GameBanshee Forums

OK, got my new video card installed this morning. Did an uninstall of the game to delete the few things I had tried with my old video card and then reinstalled the game.

Opening dungeon, and the walls are all black. I've set the resolution to 800x600, texture to medium and View Distance to about 2/3. Bloom was off and AA was off as well.

Not sure what to do here as the walls in the initial room were well definied n my old Ti4200 card.

Currently running x850 Pro.

(edit) To clarify, the walls in the dungeon room are black. The light in the back wall window is fine and the escape hall from the room is lit up in light tan stone. The hall is lit up and I can see the prisoner across the hall. The room was not black before but again that was on an unsupported card. This black may be the shadows and the correct look I'm seeing for the first time but you cannot make out the individual stone on the black walls like you can in the other areas.

(2nd edit) after getting out of the cell everything looks OK. However, into the first big cavern after fighting the first couple of goblins and it's real black. It that just darkness possibly?

Well, a torch didn't help so I'm guessing it's not just darkness.

Have you updated your video card drivers ?

Yes, actually paid Best Buy to install it this morning. He said that he updated the drivers (I didn't have any Radeon drivers before so I'm guessing he had to download the current ones to then install the card).

I'm not savvy when it comes to that, where do I go in my system to run a driver test or whatever to find out?

OK, this might be of some help. This appears to be happening only in the larger, cavernous rooms.

I just reached a second cavern with Goblins in it. I can see this room perfect until I begin advancing into the room. As I advance into the cavern, the darkness spreads out from the entrance to envelop the room entirely.

I know this is vague, but you might try checking your video options in the game. I suspect your settings need to be changed. Try maximizing almost all of them.

Purple Water

OK fable, I upped everything. I'll advise if I see any black rooms again.

On a different note of similar status, I exited the sewers and the water is purple and the land is blurred.

Darned if the rest doesn't look a whole lot better now though.

Any idea what to do to clear up purple water?

Um...Drano? Just kidding. I really don't know what would do that, but again, the answer would appear to lie in the way the game is sensing the video card. I wonder if Bethsoft left hooks in the registry after uninstalling, which was automatically accessed when the game was reinstalled? In that case, it may have information about your video card that's out of date, leaving you to employ manual controls to fix things.

I think I figured it out. In a post on the Bethesda forums there were some tweaks to get unsupported cards to work. One was to change the busewatershading from 1 to 0. I changed that back and I'm good. I was thinking those tweaks were wiped out when I uninstalled the game and reinstalled it. this is the folder that appears in My Documents/My Games/Oblivion. Any idea how to reset those to the intial defaults?

You mean, a fresh copy of the INI file?

The Oblivion configuration settings.

and nope, just went into a cave after getting to the outside world and got black walls again. It might all be related to the config settings.

Bingo! Found the two other things I changed by looking at that thread and changed them from 0 to 1. Things look A-OK now.