So I have discovered yesterday that the current upload speed for my internet is averaging about 1/2Kb a second... and it's apparently been like that since we first purchased this network. This house should be at 256Kb/Sec Up, so that means something is seriously wrong. The person we talked to say that two things might be causing this:

1. We are on DSL, so something might be generating noise in the line that is dragging the connection down. This was confirmed when our download speeds increased when we unplugged our house phones. This could also be because of a problem with the wiring, so my step-dad is probably going to be playing around with our phone lines later on.

2. The carpet guys damaged our interior phone lines when they were installing the new carpets. This one is going to be a bit hard to prove, but we have to entertain that this might have happened.

If anyone else has any ideas about why my Up speed is so low right now, I'd love to hear them.

This post has been edited by Thomas Kaira: Apr 14 2011, 08:08 PM

I have actually looked into DSL for my internet connection.

I rejected it when I found out the fastest I could get was still slower than cable's slowest upload speed. Uh-uh.

It makes sense that the house phones could be generating noise - after all, they share the same infrastructure as the DSL. It's supposed to be a superior delivery system compared to cable (hey, fiber optic versus copper?), but the signal degrades so rapidly the further you go from the relay station. As I understand it, it doesn't maintain signal strength the way cable does.

Around here the cable network is so good that I rarely see a slowdown in downloading/streaming, even though I'm sharing the same bandwidth with a lot of other people. It takes something major like the earthquake in Japan to ding the bandwidth enough that I can't stream hulu.com.

I would be looking into how far you are from the nearest relay station. Distance does matter. I believe if you're more than 1500 feet away (I might be off on the number, but for some reason it's the number sticking in my head) your signal strength isn't going to be so hot, and your speed will suffer seriously.

Oh, and I have a question of my own. I'm aware of the patches that fix bugs in Oblivion PC. I got the GOTY version, which patches, if any, do I need to install?

The GOTY will come fully patched. At least officially so. You will only want to download the Unofficial Oblivion Patch, which fixes a zillion bugs that Bethesda could not be bothered with. On that page you will also find links to the Unofficial Shivering Isles Patch, and one for the other DLC.

And be sure to top that off with the UOP Supplementals, as well. That way, you will have pretty much every bug in this game that is not engine related fixed up real nice.

Also, I can't go to cable. None of the ISPs in my area offer cable service. The best we could find was Qwest DSL (and if that horrifies you, I can really understand).

This post has been edited by Thomas Kaira: Apr 14 2011, 10:40 PM

I should install all of the Supplemental files or just certain ones. I have UOP v 3.2 (the latest) installed right now, I don't have the one for SI or other DLC's installed yet (as I haven't installed SI or KOTN).

I tried reading the description hoping that it would tell me which one I needed (as on the UOP page) but no dice.

And Qwest? My heart bleeds for you, TK!

Install order:

1. Install the full Unofficial Oblivion Patch v3.2.0

2. Install the full Unofficial Official Mods Patch v15 for whichever official DLCs you are using (Knights for sure).

3. Install the full Unofficial Shivering Isles Patch v1.4.0

4. Install the v3.3.5 Supplementals for each Unofficial Patch you are using.

I would also recommend you invest some time into learning Wrye Bash, particularly its installer toolset (BAIN). You can find some links to get you on the right path here.

OBMM does have the OMOD installer method, but it does not respect proper install order. BAIN does, and is a lot easier to use once you've learned how it works.

This post has been edited by Thomas Kaira: Apr 15 2011, 12:22 AM

I do not plan on installing the DLC's or even SI and KOTN at this point (though KOTN might be under consideration later).

I'm more interested in the original Oblivion game and what I can tweak out of it.

Thanks for the links to your modding thread. I'll be posting on that one instead of here whenever I have stupid questions about mods.

Right now I'm trying to get the CS downloaded and installed. It's not going so smoothly and I'm trying to figure out why.

You're going to have to bite the bullet on Knights and SI, I'm afraid, because the patch you want is bundled with them and you need it in order to install the CS.

Unless you feel like downloading 1.2.0416 for non-SI usage. You can find it over at the TES official site.

This post has been edited by Thomas Kaira: Apr 15 2011, 04:11 AM

OK, now I am really getting mad about the current internet problems. According to my step-dad (who manages the tech in the house) "upload speed is meaningless."

Is he a Martian? I'd like to know what exactly was going through his brain when he came to that conclusion. How else does he think our modem talks to the web servers, magic?

We are running on 2Kb/sec upstream right now (I am not making that up), why does he continue refusing to admit something is wrong with our connection?

H.E.R.: As somebody that played through Oblivion w/out wanting KotN or SI installed (it ruins the F#*%-ing story, Bethesda!), I sympathize.

That said, from a practical perspective, install them and follow TK's advice. BUT, and this is the key, do not activate them as plugins when you boot the game. As long as they're not active plug-ins, you can play the game, fully patched, without having the Anvil chapel get desecrated or a stupid island appear in the middle of the Niben Bay.

As a user of both OBMM and Wrye Bash, I'm with Thommy on this one. If you're not using any of the DLC mods, you don't need their corresponding UOP's. But installing the GotY edition and then de-activating the mods you don't want is, in my own experience, a safer option.

@Mjolnir: I do use all the DLC, but I have also installed a little mod called SM Plugin Refurbish which delays them from starting until certain requirements are met.

Unfortunately, I that strategy is not going to work for Shivering Isles, because the ESP provided for SI is, to be very honest, completely empty. Shivering Isles gets installed directly into Oblivion.ESM, which means there is truly no possible way to stop it from activating, because turning off Oblivion.ESM is rather obviously a stupid idea. Just turning off DLCShiveringIsles.esp will not stop the island from appearing, but it WILL generate a lot of missing mesh markers and swimming NPCs, because although that ESP is empty, it is still necessary (that ESP tells the game how to find the SI resources).

@Tommy: Really? Huh, that explains a few things.

I had started off with SI active, and then deactivated it, only reactivating it after I had beaten KotN. All I had done was reset the appropriate actors, but I thought the problem was from removing an active plugin from a saved game file, and then putting it back in later.

I'm definitely going to get SM Plugin Refurbish, since I'm building a new tower this summer and will want to create a new character. Thanks for the advice.

And I thought our DSL was bad. We had Verizon which was alright, but they (in our area) were bought by some place called Frontier and it is TERRIBLE. At best our DL speed is 120kbs and upload I calculated to be around 47kbs. Ugh. Sometimes when I upload a video I just take it to the uni with me on a flashdrive and upload from there. It takes less than 3 mins instead of upwards of 90 mins.

Huh? So I can't run Oblivion without SI and that stupid island? I hate seeing the message about a door that has opened in the middle of Niben Bay in my journal and would rather not have it onboard at all.

I am still having trouble opening the CS application. Every time I try, I get error messages that it could not find the sky, and a few other resources, then it crashes.

Nothing much can be done about the island, I'm afraid. It's always going to be there.

However, you can use the mod SM Plugin Refurbish to prevent the first SI quest from starting, so you won't be bothered by any annoying messages about a strange door.

EDIT: Also, let's move this discussion down here because we're dragging this thread off-topic.

This post has been edited by Thomas Kaira: Apr 15 2011, 11:47 PM

Boy do I wish I had been given this advice before I messed up my game by not knowing what I was doing with the mods, ROFL !!!

So, we had to spend a good deal of yesterday without our cozy little gathering under the Great Oak, it would seem.

Unfortunate, but nonetheless, I am glad to see the site is back up.

I wonder what happened? Did the site exceed its bandwidth, or perhaps someone DDoS'd us?

This post has been edited by Thomas Kaira: Apr 20 2011, 08:11 AM

I doubt it was that dramatic. Probably just the server freaking out or DNS things failing. Even a power outage or exchange failure could do it. Most likely Terence ran out of hamster food and had to go get more.

Given that Alex runs the server for this site himself (I think) it's damned reliable, that was the third outage I can remember...

I hope I'm not doing necromancy here

But I figured this is the best place to recount my own sad tale.

My desktop that has been running MacOS X and Windows under one hood just had a nervous breakdown.

Last night while sleeping (in the MacOS partition), it froze and wouldn't wake up. I turned it off via the power button. Normally it's no big deal, it restarts right back up. But this time it didn't.

Oh, sure, it started up, showed the Apple Logo and the spinning pinwheel, but then it froze. Never made it to the desktop.

I though, okay, corrupted system file somewhere. Let's see first if it starts up without the third-party peripherals. No dice.

Then I thought, lets see if it starts up into Windows. It let me choose the boot volume on start up, but still no go. Computer froze before completing startup in Windows. Uh oh. Not a HD failure, as MacOS and W7 are on separate hard drives. Tried starting up from the install disc that came with the computer. Nope. Reset PRAM, thinking bad settings. Nope. Removed the new HD's and RAM that I installed a month ago, leaving only the original HD and RAM in place. Nope. Still no go.

I was able to run Apple Hardware Test off the install disc - all tests passed successfully. But I still believed it to be a hardware problem.

Took it to the Genius Bar (having taken the online Apple Care Tech course, I know these guys really know their stuff, unlike the ungeeks at Best Buy). He verified the problem, pinpointed the approximate point in the startup process that was hanging, and tried to start up from their diagnostic external HD's. Still no dice. He agreed with me that it was likely a hardware problem, and that the logic board is probably somehow involved.

So I had to leave my Intel Mac there for some more diagnostics and maybe corrective surgery. It was almost as hard as leaving my kitty in the care of the folks at the emergency clinic! Hopefully in five to seven days I'll get it back in good working order. Fortunately it's still under warranty . . .

And no, I'm not blaming the HD's, the RAM or W7 that I installed a month ago. The HD's and RAM are from a very good source (I've done business with them for over ten years and have had no complaints about anything), and I know I installed them correctly. I'm careful that way.

So that means no Windows for me for about a week. And that means no Oblivion. At least the story is on my laptop and is not affected.

Sixteen years of owning macs, and this is my first hardware failure . . .