Oblivion Keeps Black Screening: (9600gt / on Vista 64)

After putting it off for 3 years I've finally got around to playing Oblivion and was loving it till about 30 hours into the game when it began to repeatedly black screen on me. There were a few crashes before but now it is every 5 minutes. So I uninstalled the game and even deleted saved files, etc., reinstalled game and latest patch. And it went for bout 15 minutes and then the blackscreening again.

One bug is where the monitor screen will completely disappear while the music in the game appears to be doing fine. This one is not the freeze loop thingy.

Another crash is the freeze loop thingy where the game just freezes and black screens and you can hear the music looping. Both of these are happening to me.

So I read online and apparently this is has been a very common experience across the board with Oblivion, but more so with nvidia cards.

Right now I'm downloading the Unofficial Patch from TES Nexus. We'll see if that works, if not oh well, I guess i just can't play the game and I was so loving it.

I used to get the black screens as well. I discovered that it was when I had HDR on that it was doing it, so I put on bloom and AA intead.

There's also a few fixes. None of them worked for me, but it really depends on the kind of problem your having, or when it's happening.

Some nvidia fixes:
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=13632
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=11167

If you have any mods installed, try disabling them. Also try lowering your settings, especially, try without any HDR or shadows.

One thing that did work for me was switching to an ATI card - but then you get problems elsewhere. I discovered oblivion seems to run a lot slower on ATI cards. You just can't win! Ah well. Hope you get it working. It's a great game. Especially with a few mods thrown in. (Deadly reflex is great!)

Good feedback. Thanks. Been doing more research and apparently this is chronic with 7, 8, 9 series cards(Nvidia). Cause is unknown but potential fixes include lowering settings.

I am not on HDR mode. I was high graphics with 2x AA. Which should be perfectly fine with 9600gt paired with 4 gigs ram and intel e8400 & FSP 700watt psu. I was running smooth with no graphics lag at all. It really is true what they say about nvidia cards being more unstable overall.

Have you tried updating your nvidia drivers? Monkey with the game settings as well. It seems odd that you were playing the game just fine for 30 hours and then had trouble. Perhaps you changed the setting at that point? I am playing the game now, but with XP and ATI. No troubles at all.

Hope you solve it. I am enjoying the game as well.

I wasn't playing in HDR. I was playing in: bloom at 2x AA