Thread 1

_Tarnsman_ -

While doing some playing testing (jumping back and forth between the CS and the game) I turned off the music because I was listening to an internet radio station at the time. The next time I went to play OB I forgot to turn the music back on in the settings. At first I was going to exit out immediately and "fix" it, but then decided, "Let's see what playing without music is like." It's a whole different experience let me tell you! Without the background music drowning out most of the ambient noises the game takes on a whole different feel. You get to hear how much work Bethesda really has put into the game. Add in a mod like AWS and really begin to feel like you're riding through the forests of Cyrodiil; the wind rustling the leaves, birds calling in the distance, the sound of your horses' hooves on the soft ground. The eeiry quiet at times. When enemies attack your only warning might be the growl of the bear as he is ready to pounce, or the shriek of the goblin as he hits you over the head with his mace. Keeps you on your toes to say the least. And going to the dungeons without music makes the journey all the more interesting. Like I said, Turn off your music! and submerge yourselves into the game.

What is needed now is a mod that will play music only where it would be in real life, ie a tavern. I guess that could be done by replacing the MP3 files in the "world" and "dungeon" music folder with "silent" ones, and then leave the "town" folder with some medieval music MP3s.


Very Important...In order to reach effect desired this must be done to your Oblivion.ini..

you guys, if you turn off your music, make sure you also edit your ini.

Edit this statement



This will give you extra performance becuase it completely turns off music. Turning down the music slider only mutes it, but it still plays...


turn off that spoiler music and download

Sounds Mods

Check also Here Dev_AKM has a great Sound Guide and Load Order Suggestions for most of these plugin... [/size]under TOTO Other Section


ATMOSPHERIC OBLIVION and

NO SNEAK EYE!!

My Oblivion mods at Filefront - includes Atmospheric Oblivion V1.0 and V1.1

Michikawa's Extra Music pack. I really enjoy his work.

More Immersive Sound

but with Streamline 3.0 you can toggle music with a hotkey. It also disables it when turned off, so you get the performance benefits as well.[/quote]

Oblivion Stereo Sound Overhaul, which has subtle, but clear (imo) enhancements to stereo/ambient sounds.

the Oblivion EAX ObSE Plugin, but I haven't tried it yet.[/quote]

More Sound enchancer mods:

WALTHER'S OBLIVION COMBAT SOUNDS
Replaces the combat sounds

COMBAT SOUNDS 300
Replaces the combat sounds

WEATHER INSIDE (SEASONS)
Hear the weather outside inside

STORMS & LIGHTNING SOUNDS
Adds and enhances the storm and lightning sounds

AMBIENT SOUND LEVEL FIXED
Increases the level of all ambient sound

AUDIA ARCANUM SOUND OVERHAUL
Replaces many of the creature and spell sounds.

BETTER BELL SOUNDS
Gives the bells the place they deserve in cities.

BLADE SOUND EFFECTS
Replaces the sound effects for blocking with a blade and hitting flesh with a blade.

HEARMENOT
Makes any sound related to thieving quieter, thereby increasing the roleplay factor.

New Ambient Towns Sounds -

- In short, the mod adds what I have noticed starkly abscent from the populated places in Cyrodiil - the ambient hum of the people going about their daily business, talking to each other, making various noises, etc. So, this mod adds just that.

Silent Tracks Expanded

Symphony of Violence - This mod is a tweaked compilation of the best combat sounds "Combat Sounds 300", "Walther's Oblivion Combat Sounds", and "Improved Bow Sounds" have to offer.

Music Player's




New Nicos Music Replacer, Tired of knowing when enemies are near?

Couple things worthy of note though.

The music change to battle (explore) in dungeons is noticable, and may not be liked by all.
The music change in Ayleid ruins however is not as stark, and may go un-noticed.
The music change in the wilds should be almost seamless (exact same music).

Not the perfect solution although IMO a great improvement for immersion without totally losing the music.

http://www.bethsoft.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=793025 for thread and download...





New - Musical Immersion v1.0 -

It live's Once Again ...Do you play with music on or off..Discussion of Sound, Atomsphere Mods, Tweaks to make the game sound better...

Added links that came from the first thread...If there is something that is missing or should be added please feel free to post ...

The music for the game is great but I turn off the music for two reasons, one performance and another immersion. Without music you get a few more FPS, which really helps in battles and also you dont get the battle music warning when an attack is going to occur.

No music fooo me!

Ever since I read the first thread, I turned off my music. Especially with AWS w/ Storms & Sounds. I need to find some of my old mods that added nifty natural sounds to the game.

Hey Bonk..long time no see...



I had to continue the thread...So many ideas came from the first ..And most likely more ideas to come...

Such has playing around with this in the ini also..This control how many sounds are actually played through sound card at once..If you have an high end machine and a sound card that can do 64 channels at the same time..Then bumping this up should enhance the sound even more..

I also turned off my music and absolutely love it...much more immersive.

I had been getting a lot of CTD's and read MIS may be a culprit and could cause some game instability, so I got rid of it a long time ago. Is there any merit to this? Otherwise, I may think about putting it back in my game.

Are you running shivering isle and have the fix installed...This was known problem with MIS and SI...check the link above for MIS and download the fix...

When I first turned it off, i went in game to mess around and i nearly had a heart attack when a wolf attacked me from behind. And as a result of turning it off, I feel kinda excited to hear the music on videos bucause it sounds like something new to me. lol

I have SI and the latest patch. I was under the impression the "fix" didn't fix the instability, but I could be wrong. I'll give it a go with the fix. Thanks.

Mine has been off for a few months now. I'm still hearing new sounds that I never noticed before. And jumping out of my seat every time I get attacked by a rat or mudcrab, quiet little buggers!

Cool, thanks! I'll have to check that out!
Any recommended mods for enhanced audio?

You can look at dev_akm's TOTO Others Page for good descriptions of the sound enhancers. I'm using OSSO at the moment, and Better Bell Sounds.

I love playing without the music, not only for the added few FPS, but for the immersion. When moving through the wilderness, I will often times hear a noise over the ambient sounds and racket I'm making by moving, and will stop for several seconds and just listen. It's amazing how many times I've heard a group of bandits talking before I see them (or they see me).

This adds to the realism for me. If you are into camping, you'll understand what I'm talking about. I really prefer to go to Pisgah National Forest in NC in the off season, when the campgrounds are mostly empty. Laying there after dark before I fall asleep, I can hear sounds of creatures way off in the distance. It can give you the shivers sometimes...

Do you know where I can find info on this. I can't find anything on Newegg about the amount of sounds that can be played at once. If you are wondering, specs in sig.

Added on front Page..link to dev toto ..



You can use any type of hardware diagnostic program to find this out...Everest Home Edition free, Then Run the directxSound - Total Sound Buffers is the amount of channel that you have to use..

I have a soundblaster audigy 4 ...So I have a total of 64 that I could use..In the game use tdt and hit scroll lock until you see the audio debug screen, this will show you all active sounds and how many channels are in use...

I have had more the 32 sounds loaded at the same time with ini tweak to 64 (have not been able to hit 64 sounds yet)..

I love camping! Oregon is THE place to camp, I'd say. Lots of Forest areas and mountains and lakes and all those goodies =D

But thanks, I'll look into those.

Just trying to find my soundcard specs from Belarc, but all I can find is the drivers... Maybe those'll have the info I need.

I think mine can only hit 32. Bummer.
But I'm not sure... I know that my processor is capable of running a 64 bit system, I just choose not to run that. Not Windows, anyway. But could that have anything to do with it?

Well guess I was too slow to start the second thread. Here is what I was about to post when I spotted this (less the stuff Corepc already posted):


An immersion tip from jgn77 on the first thread:



Performance boost testimonials from the first thread:


~Tarnsman
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~Sheathana'ich
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~ Arbiter of Change
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~TOYB
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~Arkngt
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~LordAnam
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~agiel
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~Kivan
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~TrevorDemented

Sound enchancer mods:


ATMOSPHERIC OBLIVION
Adds more ambient sound to virtually everywhere in the game, from Tombs to Oblivion Realms.

WALTHER'S OBLIVION COMBAT SOUNDS
Replaces the combat sounds

COMBAT SOUNDS 300
Replaces the combat sounds

MORE IMMERSIVE SOUND
Tweaks the stock ambient sounds to improve immersion.

WEATHER INSIDE (SEASONS)
Hear the weather outside inside

STORMS & LIGHTNING SOUNDS
Adds and enhances the storm and lightning sounds

AMBIENT SOUND LEVEL FIXED
Increases the level of all ambient sound

AUDIA ARCANUM SOUND OVERHAUL
Replaces many of the creature and spell sounds.

BETTER BELL SOUNDS
Gives the bells the place they deserve in cities.

BLADE SOUND EFFECTS
Replaces the sound effects for blocking with a blade and hitting flesh with a blade.

OBLIVION EAX OBSE PLUGIN
Adds Creative EAX effects to Oblivion.

OBLIVION STEREO SOUND OVERHAUL
Enhancements include expanded stereo dynamics, boosted bass, crisper sounds, subtle reverb, loop fixes, and a greater variety.

HEARMENOT
Makes any sound related to thieving quieter, thereby increasing the roleplay factor.

Does anyone know if OSSO, AWS, AWS Storms & Sounds, and Atmospheric Oblivion are compatible with each other?

And just to make sure, to turn off music via INI I set bMusicEnabled=1 to 0 right?
I'd assume so, I just wanna make sure so I don't make my game explode and do a triple backflip into a pit of nuclear radiation lava.

I'm running OSSO, AWS, AWS S&S, and Better Bell Sounds without any hitches...pretty close to the same set up you have listed.

And you're correct, make that change to the INI file to turn off music.

Edit:
Might mention I'm running Natural Environments N.Habitat also, I think it adds some insect noises too.

Alright, thanks!

I got rid of NE, too much of a performance hit for my machine. Now, if I were to get a better processor and another gig of RAM, I think I'd be set.

Just played a long session with OSSO installed and no music. The sense of being in another place is very strong now. Combat feels totally different with weapon hits feeling much more brutal when getting hit or cracking a foe in the head with a mace and watching them collapse as the clanging sound of weapons hitting the cold stone dungeon floor fills the air. Enemy voices are much more emotional sounding with alot of anger and fear in them. When i kill them it almost seems too viscious as they give out a despairing cry of pain. Am hearing sounds i never heard before making combat situations much more tense like the creaking of skeleton bones as they walk around nearby before seeing them warning me of their presence. Once i got really spooked when i killed a bunch of skeletons in a sealed room then heard the sound of creaking bones a few minutes later which told me right away one of them had risen to life again thanks to MARTIGEN'S MONSTER MOD which adds ressurecting undead. Dungeons are very creepy now. Graveyard creepy with the deathlike drone in the air. I actually can hear the wooshing sound of blades as they are swung at me and the arrows taking flight with devastating effect at times upon impact The sound of traps in motion and me bumping into things hearing the object i collided with make a clanging sound etc etc.

Truly incredible. Boy am glad the weekend is about to start definitely in the mood for a long game session. Thanks again everybody for all the tips and links.

I'd like to have just certain music in certain places being played, i.e. taverns or the like. Since till now that's not possible I'm playing with the whole music on. - But I've made two changes which add to the immersion for my playing:

1. I downloaded other music packs

2. I made silent tracks of different length and put them into the explore, public and dungeon folder.
. 15' - 1x
. 30' - 2x
. 45' - 2x
. 60' - 2x
. 90' - 1x

The effect is great! I didn't like it when one track played after another without any pause. Now there is a random chance of getting a silent track which creates a length-dependent pause - the mix of music and 'silence' is wonderful, you are now able to 'digest' the music in the pauses while feeling the nature around you during travelling. And then after that certain pause the music's coming back and the epic feeling returns with glory (*pathetic*, I know )... - if anyone likes to try it out I can send him/her these silenced tracks.

Cheers

I haved added these front Page, that where not listed.., _Tarnsman-

I changed the music myself to more heavy metal stuff.

I really dislike the way you can tell if an enemy is near by what music is playing. besides with the music you dont notice any of the other sounds the game has to offer what so ever!

I keep mine off, but play other things in winamp.

Also that no sneak eye mod mentioned is wonderful so is turning off your crosshair, it doesnt seem like it would effect the game all too much, but it does for the better.

Use the Everest Home Edition posted on 2 page to test ...

That is most likely the sound card itself ..It probably only has a max of 32 channels that it can use at one time...If you try to increase this in the ini..It will not work ..because then you would be overloading the sound card...


I am going to try today and see if I can get 64 channels to load up ...There are plenty of mod's that are listed that could make this happen ..just have to find right combo to make it work..and right location...also..

From TweakGuides Oblivion Site

Thanks for the tip, I've missed that one. Some sounds overlaps with OSSO, so atm I install OSSO over it. But the first impression is good - it generally seems to give ambient sounds a more natural level.

EDIT: After having played with it a while, I'm a bit more skeptical. It simply increases the levels of all ambient sounds, which it says on the box of course, but sometimes this is decidedly not a good idea. One example would be the fire column in Daedric Towers. IMO, it was quite loud enough in default - now it's deafening. Also, torches, fires etc. are way too loud now - it just sounds unrealistic. I might skip it - or sit down and pick and choose exactly which files I want.

I can't find any english language program that can do what I've suggested, and moreover, Oblivion is blocking any non-ingame key commands, so all that have left is to use additional mouse buttons

Corepc, please remove my suggestion from the first post.

Done, if you can every find a english version of the program...then just repost and I will readd back to first page...Thank you..I had high hopes for this..to bad it did not work right..

Yeah, some of those on the list were "finds" for me too. Was busy downloading and looking forward to a gaming session this weekend to see what changes they make.




We (someone I should say) should figure out what the optimal load order of all the sound mods is, especially for for the replacers. Once determined it should go in the OP.

That's a great idea Sneakstep; I'd like to try that. Could you send me those tracks (PM me a link if there is one please)?

edit: thanks RebelMax for the below link, but due note Sneakstep that i would still like to use your various tracks

Sneakstep, won't you mind if I answer for you?


2 min silent track.
Just a quick tip: if you want a higher chance to listen to this silent track, just duplicate it a few times.
And nice idea, Sneakstep.

::EDIT::
---------------------------------------------------------------
Core, I've found a solution, you can readd my post again (sorry for this mess with my post).

Added back to first page ..thank you ..may have to try this out..

Tarnsman's original thread inspired me to turn off my music, and I definitely got scared/surprised and dead quite fast due to surprise attacks.

However, I LOVE fantasy inspired music, and Jeremy Soule is one talented composer. So last week I kicked back on the sound, and see that most the time the music matches the mood very well. Even in my modded up game. throw a few of my own pieces of music I've made over the years into the list as well. Transitions can go smoothly, but not always in Oblivion.

If this is your first run through the game, and you are not the "Run and Gun" type of player, I recommend keeping the music on. If it's not your first time, or you could care less about music, but need environmental sounds... keep it off.

Turning music off is a good thing.

I used some sounds from Oblivion in my CORE1 and some of guys who downloaded started talking about "creepy music" in my mod. I could not understand what they were talking about until few PM-s that they had their music off and could hear creepy stuff I placed on every level.

Now in CORE2 EVERY level has new "background" sounds that can be heard best with NO MUSIC!

Glad to see lots of people are finding the joy of playing Oblivion without music.

I typically turn off the music to most games I play. I feel it adds to the realism and immersion of a game to only hear what I'd actually hear in a given environment.

I too don't play with music on anymore after I found the first thread for this. The difference is amazing, I love it!

I love hearing the nice sounds of the wilderness, and the occasional howl of an animal in the distance. I need to travel to Black Marsh and see if I can hear some creepy stuff =D Apparently Atmospheric Oblivion adds sounds like insane muttering, howls, screeches, etc. I've yet to hear these.

Can you Post the order that you have your sounds mods in...only sounds mods nothing else? Do you have OBLIVION STEREO SOUND OVERHAUL installed...?

I'm not at home at the moment, so I can't do that right now. But I do have OSSO installed.
And I think I HAVE heard some of the AO sounds, just not all of them. But what do you recommend the load order to be when I have OSSO, AO, AWS w/ Storms&Sounds installed. I believe thats all I have right now. I wanna get Better Bells or whatever its called, I forgot to grab it when I was at home.

Fixed link to dev_akm toto site other link on first page it was broken..adapted this load order ...

OBLIVION STEREO SOUND OVERHAUL (since this is sound replacer no esp with this)..should always be installed first..
MIS.esp or MIS Low Wind.esp
MIS New Sounds Optional Part.esp
Atmospheric Oblivion.esp
Storms.esp
weather inside [seasons] v1.2.esp or weather inside [silent seasons] v1.2.esp
better bells

As so often, dev_akm has a guide for this (scroll down to SOUNDS), giving tips on install and load orders.

EDIT: Too late.

Thanks. I installed OSSO first, followed by AWS and AWS-Storms&Sounds (which combines MIS and Weather in 2688 side), then Atmospheric Oblivion. So unless OBMM or Wrye Bash messed up my load order, I should be good.

Thanks, it came to my head after reading through the previous thread... Btw: No prob about answering in my place, but I like my silent-tracks-version more, for one reason: if you have silent tracks of different length it's almost unpredictable to say when the next 'audible' track comes - I like it that way.

@Simbacca: I try to upload the tracks to TESSource... never did that before, so maybe it takes some time

Cheers

Get the silent tracks here: Silent Track 'Mod'

I didn't get the clue of uploading via TesSource... just click on 'Continue ...' and wait for the loading bar, then you're ready to download the thing.

Cheers

Thaks, Sneakstep! I will use it in my game.

I will add to the front page..thank you..

I will most likely be redoing the first page so that I can fit more stuff onto it..

Harpischord mod, Minstrel's mod, and a few other that I need to add..

I have deleted my battle music, because I have some music from the Ureal serries that I want for dungon battles but It always played to short even if there was an enamy a few feet away it would stop playing then start again when the enmay took the extra 2 steps needed for it to count as combat.. So thats when I deleted my battle music and changed the dungon tracks to fit what I wanted for dungon battles... thats when I ran into the probliem.. my dungon music would then pause and replay from the start when a battle took place. Corepc said I could delet the battle music but Ive already tryed that like I just said and the problime is still there.. unless I have to delet the battle folder too which I have not done. I have yet been able to find a good soulution that works.

Disable the music in the ini file. Done. No more problems. A fps gain. More immersion. More "jumping out of your seat" when you get attacked without warning. More sex in your life. Well, maybe not the last one.

wont that disable all the music? I would like to disable music for explor so I can get the immersion and jump out of the seat moments when I explore the rodes and forists.. but I want to keep music in town's and the dungon music I had put in with out the music playing from the start during a battle... god why must this be so hard..

I set the bscmusic or whatever to 0 but it still plays music : (. But I turned the music slider down, and its way better.

You could just delete all the tracks in your explore folder. Probably, you'd like to delete your battle tracks too to maintain those 'jump out of your seat' moments\.\

Yes I did do that on both but still, when I go to the dungon the music I want to play plays, but when an emany comes near me the track starts over from the start... that really bugs me that you cant simply take out the battle music to prevent track change because it re-starts the music you did want to play from the start of the track.. that just feels weird when Im in the middle of the trak for it to sart over not once but a 2nt time after I kill the enamys.

Nevermind that did not work ...streammusic still play any music that is in music directory...hardcoded into combat ...we really need a fix for this



make sure that you are changing the ini located in mydocuments\mygames\oblivion\...



you need to move the whole folder to another directory...on harddrive cannot be in oblivion directory at all..

COMBAT AND MUSIC THAT IS PLAYED DURING THIS...IS HARDCODED INTO THE GAME. ..IF YOU REMOVE MUSIC FROM ONE FOLDER , WHEN IN COMBAT IT WILL PLAY FROM ANOTHER FOLDER....ONLY WAY AROUND THIS IS TO DISABLE MUSIC ....GUESS IT IS TIME TO START WORKING ON WORKAROUND FOR THIS...

EDIT!! just seen you edided the post I was going to reply to.. oh thats sad that there is no way to keep the tracks I want to play in dongon from reseting when a fight happens.. =(

yes, this is a big bummer and I was afraid of this..

we had talked about this in the first thread..and over on the cs forum also a long time ago..there may be a way to get something to work...but, it is going to take some time and figure out what is controlling this...

My name is Mikel Pyrex and I'm a former "musicer". I tried the "no music" patch in June and I'm proud to say I have now been music free since then.

Seriously, I won't turn the music back on. Better performance, hearing sounds I never knew existed with MIS, AWS, Storms and Sounds and OB in general. Also, combat sounds just seem to be more immersive. It's not that the music was terrible but I like OB so much better without it.

Mike

Silent Tracks Expanded @ TES Source

- I guess it's not worth a fresh release thread.
@Corepc: It would be great if you'd exchange the silent tracks link in the OP, now that they are on TESS.

Cheers

CorePC, I have already posted a solution to this in my other thread. It works and I use it all the time, the problem is it is not automated (but it is fully ingame)

if someone could make it automated it would work flawlessly.


PM me if you need more info, I've already typed it like 7 times trying to convince jaga and others to do something with it, since I don't know how.

I'll reiterate one more time. This solution does not use streammusic in the script or it wouldn't work, it instead uses some method that streamline uses to alter the .ini file setting for enabling/disabling music on the fly.



Link to the thread I'm referring to:

Solution to Combat Interrupting Music using Streamline

Will add to first page...



DD, I looked at what Jaga did all is he does in streamline is turn this off in the ini..using obse commands ...

bmusicenabled=0..

So this does it turn the music on and off on the fly..nothing else...It does not use streammusic...

What I am talking about , is that when in the combat ..and music is not disabled , the game always want to look for music of some type in combat no matter what unless it is turned on the ini...so this means somwhere in the game code (hardcoded most likely there is command that use streammusic itself in order to make this happen) ...Only disabling the music entirely will fix this problem, until a better streammusic system is put into play...

ALSO Grandmother is in hopstial see here in MMM thread I will not be online very much the next few days...because of this...

Bummer dude, I wish her well!

I've started a new topic on finding a way around this problem:

External Music Scripting

I didn't think it totally on topic with this one, but definitely similar.

Thanks everyone for the sound improvements mods listed I missed some of the them....

I tried plaiyng without music for a while but I don't really like it, I'm a huge fan of (horror) movie scores and listen to them almost as much as I listen to other styles.

So without music for me it's missing something..most big movies when you remove the music loose 99% of their intensity and that's exactly how I felt with oblivion without music "hey another giant ogre ! k..next !" it wasn't that exciting.

It's great for sneaking and plaiyng an assassin though not so great for playing a holy (rambo-ish) knight fighting hordes of monsters (MMM powa).
I'm still trying to make myself a "music mod" with movie scores bits but it takes lot of time to find somehting that fits :/

Is there a way to have a script running which "gets" the area one's in and keeps checking every few seconds? Then we could use the output of this "get" to create custom musics. If "get" = same as last "get", then no action. If "get" is new "get", then play lookup "get" in list to play according playlist. make sense?

I too tried the no music and while an interestingly refreshing option to hear nothing but night sounds and wind as I snuck through the forests, the music is an atmosphere that I can't play without.

Some of you might be interested in a little mod that lets you specify when to play what specific music file in just about any situation. I went off and looked for it but darned if I can't find the thing. I think addiktive made it quite a while ago and I never really took the time to try it although I thought the idea was great! Examples are to keep the battle music from playing until after the enemy has come into within 5 feet or makes the first attack. That way you are suprised by it.

Maybe someone else can find it.

The music I have adds far too much atmosphere to the game for it to make any sense in turning it off. The only reason I could conceive of would be the surprise factor with battles starting abruptly, but I honestly don't care that much about it to turn it off just for that reason alone. Besides, by throwing in one or two silent tracks into the explore folder I don't have to have music playing at all times, and can get a sense of being directly in the environment every so often.

That sounds like an excellent option; there are quite a few songs I have that are really only meant for specific times & locations (very light piano music for nighttime star-gazing, for example.) I'll have to try and track that down myself because it certainly sounds (some pun intended) incredibly useful.

I'm sort of a half way house atm as I have the music on but at a lower volume so I can hear the ambient effects. To me losing the music entirely would spoil the game as the music is probably one of the better components of oblivion as it was released (though I still think Jeremy Soule's Morrowind score is superior). As for performance issues I've tried with no music but it doesn't seem to make any difference to my framerate but then again I do use dedicate sound hardware and not onboard.

maybe this is what you were referring to? Maybe someone could continue on this path and apply the same logic to cuing music.
http://www.tessource.net/files/file.php?id=6369

This seems to work OK:

http://www.tagtuner.com/fast-switching-bet...e-playlists.php

giving it a try now

ok never mind- you can't use global hotkeys while Oblivion is running. there goes that idea.

I play without Music. The Music is brilliant, yes, but as I'm a roleplayer I keep it off. It's a pity you can't have the best of both worlds.

-Matt

It looks like Olurum was on to something here:

http://www.tessource.net/files/file.php?id=10876

Perhaps there's a way of finding out what is changed between savegames that makes this happen/not happen.

No, it wasn't that. I'm not sure it was addiktive's after all. I wish I could search my past posts from almost a year ago. It only goes so far. I'll keep looking.

I am going to repeat myself once more when in combat music is hardcoded to happen unless music is turned off, entirerly.... you can remove battle folder, and it will play music from another directory...if you remove all music then it would still be looking for music to play...it is hardcoded...

no way around this I have tried so many different things.

is going to require special scripting in order to get around this issue..

Right, we figured. Is there a way to get global hotkeys to work while Oblivion is running?

Very sorry to hear about your grandmother, I hope she is doing ok.


Now in reply to your post about the music:

I agree, currently there is no function for dynamically switching the music to what you want, without combat interruptions.

HOWEVER, my method still works. If you enable the music and a track starts playing (Say, explore01.mp3 for the sake of this example), that same track, explore01.mp3, will continue playing until combat is initiated. This is the normal method that Oblivion treats music.


Now, instead of letting that happen, we run code to DISABLE the music (by switching bMusicEnabled=1 to bMusicEnabled=0). An interesting side effect of this is that the currently playing track, explore01.mp3, will continue playing until the music is enabled again (at which point it will pick another track or a combat track if combat is initiated already), OR it will switch to NO music once the track is finished.


Now, all we would have to do is set a script to enable the music, then immediately disable it, say, every five minutes, and you'd have non-interrupted explore, dungeon, and town music... with possibly the occasional battle theme if the music so happens to be enabled while the player is still in combat, or just as combat is initiated. However, it gets rid of the combat music warning the player of danger.


Maybe I'm the only one who sees the usefullness of this. I guess I'll have to dig into the scripts and figure it out myself... as no one else seems interested, or seems to understand how useful this is.


You could even script your own custom music playing this way, you'd first need to make sure the player is not in combat (or your music will be overtaken by combat music), then use streammusic to start the track of your choice in your script, then disable the music in the .ini. Your track will continue playing uninterrupted until it finishes. Then you just have a timer that re-enables the music after X amount of seconds, where X is the length of your track.

At which point you can do it all over again.



Yes, it's a convoluted solution. Yes it's a bit confusing, but it WILL work, I've tested it extensively using the hotkeys in Streamline, and if the process was automated it could solve MY main gripe with the music (the combat tracks interrupting normal tracks), and could potentially be used to dynamically stream whatever music the modder wants, as long as the player is not in combat when the script is called.

I totally agree with you...DD...

We going to need OBSE to do this ...I have checked the obse thread..there are command which enable and disable the ini settings ...(what jaga used in streamline to do this) ...

So this is possible but we have to use OBSE..no other way around it...If try to script it in regular oblivon it would be just plain hard ...

We have to check when the player is in combat and if not then streammusic will kick in and play the song that you want it to play...Else if player is in combat then streammusic does not play ..and no combat music..or regular music...is played (possibly use a silence track for combat music to trick the game)...

I think I can get this done...Making a simple streammusic player that does this something like what jaga did ..but it a little more advance...other than enabling and disabling music ...It will play track that you drop into a special folder in the music directory and we streammusic from this directory on the harddrive ...

Grandmother is getting better by the way She will be out of Hopsital on Friday...They have moved her from Intensive care back into a normal room for now...So things are looking up...

I must say that I am going to try this. I just downloaded and installed AWS, OSSO ad BW&S but lastnight while playing with music on I found voices were distorted and even inaudible (the lyrics "I can see your lips moving but don't hear anything" spring to mind) so this got me thinking about what you guys said. In the game I simply muted the music and in the first 5 minutes I jumped from not seeing a pesky rat. After getting out the sewers I could hear a small "tapping" noise which got louder as it got closer. I only realised when I was hit that it was a mudcrab

So now I'm going to try it with the enhanced sounds etc. and see how it feels.

Yea, sorry if I sounded angry or something, I'm just trying to get my point across as you didn't seem to be getting it.


Yea, OBSE will be required, the base oblivion scripting language is very limited so i generally assume stuff like this will require OBSE, and really, there's no reason NOT to run OBSE.

I would also like to see an option just for the timer script though, if you can whip that up while you're doing the streammusic player. If not I'll see about doing it myself but I'm not very good with the actual scripting... especially when it comes to OBSE.


In any case, glad you understand what I'm saying finally. Hope it works out.

For about 15 or 16 months after Oblivion came out, I would play with music on. But a few weeks ago, I saw the light and learned how to get the music nullified. Now it is like a brand new game again!!!

Love reading these circular arguments.

I DO!



I knew someone would think of something!



As long as the main functionality for different musics to play in different areas (a la vanilla, only minus the combat music warning), then I'd be very happy! Would it be possible to extend the functionality to further differentiate different areas like caves, forts, Oblivion realm, ayleid ruins, etc?

Yes, after researching some more...OBSE is the way to go ...Thank you Dark Dragon for first telling about this in streamline...and then thank you all the threads and persistent mention of this.. Streamline and what Jaga did kinda broke the way for the Oblivion StreamMusic Player that I am going to start working on...Very Soon...

So thank you Dark Dragon..

Something like this..

Timer script should be used once 1) combat start and last at least 30 sec's, and so that a blank mp3 , is streamed for that period of time, 2) another check is made to see if player, is not in combat, if so then streamusic switches the non combat song...3 ) if still in combat then the blank is repeated until combat ends..

The non-combat songs could either be the normal tracks or a menu option that is started from the console to switch streammusic to play music from another directory on the harddrive ...

sounds awesome.

Would it be possible to incorporate combat music playing if the player is in combat for say, more than a minute or two?

I don't mind having combat music, just don't like it warning me of nearby enemies. But once a big fight is started combat music can fit in nicely.

If not, your method works as well.



Glad this is working out and being developed, your ideas surpass what I could have hoped for. I knew if someone that knew their way around the scripting language took an interest in this it could be tackled.




Isn't it just awesome? I hope my posts didn't offend anyone, but I'm glad I finally made myself clear. It's hard for someone that's not proficient in scripting to explain HOW to script something, since I can't post code or anything. But I do know enough about how Oblivion (and Morrowind) works to know when something is possible.

In any case, can't wait for more info

I run with loads of different songs from other movies/games in my oblivion (Zelda, Lord Of The Rings. etc) some of which i've edited myself to my personal taste. ive done this sinse i got my hands oblivion at release.

Ive also been using Silent MP3's for just as long. they are not difficult to make and i recommend that anyone try and make them with a editor such as Audacity (its awsome and completely free).

To be honest i feel oblivion really lacks in the music department. it really should be more diverse depending on what area your in. say south in the swamps or north in the mountains, neither should be the same....although modding something like this (ive heard) is very difficult and would require triggers which could possibly mess the game up. (any mod is potentially harmful, but this would be moreso, apparently.)

I do the same. For me, Oblivion didn't come alive until I replaced the default tracks with some that I felt were more suitable; some are so appropriate for the situation it's just scary. But my music is rarely cranked so loud that I can't hear footsteps or the roar of a beast in the distance. The only time it's a problem is when a mod adds music of its own in the 'Sounds' format (.wav)--unless it's really really good stuff, I wish they wouldn't. It's extremely annoying to hear two tracks of music playing at the same time--if they're going to add music, then take a hint from Eldrac's Armory or Imperial Furniture, and do it right.

OK, it may seem strange to post this news in this thread, but maybe someone here might want to take up this challenge, since people posting to and reading this thread have a vested interest in the issue.

There is a newly-released mod that sounds like just the kind of thing that we would want to use: Crowd Ambience for Towns. But from the description, you'll immediately see the problem:


I've just now listened to it, and it's the regular town music mixed with the sound of conversation, which-- although I originally thought it was just the sound of conversation without music behind it-- actually sounds pretty great (I like the town music, actually, and regretted turning it off), unless you don't want a musical sound track in the street. But if not, it would still be pretty cool for taverns, which we all agree need some kind of music, and I find most of the inn music mods currently available a bit too bright and bouncy for places that have no visible musicians. The town music is in that respect a bit more appropriate since it's "muzak", which is usually sourceless , until such time as Bards of Cyrodiil and Harpsichords of Cyrodiil are done and musicians can be seen playing that jig I'm hearing.

But no matter how good an idea it is, we can't use it either way, since it's music for the music folders, and we've turned music off.

Anyway, the author has said that if anybody knows how to convert the mp3's s/he's mixed to the correct ambient sound format and script them to activators they are free to do so, so my question is-- does anybody know how to do this, and is anybody willing to give it a shot? I really would love the sound of ambient conversation on the streets, over and above the individual conversation between nearby NPCs that I can hear and read.

Hopefully I will start on this soon..I am middle of getting Dancer's to work for Miltades Project, and testing a major bug issue with npcwithjobs beta...once I get these done..then I will have time to work on this..I am determined to get this to work...So, I will not let you down..



I may have to look into this one thank you WMJ..could be very useful....

Added Ambient Towns Sounds to list..

Usually I don't have music on for realism sake.

*bump*

Any updates on this?

Is work still being done on this? Just curious.

Immersive Music Player from Dark Dragon..

In short this is what it does...Let you enable and disable music, including combat music ...Thanks Dark Dragon..

yep, turning off the music makes a great difference immersion-wise and fps-wise. Since I've turned off music, my fps are much more consistent (around 25-30) outside with everything maxed, and there's very little stuttering now too.

Nicos Music Replacer has been added to Turn off the Music Thread...

http://www.bethsoft.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=793025 for thread and download...adding to first page...

It's much better playing Oblivion without music

I think that music should be disabled in wilderness,caves,dungeons,etc (cause we dont carry iPod in Oblivion).Like someone said music should be played in taverns,hotels,castles and for cities i think "ambient town sounds" is the best thing

Play without MUSIC?! I CANNOT! The music lets me know when I'm going to get my ass handed to me so I can plan how epic-ly I want to die. It's my safety net of knowing when "Something wicked this way comes".
EDIT: On a different note, is there a mod that can let me change my battle-music to Requiem for a Tower? It makes EVERY battle epic.

Ambient Town Sounds Mod may be what you are looking for



You can rename any mp3 that you want to use and replace your combat music with that...Make sure that mp3 is in 128 bit format also...just rename requiem to battlemusic_01, and replace each song in music/battle folder...with whatever song you want to use...

I used to get CTD every F****** 5 minutes. Now I've turned the music off using the ini tweak, and presto! In 1 hour playing I haven't gotten a single CTD! That in combination with the above audio mods, my oblivion experience is better than ever.

Kind Regards, Pipo

Two little fyis for people playing without music:

Ambient Town Sounds Edited fixes the minor issues with Ambient Town Sounds (removes the AOL sounds, adjusts looping, and conforms all the looping sounds to be of the same volume)-- it really makes the original just perfect;

Rwolf's Taverns and Temples adds similar ambient music to... taverns/inns and temples (haven't heard the temples, but I've been in several inns in the IC). It's music, but it's done the same as Ambient Town Sounds, in that they are .wav files, not MP3 files, so they play even if you have music off. Extremely nice to have some music (actually, I'd call it medieval "muzak") playing in the places where "muzak" would normally play (and only there).

The mod does have two minor problems, and one major one: 1) you might find the music is a bit loud for an ambient, but naturally you can adjust that in your volume controls as a workaround; 2) the install will put the *.wav files in Data\Sounds\fx instead of Data\Sound\fx (and I checked the ESP and it is supposed to be "sound", not "sounds"). So just cut\copy the files to the Sound\fx folder rather than the new "Sounds" folder, and it works fine.

EDIT: For those who may have missed the thread where this was requested, bg2408 (author of LAME and Race Balancing Project) made a fast one-off mod to give you a message when you enter combat (for those people who turned off music for performance, but miss the battle music letting you know when someone is about to kick your butt). It's also customizeable (you can change the messages displayed). Haven't used it yet, but I will (having just happened across it in storage, and realizing that I had forgotten to install it). I'm sure it will work fine, and thought it might be of interest to other music-free players who may not have seen it .

The major problem is that the listed file on TESNexus is an ESP update to the full file, which is linked on two broken mirrors (RapidShare and FileFront). I've reported the full file as broken, so hopefully that should be repaired soon; keep an eye out for it, as it's really quite nice.

Thank you...I will update the first post..and clean it up a little bit later on today...

Really useful list which I forgot to bookmark. Saw in another thread that you'll update the OP with Musical Immersion. You might want to add Symphony of Violence as well.

I added this link Symphony of Violence -

revamped first page to look better..

Added Music Player and Sounds section

added Musical Immersion v1.0 link..