8 |
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*To assign hotkeys, press number key, select appropriate item or spell, then release number key. |
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Take Screenshot |
PrintScreen (only if bAllowScreenShot=1 in Oblivion.ini) |
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Game Menu |
Esc |
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Quick Save |
F5 |
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Quick Load |
F9 |
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Access game console |
~ (Tilde) |
