Some (but not all) people who have gotten their hands on Oblivion already have complained about long load times. How long, you ask? How about ten whole minutes just for the inital load! Someone from Bethesda made a post on the official Elder Scrolls forum that solves the problem. When you first turn on your Xbox 360 hold down the A button while Oblivion loads. This clears the hard drive cache and lets Oblivion start fresh. Don't worry, you won't lose any game saves or anything. The hard drive cache allows for faster load times by copying and reusing some data to the hard drive, but sometimes the data in the cache can get fragmented which results in slower data access.
The results of using this handy trick? Gamers have reported initial load times as quickly as 45 seconds and then the rest of the game (menus, dialogue, etc.) loads very quickly. I hope this helps some people. The Elder Scrolls Forums -> Xbox 360 Long Pauses with Hard Drive

Comments
awesome troubleshooting tip! A+
Works great, thanks!!!
Thanks! This saved me from a major freakout! Worked fine on my friend’s 360 but not mine when I got home! Whew!
I tried your remedy for the slow loads with Oblivion, holding the “A” button down. It worked like a charm, thank you!
thankgod there something i can do i have invested 70 game hours into the story and slowed down at 71 hours i will try when i get home thankyou
Thank you for this tip. I wish we would have seen this before my boyfriend deleted his entire profile thinking that was the issue.
Now I can get back to teasing him.
THANKS!!! i was really worried there for a while!
Worked like a dream, thanks very much.
I tried this trick but noticed some improvement from 7 minutes load times but still getting 5 minute load times between screens.
Thanks dude, the game’s actually playable now
WOW AWESOME IT ACCUALLY “DOES” WORK OMG I KNEW IT WASNT THE DISK!!!!!!
i am 160 hours in and it slowed down to almost a STOP, then I restored and also did one of those direct x 8 (or 9) tests that are in the Oblivion menu and all of a sudden it works great…I am not comp guy but i am happy, thoughti would post this in case it helps anyone
um… i dont understand still can u make it easier for me? im blond lol
Wow you have no idea how much stress u saved me.
Thanks, this little trick solved the long load times!
Legend, Absolute Legend mate cheers. FYI Stephen, I’m blonde aswell. Very, Very blonde. Lol.
Thanks dude!!
Umm… You mean the first Oblivion loading screen?? I held a button but it didnt work… and i got that game today so i haven’t even played it alot :SS Even installing to the hard drive didnt work :S
Oh got working xDD Pressed button in wrong place :OO
Thanks a bunch.
This info works perfectly Thanks
Eric – dude, seriously, thank you. Awesome. Greatness.
works great.
thank You and that resist my oblivion from trash
OH MY GOSH i was so worried that there was some hardware problem with the newer xboxes and oblivion ABSOLUTE LFESAVER
Thanks! This worked like a treat! Now to solve my vampirism problem
AMAZING! worked great. how is this the first time i’ve heard about this…?
Superb tip, works perfectly!!
THANKS!!
Awesome!!! Thank You!
#holy ****. It sounds cheesy at first but this really Works!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111
Well, my obvlivion is installed to the hardrive not on a disk as i downloaded it from xbox live, therefore it doesnt start automatically when i start up my xbox.. i tried holding th button down during oblivion start up but it didnt do much, decreased loading between areas from aout 3 mins to 2 mins 30 secs.. :/ any ideas?
Worked like a charm. Thanks a lot for the tip!
whoh dude thats dope thanx man it really helps
Great!!!!
Many thanks!!!!