29 replies to this topic

[IsharaMeradin]

VRAM as in Video RAM.  In other words, do you have dedicated memory for your GPU or is it shared memory?  If dedicated, how much?

 

Also, if you have Win 7 64 bit installed it should be running at 64 bit.  Go to Control Panel > System and see what it reports.  If the OS is 64 bit then you are running at that.

[onioning]

I'm running the 32 bit version. Chose that automatically when I installed. My understanding is that I should be running the 32 bit version, since I only have 8 GB of RAM. I may be misinformed.

 

 

I have 1024 MB of dedicated VRAM. 

[Lord Garon]

8 Gs installed. Strongly considering adding another 8 Gs, mostly 'cause it's easily done. I let myself be talked out of 16 Gs when I put this computer together (which is only about a month ago). Now I kinda regret it. I also regret not spending more on the graphics card, but it's much easier and justifiable to add the memory than to replace a graphics card I just bought... I do have the 64 bit version of Windows 7 on this machine (Windows Ultimate), but as I understand things, I'm not using it because of the 8 Gs of RAM available. 

 

If memory serves me, VRAM is virtual RAM, or a portion of the hard drive set aside for RAM. Not sure how to check that... Also not sure how having the SS drives affects that, though I do have a conventional HD as well. 

 

Made the changes suggested above. Been "testing" (i.e., joining the Thieve's Guild...) for only about 20 minutes. I did have one crash. Reloaded and continued on my way. 

 

Edit: I'll also note that these are proper crashes. The game stops running immediately and entirely. That's as opposed to the stuck screen I was getting before that required Task Manager to end.

 

EDIT: DOH! We posted at the same time. Don't make the following change if you're on 32bit Windows.

 

64 bit: Good! Your OP says Windows 7 32 bit. ENBseries can get you a little extra memory if you change one of the enblocal.ini settings I posted earlier:

 

[MEMORY]
ExpandSystemMemoryX64=true      <-- Change to true

 

EDIT: You can do all the following...

 

Did you get the HiRes packs to work?

 

If you got enbseries and SSME in, you have (almost) the most stable base Skyrim possible. I would suspect a new game to be very reliable, but we can also look for problems in your savegames, if you downloaded Wrye Bash. Savegames, basically, remember every mod installed during that same game. What that means is that you should not uninstall mods during a game unless you go back to a savegame made before the mod was installed, or you follow the mod author's safe uninstall directions. This is probably the number one reason people have issues with Skyrim.

 

I don't want to drag you through more than you want (we gotta PLAY Skyrim at some point), so I'll leave a few tips here that may still help your CTD issues or stability in general:

 

1. In the Skyrim\Data directory there should be an SKSE folder. There may be an skse.ini file in that SKSE folder. If not, you can just make them. Regardless, you can add the following setting to Data\SKSE\skse.ini without causing any issues and it may help with or prevent script problems:

 

[General]
ClearInvalidRegistrations=1

 

2. There is a bug in the game engine (several, in fact) that has the potential to cause a CTD even with default ugrids settings and it is fixed by this mod. You don't need to change ugrids at all for it to work, but it only fixes that one bug (may not fix your problem).

 

3. Use either Skyrim launcher Options OR Nvidia control panel to set AA and AF, but don't have them on in both places.

 

4. The Skyrim Total Enhancement Project (STEP) has THE best information on seriously modding Skyrim, IMHO.

 

5. Don't tweak your ini files, unless its necessary for a mod or its on the STEP website. Or, 4 out of 5 Nexus helpers say its a good idea. Or its me. 

 

Let me know if you want to look at the savegames in Bash (it will tell you what esm/esp files the savegame depends on; restoring a missing mod MAY fix some savegame problems, but you'll have to live with that mod.)

Edited by Lord Garon, 11 March 2014 - 04:55 AM.

[onioning]

To be clear, as I understand it, I have the 64 bit version on this machine, but it is running the 32 bit version. Perhaps I should go back and swap over?

[Rennn]

8 Gs installed. Strongly considering adding another 8 Gs, mostly 'cause it's easily done. I let myself be talked out of 16 Gs when I put this computer together (which is only about a month ago). Now I kinda regret it. I also regret not spending more on the graphics card, but it's much easier and justifiable to add the memory than to replace a graphics card I just bought... I do have the 64 bit version of Windows 7 on this machine (Windows Ultimate), but as I understand things, I'm not using it because of the 8 Gs of RAM available. 

 

If memory serves me, VRAM is virtual RAM, or a portion of the hard drive set aside for RAM. Not sure how to check that... Also not sure how having the SS drives affects that, though I do have a conventional HD as well. 

 

Made the changes suggested above. Been "testing" (i.e., joining the Thieve's Guild...) for only about 20 minutes. I did have one crash. Reloaded and continued on my way. 

 

Edit: I'll also note that these are proper crashes. The game stops running immediately and entirely. That's as opposed to the stuck screen I was getting before that required Task Manager to end.

 

You won't notice a difference from 8GB to 16GB of RAM in Skyrim. Only in 64-bit games. Keep that in mind...

 

But your OS should always be 64-bit. It increases speed and stability overall, even a small amount in 32-bit applications like Skyrim.

Edited by Rennn, 11 March 2014 - 07:24 AM.

[onioning]

Well, shoot.

 

Installed the 64 bit version.

 

Tried the HD packs. Immediate crash.

 

Removed the HD packs. Old save, occasional crashes.

 

New save, still occasional crashes. Very small sample size though. One crash in about an hour.

[Lord Garon]

Well, shoot.

 

Installed the 64 bit version.

 

Tried the HD packs. Immediate crash.

 

Removed the HD packs. Old save, occasional crashes.

 

New save, still occasional crashes. Very small sample size though. One crash in about an hour.

 

In my bsa experimenting, I've actually run Skyrim (by accident) with only a few loose texture files loading; kinda surreal to walk around in-game with no textures (kind of a blue, dark, alien winterland), but it does show you how the world is actually built.

 

Point here is that textures are not as necessary as, say, a mesh (nif file), which will crash the game if missing. If the game CTD's during a load screen with the HiResTexturePacks enabled, I would suspect something outside of Skyrim itself:

 

1. Make sure you have the latest video card drivers installed and that the Nvidia control panel is using "Application Settings" for Skyrim and is not forcing anything extra like "Triple Buffering".

 

2. Try to enable only one of the texture packs at a time and see if a particular pack is causing the problem.

 

<Personal Opinion> Maxing VRAM should not crash Skyrim on Windows 7, if you have a WHQL video driver. I have run with maxed vram for over a year on three different video cards: 512MB(Geforce), 1024MB(AMD), and 2048MB(AMD). It may cause some stutter, but it should not cause a crash (because of the way the driver model is constructed in Win 7). My experience is absolutely contrary to many others and I have no explanation for that, other than possible computer system differences. With a 1GB card, you SHOULD be able to run the HiResPacks. They may give you an FPS hit you don't like, but the game should run, at least.</Personal Opinion>

[onioning]

 

 

2. Try to enable only one of the texture packs at a time and see if a particular pack is causing the problem.

 

Indeed. Third pack is the culprit. I'm trying to re-download it. I'd rather not DL the other two, and from what I just read on the internets, if I just delete the file, it will automatically be re-downloaded when I start the game. That hasn't been show to be true yet, but I'm gonna go ahead and give it some time. Maybe i just had a corrupted file. *Fingers crossed*

[onioning]

Just an update, 'cause I know y'all are on the edge of your chairs wondering how I'm doing, I found a serious flaw in my windows install that has now (hopefully) been fixed. Seems not unlikely that this was the real source of at least some of my crashes. I'll find out soon...

[wolff956]

Found this when i Goggled an unrelated problem I am having and wanted to mention since I did not see it here, onioning 8 gig of ram in a 32 bit OS is a waste because of a windows 32 bit limitation, the OS can not use more than about 3.25 gig, i have seen this in my own experiance as well, OP never did state his video memory size but the 9800GT was offered in two sizes, 512mb and 1gb.

 

Lord Garon it is people like you in the Skyrim community that make this game so enjoyablem, what with all the free mods and tech support that would cost extra for any other game.

 

I was having CTD issues but mine where caused by over writing save game files, stopped doing that and problem went away

 

My system

I930@4ghz.

6 gig DDR3-1600

GTX-470 (1280 vram)

Skyrim is on a dedicated SSD