Skyrim Dragonborn DLC CTD's Help Please [Semi-Urgent].

[ripple]

1) BOSS' 'dirty edit' message indicates a plugin contains either 1) identical to master entries, 2) deleted references, or 3) both.

 

Identical to master entries are duplicates of records in the base game esm. With extremely rare exceptions, they should be 'cleaned'/removed because those records are (the vast majority of the time) unnecessary and can override conflicting records in other mods that are loaded earlier in the load order, thus causing users to ask 'why do I not see changes made by mod X?' (because mod Y's identical to master records have overriden those changes and reset them back to the default game settings). The exception to this is when the mod author actually intentionally wants to retain some identical to master records. I've only encountered one mod where it made -some- sense to do this. In almost all cases I've looked into, identical to master entries were completely unnecessary. The ones reported by BOSS are not the 'exceptions' (and as far as 'dirty edits' go, those are just the mods reported by the mod users).

 

Deleted references are more serious and can cause CTDs if those records are referenced by other mods later in the load order. This is not so much an issue with Skyrim but a more widespread issue with Fallout 3 and NV, when there were a number of 'clean garbage and clutter' mods in which the mod authors simply deleted a ton of base game objects in the GECK (FO3/FNV's 'creation kit'). Undeleting the references and setting them to 'disabled' using TES5Edit fixes this problem. If you are using any mods that are primarily 'location edits' (overhaul 'city X' type mods), you should definitely check to see if they contain deleted references even if the BOSS log does not tell you to.

 

So, clean those plugins flagged by BOSS as containing 'dirty edits.'

 

2) The plugins not recognized by BOSS: Every time your run BOSS (which you should do every time you install a new mod), those plugins go to the bottom of the load order. They should absolutely not be allowed to simply load there, because if they contain conflicting records with other plugins in your load order, they will override those records (and in some cases, this may not be ideal). some users go by 'general suggestions' from the mod authors to determine the load order position of these unrecognized mods. That is mostly useful only for a small load order. Since mod authors cannot account for every mod out there, the only reliable way to handle this is to load all your plugins in TES5Edit, and check the unrecognized plugins to see if they contain conflicting records with other plugins in your load order. If they don't contain conflicting records, then they can load any where above your compatibility patches (although you don't seem to be using any). If they do contain conflicting records, you will need to decide who should 'win' and arrange their load order position accordingly (plugins that load later in the load order 'override' conflicting records of plugins that load earlier). Alternatively, you can just uninstall the unrecognized mods and not deal with the aggravation.

 

3) It's hard to say whether your CTDs are vram related. It depends on what texture replacers you are using. If you are experiencing reasonable framerates with the Hi-Res DLC pack, then it should be ok, but given your GPU (Asus GTX 560 Ti 1.2 GB) I would stay far away from those 'HD 4096 res' type mods. I have noticed that Skyrim is particularly stressful on the GPU, more than any other games I've played.

Edited February 23, 2013 by ripple

[stiXzza]

1) BOSS' 'dirty edit' message indicates a plugin contains either 1) identical to master entries, 2) deleted references, or 3) both.

 

Identical to master entries are duplicates of records in the base game esm. With extremely rare exceptions, they should be 'cleaned'/removed because those records are (the vast majority of the time) unnecessary and can override conflicting records in other mods that are loaded earlier in the load order, thus causing users to ask 'why do I not see changes made by mod X?' (because mod Y's identical to master records have overriden those changes and reset them back to the default game settings). The exception to this is when the mod author actually intentionally wants to retain some identical to master records. I've only encountered one mod where it made -some- sense to do this. In almost all cases I've looked into, identical to master entries were completely unnecessary. The ones reported by BOSS are not the 'exceptions' (and as far as 'dirty edits' go, those are just the mods reported by the mod users).

 

Deleted references are more serious and can cause CTDs if those records are referenced by other mods later in the load order. This is not so much an issue with Skyrim but a more widespread issue with Fallout 3 and NV, when there were a number of 'clean garbage and clutter' mods in which the mod authors simply deleted a ton of base game objects in the GECK (FO3/FNV's 'creation kit'). Undeleting the references and setting them to 'disabled' using TES5Edit fixes this problem. If you are using any mods that are primarily 'location edits' (overhaul 'city X' type mods), you should definitely check to see if they contain deleted references even if the BOSS log does not tell you to.

 

So, clean those plugins flagged by BOSS as containing 'dirty edits.'

 

2) The plugins not recognized by BOSS: Every time your run BOSS (which you should do every time you install a new mod), those plugins go to the bottom of the load order. They should absolutely not be allowed to simply load there, because if they contain conflicting records with other plugins in your load order, they will override those records (and in some cases, this may not be ideal). some users go by 'general suggestions' from the mod authors to determine the load order position of these unrecognized mods. That is mostly useful only for a small load order. Since mod authors cannot account for every mod out there, the only reliable way to handle this is to load all your plugins in TES5Edit, and check the unrecognized plugins to see if they contain conflicting records with other plugins in your load order. If they don't contain conflicting records, then they can load any where above your compatibility patches (although you don't seem to be using any). If they do contain conflicting records, you will need to decide who should 'win' and arrange their load order position accordingly (plugins that load later in the load order 'override' conflicting records of plugins that load earlier). Alternatively, you can just uninstall the unrecognized mods and not deal with the aggravation.

 

3) It's hard to say whether your CTDs are vram related. It depends on what texture replacers you are using. If you are experiencing reasonable framerates with the Hi-Res DLC pack, then it should be ok, but given your GPU (Asus GTX 560 Ti 1.2 GB) I would stay far away from those 'HD 4096 res' type mods. I have noticed that Skyrim is particularly stressful on the GPU, more than any other games I've played.

 

Thanks a lot ripple!

 

You advice is amazing. I don't use the HD DLC's, and I have no textures packs with a resolution of >2048, so I think I'll clean those mods up when I get some more time, and see if it helps.

 

Thanks!