Basic knowledge you need to make the game stay erect as long as possible, sourced from hours of trial and error.
 
 

Why Does The Game Crash?

Because the Oblivion rendition of Gamebryo is sheiße.
 
 
I’ve spent a few severals of dozens of hours trying to make Nehrim stop acting up, and this guide contains most of my observational knowledge. Some of it may be conjecture, as I don’t have the patience required to extensively test every little thing, so take it with a grain of salt.
 
Unless stated otherwise, described behaviours were observed (read: tested) on two separate machines – machine A (Win10 1809, AMD, HDD) and machine B (Win10 21H2, Intel+Nvidia, SSD).
 
 
 

Things already in Nehrim

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EnhancedMusicControl2 and WalkBlessed

 
Believe it or not, but these two innocent looking OBSE plugins cause most of the crashes you get in an out of the box Nehrim installation (specifically of the Steam version). I’m not sure why they’re included, but disabling them prevents the game from ever crashing within the first hour.
 
 
tl;dr Disable these. Try Trifle – [nexusmods.com]  and Enhanced Camera – [nexusmods.com]  instead, though be aware that these are merely suggestions, which I’ve yet to test extensively.
 
 

Blockhead

 
Nehrim uses a version of Blockhead that’s older than the one on Nexus, which “fixes persistent CTDs”. I’m not sure if those happen in Nehrim, but updating doesn’t seem to break anything.
 
 
tl;dr Try updating. If you’re unsure about this, just leave the default one as is and get your game in line with the rest of the guide. If you’re still experiencing random crashes around NPCs and Cell transitions, this could be the cause.
 
 

ENBoost

 
Haven’t tested it extensively enough yet, seems to be fine so far? Results are probably hardware dependent.
 
 

Alt-Tab Fix

 
No issues. Consider using OneTweak – [nexusmods.com]  instead if you want to play in Borderless Windowed.
 
 
 

Things You May Have Installed While Trying To Fix The Issue

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LAA Patch

 
This makes the game stop being able to clear its memory blocks, resulting in hourly (at best) crashes.
 
 
tl;dr Do not apply this to your executable. If you have, revert to the backup or Validate Integrity of Game Files to restore the unpatched executable.
 
 

DXVK

 
Makes the game randomly freeze. Permanently. This could happen even in the main menu, immediately after pressing Continue! (Only observed on machine A, which previously braved many games with DXVK, with great results)
 
 
tl;dr Volatile. You should do just fine on DX9, unless you’re playing through Proton/Wine.
 
 

xOBSE

 
Haven’t tested it properly. It does break some of the Nehrim scripts. Probably not worth the risk.
 
 

NVAC

 
This makes the game crash every half an hour. Nehrim really hates it. (Only observed on machine A)
 
 
tl;dr Do not install.
 
 

Oblivion Display Tweaks

 
Nehrim didn’t seem to like it very much. Intensified the rate of crashes, but I didn’t test it extensively enough. It also ate dirt on “vanilla” Oblivion, so… (Only observed on machine A)
 
 
tl;dr Be wary. Test it for yourself if your game is able to brave 2 hours without crashing.
 
 

MoreHeap

 
In my (limited) experience, this actually made Nehrim get less memory than it otherwise would have had. I’d recommend avoiding it.
 
 

Oblivion Stutter Remover

 
Honestly, this thing does so much I can’t say for sure if it caused problems on its own… it did help me hound down other wrongdoers, though.
 
Hooking CS, Hashtables and replacing the heap with TH3 improved performance significantly, but I had to neck it in order to minimize interference while probing for bad actors, and haven’t gotten around to testing it uninterrupted. (Only observed on machine A)
 
 
tl;dr Probably unnecessary. If you’re used to relying on it for performance, it might be time to start biting your fingers and deal with poor framerates, unless it doesn’t cause any issues.
 
 

EngineBugFixes

 
Can’t say I’ve spotted any significant difference in Nehrims behaviour with it on or off. (Only observed on machine A)
 
 
tl;dr Probably OK? I can only hope its patches don’t interfere with scripts…
 
 

BethINI

 
While theoretically it should be OK to use, the Nehrim Launcher really dislikes when you mess with the order of entries within the INI, which, in turn, results in your INi file getting filled with blank entries. I’m not entirely sure how duplicate INI entries affect the game, let alone empty ones, but it can’t be anything good – especially when Nehrim expects several of those entries to be specific things considered to be “invalid” by BethINI.
 
 
tl;dr Don’t let BethINI touch the INI files unless you’re prepared to face the consequences of your hubris.
 
 
 

Third Party Factors

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DirectShow

 
Oblivion is known – [uesp.net]  to eat dirt because of Codec incompatibilites. On a fresh Windows installation, this shouldn’t bother you, but if you’ve been using it for a while there’s a non-zero chance some ungoodware crept its way onto your PC.
 
 
If you get really desperate and want to try this, you have four choices:
 
1) Format your drive and reinstall Windows (The Nuclear Option)
 
2) Learn to operate regedit and correct DirectShow entries to their initial state
 
3) Find DirectShow Filter Manager on a website that isn’t malicious (Good Luck! Even the link on this – [uesp.net]  UESP page is flagged.)
 
4) Install the K-Lite Codec Pack (There’s adware in the installer. The codecs are fine, but you’ll have to untick it when prompted.)
 
 

 
 
Here we come to an end for Nehrim: At Fate’s Edge Crash Prevention hope you enjoy it. If you think we forget something to include or we should make an update to the post let us know via comment, and we will fix it asap! Thanks and have a great day!