just wanted to let all of you who encounter serious freezes, crashes and more symptoms like that that lead to an unplayable game: I had the same huge problems, couldnt play for more than 1 minute without a freezing monitor (while the game was still going on, sound and so on was there...). so I installed win7 and the newest drivers for nvidia and mainboard... not more. now I am playing since 1 hour without any problem at all. settings: evrything to highest quality! so I guess the problem is very much xp related and unfortunately most of you wont be able to do anything except wait until bethesda will suppy you with a new patch....(maybe this will help: its definetively NOT oblivion. its very much console ported and the inventory is simply annoying)