Solved my long running random CTDs.

[EmhyrTyl]

All I did was deactivate the official hi-res DLC.

 

Like most I run more mods than is sensible, including a lot of hi-res texture packs and compilations including the official hi-res DLC. I once read a guide on making your Skyrim look better which stated there was no reason not to have the hi-res DLC, as well as all your other texture mods. I believed this thinking it may aswell be there and activated as a catch-all incase any of my texture packs miss a texture then at least I'll get the official high res version rather than vanilla, and as the textures will not be used it will not put any additional strain on my system right? After a while in Skyrim I'd start getting random CTDs that could not be pinned down to any specific mod. I could play for 5-20 minutes before a random CTD in a different place, doing different things each time, and would often see black textures. I put this down to save game corruption, orphaned scripts, engine limitations, badly made mods etc. Sound familiar?

 

I spent many hours, days, and new games trying to make Skyrim more stable with little success until reciently when I thought to try deactivating the official hi-res DLC plugins, and all my problems vanished. I have never had a single crash since and still run a silly amount of graphics and overhaul mods with no issues at all. Even though none of the DLC packs were actually shown in-game, I'm guessing they were still loaded and putting a large strain on the engine. Thought I'd share this because in all my forum searching I did not see this suggested once.

 

TLDR: If you use texture mods de-activate the official high-res DLC!