28 replies to this topic

[Sigurd44]

I can only agree to the statement concerning the 3,2 GB VRAM border. I have 2 x Geforce GTX 670 cards with 4 GB RAM each (and yes, I know SLI won't double it, but I need two cards for my 27'' screen for displaying Skyrim in 2560 x 1440 resolution).

 

I had severe CTD and endless loading screen issues too. Sometimes I had to reload twice or thrice to actually be able to succeed in fast traveling or zoning from interior to exterior.

 

I run tons of texture mods and used to have pretty exaggerated grafic settings (4x SSAA, 8x Sparse Grid SSAA for transp. AA, 16x AF, ambient occlusion quality).

 

I tried three things:

 

-lowering grafic settings drastically (4x MSAA, 2x SSAA, 16x AF)

-> result: some improvement, but not enough to play really smooth again

 

-ran a boss check for dirty edits and other warnings

 -> diagnose: JaySus swords needed to be updated and all my .esm files needed cleaning by TES5edit

-> result after doing this: some improvement, but even less as lowering grafic settings

 

-I unchecked all official high resolution .esp files, but did not touch my tons of installed 2k and 4k texture mods

-> result: best improvement overall, some CTDs here and there, but smooth playing is possible again

 

I have no idea what those high res esp. actually do, but the few inches of vanilla textures, that are not covered by 2k+ resolution texture mods are very very rare in my Skyrim.

The grafical benefit of those .esps bears no proportion to the performance loss they cause.

 

I left my grafic settings where they were before, did the TES5edit cleaning, updated JaySus swords and unchecked the high res esps. (and the unofficial high rez .esp) and Skyrim is not perfectly, but really well playable again.

 

 

Maybe I try to alter the page file memory too. At moment I let handle it by Win7 64 Bit and it has somewhat around 16 Gig RAM. Besides that I have 16 GB RAM.

[SvarogNL]

After changing Skyrim HD 2K and Serious HD Retexture to 1K i havn't had a crash anymore.

 

It dropped my VRam from 2900 MB to 2500 MB.

 

So my guess is that the TESV.exe reaching unstable memory usage caused my CTDs

 

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@Sigurd44

 

If you use ENB i suggest 2x MSAA + Edge Detect from ENB, on such a big ress that's more than enough to smooth out the jaggies.

 

I'm currently using the same on 1920 x 1200 and it looks just smooth.

 

I'm currently using ENB 0.168 with Unbleak (modified it a lot tho)

Edited by SvarogNL, 29 June 2013 - 08:11 PM.

[Sigurd44]

Thx, I am tempted to try an ENB for a whole while, but at moment I just want to actually play Skyrim and I can't be bothered by the reading and googling you have to do to install such an ENB thing. At moment I stay with my RCRNv36 FXAA.

 

My summary about that whole CTD issues people are facing out of nowhere in the last time, is that even with the best hardware Skyrim somehow eats up performance like a hungry piranha and/or is unable to handle the performance a system might deliver due to engine limitation....sad thing. My guess is VRAM too, but maybe some other stuff plays a role too.

 

In addition to my described procedure in the post above, I now increased my page file from 16 GB RAM to 24 GB of disc usage (if the x 1,5 rule still applies under Win7 it seems ok anyways, I have 16 GB RAM).

 

The last thing I will do is to install the newest Geforce driver. I have the version 314, needs an update anyways.

[Sigurd44]

Just changing a simple Nvidia driver can drive you nuts in this game....I updated the driver and wondered why I had only 22 fps left....indoors.

 

I "just" needed almost an hour to find out that installing a new driver will keep all my settings in the Nvidia Control Panel and in Nvidia Inspector, BUT resets the SLI select....

 

Besides that I experienced something interesting....as I run Skyrim without SLI using only one of my grafic cards, I cursed the general lag and the mouse lag, but the game actually ran stable, no CTDs at all, neither while approaching several "problem" locations, nor while zoning indoors -> oudoors, nor while fast traveling to special "CTD areas".

[prod80]

Welcome to the wonderful world of SLI

So many years in SLI, still not stable... people with gtx590 gtx690 continuously have this same problem... at least with skyrim.

anyway the new NVidia drivers are not the best for skyrim... stick with 314.22...

 

maybe your SLI will run more stable when you don't OC the cards

[rilax]

Well things didn't work out for me on my part. I just re-installed all the gpu drivers and tried to play skyrim with no mods, texture packs whatsoever and the game still managed to ctd. I tried to see how it would handle 20 stormcloaks vs 20 imperials and it all went fine, but when i fast traveled i immediatly crashed. I still don't get what the whole problem for Skyrim is with dealing with multiple things at once. It's not like 40 npc's should be that much. There are maybe more npc's in a big dungeon that in such a small battle.

[Reynard131]

Just changing a simple Nvidia driver can drive you nuts in this game....I updated the driver and wondered why I had only 22 fps left....indoors.

 

I "just" needed almost an hour to find out that installing a new driver will keep all my settings in the Nvidia Control Panel and in Nvidia Innspector, BUT resets the SLI select....

 

Besides that I experienced something interesting....as I run Skyrim without SLI using only one of my grafic cards, I cursed the general lag and the mouse lag, but the game actually ran stable, no CTDs at all, neither while approaching several "problem" locations, nor while zoning indoors -> oudoors, nor while fast traveling to special "CTD areas".

 

 

 

Try the 320.49 beta drivers... they straightened out a lot of crap on my  GTX 5XX and 6XX cards...  Was doing a render and the latest 320.18  WHQL driver sucks major...This made the buss run smoothly....

[Sigurd44]

I found another (pretty dated) CTD thread where people actually tell, that SMIM is the reason for CTDs: http://forums.nexusm...ath-hold/page-6

 

...and uninstalling SMIM solved the problem for a few of them.

 

No idea if that might help still, SMIM got at least one update meanwhile. The CTD loacations vary, but one was Falkreath and the Falkreath Hearthfire house and exactly the later one is my CTD area number one. A fast travel to that ends up in a CTD almost in 99,9 %. Meanwhile I just made me a bat command with a player.moveto [steward or house bard ID] and zone directly indoors :-)

 

Btw, I don't use any overclocking at all at moment. With a i7 2600K and 2 x 670 Geforce GTX on default settings I am just able to handle temperature without water cooling. I reach 70°C max, but not more. A few degrees more and I would get throttle downs and as long as my cards can handle my above grafic settings without overheating there is no reason to overclock.

[rilax]

I found another (pretty dated) CTD thread where people actually tell, that SMIM is the reason for CTDs: http://forums.nexusm...ath-hold/page-6

 

...and uninstalling SMIM solved the problem for a few of them.

 

No idea if that might help still, SMIM got at least one update meanwhile. The CTD loacations vary, but one was Falkreath and the Falkreath Hearthfire house and exactly the later one is my CTD area number one. A fast travel to that ends up in a CTD almost in 99,9 %. Meanwhile I just made me a bat command with a player.moveto [steward or house bard ID] and zone directly indoors :-)

 

Btw, I don't use any overclocking at all at moment. With a i7 2600K and 2 x 670 Geforce GTX on default settings I am just able to handle temperature without water cooling. I reach 70°C max, but not more. A few degrees more and I would get throttle downs and as long as my cards can handle my above grafic settings without overheating there is no reason to overclock.

Well. I just deleted all my mods and reverted to a pristine (vanilla) Skyrim installation to see if that helps. If not then the problem has likely to do with some software or driver setting on my pc. If it (unlikely since this isn't the first time i've tried it) helps then maybe it was SMIM. I'm also gonna try to disable SLI again. Maybe it runs better on vanilla.

 

*edit*

 

Well nothing worked on my part. Even with no SLI, mods, texture packs whatsoever this game of madness continues to behave this strange. I also send Beth one of those MD5 files since i have no mods installed anyway maybe they see something weird on their side.

Edited by rilax, 30 June 2013 - 03:05 PM.