My character is all black in the inventory menu screen.

[Alex Yong]

My character is all black in the inventory menu screen. No mods installed.
This is happening on The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Game of the Year Edition (2009) not the remastered version. Tried all video setting, and reinstall but it is not working. Can anyone help?

[1MantisPhoenix]

Try this techpowerup.com/download/visual-c-redistributable-runtime-package-all-in-one/
Download, install, restart your PC, test the game again
You may be missing older vcredist closer to time this game was released.

[Alex Yong]

Hi, @1MantisPhoenix,
Thanks for your suggestion.
I installed the Visual C++ from the link you provided but the problem still persist.
Do you have any other suggestion?
What could be the problem?
Any other player facing same problem? If yes, please do share how to fix it.
Thanks in advance.

[cheshirm]

https://steamcommunity.com/app/22330/discussions/0/2626094856507480159/

[1MantisPhoenix]

Originally posted by Alex Yong:

Hi, @1MantisPhoenix,
Thanks for your suggestion.
I installed the Visual C++ from the link you provided but the problem still persist.
Do you have any other suggestion?
What could be the problem?
Any other player facing same problem? If yes, please do share how to fix it.
Thanks in advance.

Originally posted by cheshirm:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/22330/discussions/0/2626094856507480159/

"It's often recommended to turn off HDR and turn on BLOOM if you're having Black screen issues, IIRC.

Those issues were often related to Nvidia cards back in the day, and game cells having a bad fog range. Again, IIRC."
as per that post,
Based on this, I can recommend checking they are 'application controlled' in the GPU control panel, manage 3d settings for this game,
or disable them in-game if it's still an issue;

[Nite69]

Or run without bloom and HDR, in my opinion the game looks MUCH sharper with both Off

[Night[owl]]

Originally posted by Alex Yong:

My character is all black in the inventory menu screen. No mods installed.
This is happening on The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Game of the Year Edition (2009) not the remastered version. Tried all video setting, and reinstall but it is not working. Can anyone help?

Maybe your issue with preview in Inventory is related to shader isn't compiled as it should?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0y2HaRwqbAY

Link is a video showing how to clear out shader chache for Nvidia GPU.

AMD will have very much the same (you have to find out where in AMDs App you find shader cache and disable it there before continue with the Windows clean of DirectX shaders).

(AMD but from 2 years ago - might look different today, but should show where to look for on AMD GPUs APP).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iuo6-_xsc8

I would move all my save games from Documents/My Games/ and back those files up.

Use DDU to completely clear out GPU drivers and download the newest one.

https://www.guru3d.com/download/display-driver-uninstaller-download/

You have already been downloading and installed Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable (Vcredist) from 2005 and for 32 bit (Oblivion exe is a 32 bit app).

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/windows/latest-supported-vc-redist?view=msvc-170#visual-studio-2005-vc-80-sp1-no-longer-supported

Pick x86 which is for 32 bit apps, x64 is for 64 bit.

Uninstall Oblivion and re-install it on a storage device or folder that isn't Windows Default path for apps (Program Files and Program Files(x86)). If you only have one storage device (C:), then at least create new folder named games or something and re-direct Steam client to install games there instead.

Here is link that explains what I mean: https://www.guidingtech.com/where-are-steam-games-stored/

Here is a video that will show how it looks in Steam client (but layout have change a tad bit since then, but the main steps are the same).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DaNys6dqxQ

Disable also synchronisation between your game (Oblivion) and Steam Cloud to avoid having all old files litter your save game folder and when you running Oblivion. Try to keep that folder for save games as short as possible as Oblivion will load all save games in preview when you open load or save feature.

You will find that option from the main menu which should turn it off for everything that Steam is using cloud for and then when you go to game and pick keg wheel, open properties and go through that view you should find another place where you turn off (toggle) Steam Cloud saving feature (which for Oblivion is comparing save games between you local folder and what have been copied to cloud).


Now you have done what you can from removing older shaders (shader cache), cleaned out GPU drivers that could have some impact and downloaded GPU drivers up to date, made sure Vcredit is the supported legacy one (should have been installed when you first time run Oblivion together with DirectX 9c which where that times version for DX9 games; today version is DirectX 12 (if your GPUs is new enough which most GPU that are as old as mine GTX 790 did).

Start with new game (don't move your older Save games back yet) to see if all this work have finally made your character step out of the shadows and into the light on your Inventory preview.