LeddBate

64-bit Skyrim will remove the limit on the game being able to access actual RAM -which is what causes many current CTDs. You run out of RAM and the game crashes. I'm not good at explaining it. (hopefully the other commenters on the thread are still monitoring this, THEY can explain much better than me.) Anyway, yes, once 64-bit Skyrim is available AND we get an updated SKSE for it, expect to be able to use massive amounts of mods (as long as they don't conflict) that would have sent your old 32-bit game straight to the desktop. GPU memory is (usually) taxed by lotsa texture heavy mods. The more memory buffer your card has, the more it can handle the textures (including higher resolution textures.) I was assuming you were referring to GPU memory buffer. If you meant actual RAM in your question, then I apologize.

You're welcome! And be sure to take Project579 and darstyler's advice about building a mod list. It will save you a LOT of frustration down the line.

If you don't use LOOT, do so now. Clean the mods it recommends to do so with TES5Edit. Warning: a (very) few mods have intentional "dirty edits". Cleaning them will result in the mod not working correctly. Read any mod's description carefully before cleaning. Also, I see you have the "Legendary Edition" patch, but have you actually updated to the Legendary version of the game?

Both cards are good. The 780Ti will definitely give you more fps than the 960, but the 960 is more "future proof" with the 4GB buffer as opposed to the 3GB of the 780. In your shoes I'd go for the 960. Yes. If you can find it for the same price (or lower) then it is just slightly superior to the 960.

@asdasdGamer: What is the size of the GDDR5 memory buffers on the two cards you're asking us about (and the 780ti since you mentioned it.) Tell us that, and we can give you a firm opinion.

Yep. I'm betting that the Silverlock SKSE team will start working right away on Skyrim Remastered when it gets released in October. We might see a release before Christmas IF they can get the time to do it before the holidays. But I think a late January or February release is more probable. After that, I suppose that many mods that are SKSE reliant will need tweaking by the authors for the new version. I'm guessing we'll start seeing the majority of the popular mods being ready for 64-bit Skyrim by next Summer. I am SO looking forward to that. Oh, and thanks for clarifying that Skyrim Remastered WILL be a DX 11 game. Sooo, returning to the OP's original question: I think the consensus here is that you should go for a card with the largest memory buffer you can afford. Certainly 3GB at the very minimum. 4GB or better would be more advisable.

@darstyler: Thanks for the clarification. Well, I guess a 4GB buffer in your GPU is optimum for now. Hopefully someone will work on the OS end of the problem 'cause games (and the mods for them) are only going to get more memory intensive. Edit: Just saw your "Direct X 9" edit. Ohhh, that makes sense. Well, then I doubt we'll see any OS patching of the problem since games are now in the DX10/11 territory these days. Hmm. Will "Skyrim Remastered" be DX10 or 11? Does anyone know?

@twiztedmongoloid: Thanks! I just retired my old warhorse GPU (a GTX 670 with only a 2GB buffer) and replaced it with a GTX 980 due to the recent price drop. I'm about to start with a fresh install and a new mod list. I wasn't aware of this issue, but I'll keep an eye out.

@darsyler: is that stuttering/freezing issue with WIN 8, 10 and a heavily modded game on a 4GB+ card a common problem? I'm just curious...

Agree. And not just for Skyrim. 4GB of GPU mem buffer is becoming the new minimum. Once the modders have had time to work on the new 64-bit version of Skyrim, the old RAM limit that the 32-bit engine forced you to deal with will be a thing of the past. And that means more, and memory heavy, mods. Big, big texture mods and lots of them. Yeah, get a card with at least 4GB of GDDR5 memory buffer. If by any chance a windfall should come your way, the 1070 is the new king of "bang-for-the-buck".

Most "specific" items (such as quest items and major loot) will not respawn, but "general" items and loot will (sorta) respawn. By sorta, I mean that new items will be chosen by the game from the level lists and placed in the various locations. I think average time is one (game) month, but I believe this varies quite a bit depending on the locations looted. "Specific" loot locations (e.g. a treasure map chest) will not respawn. Containers that are "safe" (such as the drawers, chests, closets, etc. in your house) never spawn or remove items (because they are YOUR storage.) However, if you hide some gold in some random barrel, then come back for it weeks later -you're liable to find only a few moldy potatoes instead. (You can imagine that you made some wandering adventurer or bandit very happy.) NOW you know why you occasionally find some decent loot in a random box or barrel. You just made some other adventurer, rogue or bandit very UNhappy. Books I don't know about. I suspect that they are treated as general items and a new random book will spawn at the looted location. Spell books I believe are a specific item and likely don't respawn. On the other hand, there's so frikkin' many of them throughout Skyrim I can see why folks might be tempted to think that they DO respawn.

Thermal paste should have a "putty-like" consistency. Too liquid and the coat will be uneven (and will squeeze out between the CPU and cooler contact point.) To chalky and it will crack and not transfer the heat efficiently. You should never re-use thermal paste. Even re-sealed really well, I would not use paste that was that old. Get some new thermal paste, clean off your cpu and cooler and re-seat with a new layer. Do NOT wipe off paste with your fingers. You do not want body oils on the contact points. This should be obvious, but I caught a friend of mine wiping off thermal paste with his finger.

There are mods that require SKSE that don't use MCM, BTW, FYI. I know, that's why I said "e.g." as in "for example". Couldn't agree more. Some people LIKE the vanilla UI (looks at Lachdonin and shudders.) J/K -Please don't hate me! Well, I feel confident that the Silverlock team will dig into the new version as soon as they can. I give it a 75% chance that any Skyrim mod in the top 200 that is still being updated will get a 64-bit version once the new 64-bit compatible SKSE is released. The most likely thing that might prevent an active modder from making a new version of their mod is a lack of time to do so. After the new Skyrim gets released in October, I might drop the Silverlock team an email asking when they might have a chance of getting around to updating for it. Of course, if any of the team are reading this thread, please chime in! Of course, it's possible that some mod authors might not even wait for an updated SKSE and update their mod without it. I don't know jack about modding, but some mods MUST be able to be updated without the SKSE being necessary. Am I right?

Yeah, I like the Levelers Tower also. I wouldn't recommend it for a first play-through, but it's a good way to "design" a character you have in mind for later games without having to go through all the grind. However, I wouldn't advise going up past level 8 or boosting any of your stats (Health, Stamina Magica) more than 30 point each as it just makes going through some dungeons way too easy. Once, inspired by Chris Livingstone's "Living in" series (for Oblivion and Skyrim) I "built" a merchant who's goal was to simply travel the byways of Skyrim buying and selling goods. Speech skill at 75, Smithing at 50 and Alchemy at 30. I took only a backpack (modded), a few changes of clothes, a steel dagger and a magic ring that increased my health for equipment. I then took a few hundred gold to get myself started and went out into the world. I was eaten by a Troll three days later. I forgot the cardinal rule about Skyrim: The Draugr are training. Eh, it was fun while it lasted. Vilja may hold her liquor better, but Sofia makes a far more amusing drunkard.

Try the following: Check for mod conflicts. First, get as close as you can to the spot where you CTD and save. Quit out of the game. Go to your plug-ins tab in NMM and uncheck everything except Skyrim, the DLCs you have, and the unofficial patches for them (or the Legendary unofficial patch if you have the all-in-one Legendary version of Skyrim.) When you load your save you will get a warning about the missing content. Don't worry about it and load in. If you can now approach the spot without CTDing -then you now know you've got a mod conflict. Quit and re-enable about 10 plug-ins. Load back in and approach the spot to see if you CTD. If not, repeat the process until you DO crash. Now you've got the problem narrowed down to just 10 mods. Whittle them down until you find the culprit. Now, READ THAT MOD'S DESCRIPTION THOROUGHLY! You have a high probability of spotting the problem doing so. Tools that will help you with mods: LOOT (Load order organizer) TES5Edit (Mod "cleaner") LOOT will not only organize your load order to avoid conflicts but will advise you which mods need cleaning by TES5Edit. HOWEVER, before cleaning a mod with TES5Edit, be sure to READ THAT MOD'S DESCRIPTION THOROUGHLY! Some mods have deliberate "dirty" edits that are required by the mod to function properly and cleaning them will cause the mod to not work correctly. Gopher's video on "Cleaning Your Masterfiles" on the TES5Edit page is a "must-view" for understanding how to clean up files. You can also try NIF Healer. However, I haven't tried it yet, so I don't know how well it works. Try this only AFTER trying the above. Now if you continue to CTD even with all mods deactivated, then you most likely have a corrupted save issue. You can try a save cleaner such as Save Game Script Cleaner. Be sure to READ THE DESCRIPTION THOROUGHLY! (Are you seeing a pattern here?) However, don't expect miracles. The most common cure for a corrupted save is to simply go back until you reach a save that is NOT corrupted. Generally speaking, it is a bad idea to remove a mod in mid-playthrough as this is the most likely cause of corrupted saves. Edited for grammar.

Generally speaking, any mod that does not rely upon SKSE to function (e.g. MCM menu support) WILL work. Now the remastered version has improvements that are "ENB-like" already baked in, but you should still be able to add your favorite ENB. As for the Static Mesh mod, sorry, I don't know if it will make a difference. Edit: I should further clarify that a mod that relies heavily on the 32-bit engine (again, mostly SKSE reliant mods) may not work properly on the remastered version's 64-bit engine.

Thanks for the info Freso. And a big thank you to you and the rest of the LOOT team for producing such a wonderful tool for helping us organize our load orders.

If you really want to keep the mod, try cleaning it with TES5Edit to see if that solves the problem. Unless you already have, in which case never mind.

I'll be switching over, eventually. Like many above, I'll most likely wait until the SKSE team gets the new compatible version out, as well as at least half of the popular mods that require SKSE to function. In the meantime, I'm gonna mod up FO4 and jump in. However, I just might boot it up "as-is" just to check out how it looks for awhile.

Amazing Follower Tweaks (AFT) gives you more control over your followers. Assuming you're willing to try a new follower mod, this might work for you. I'd suggest reading the mod's description (and see these videos) to see if it intrigues you.

Interesting. I'll have to try this for my next play-through. This might be worthy of a pin.

You say you've installed SKSE. If so, you don't use the "PLAY" button from Skyrim's menu, instead you use the SKSE.EXE launcher. You can create a desktop shortcut to it. Here's a video on SKSE if you haven't seen it yet. Also, I note that you (I assume) have the original Skyrim with only the Hearthfire DLC. If so, you should really consider upgrading to the Legendary Edition (contains all three DLCs - Dawnguard, Hearthfire, Dragonborn) and add the Unofficial Legendary Patch. You don't need this to correct your problem, but the Legendary version is so cheap now that it really is worth it. EDIT: Gah! Genamine! You beat me to it while I was looking up Gopher's video. Oh, well...

Err, yes. I don't mean to sound grumpy, but I pointed out above that BOSS has been replaced by LOOT and that the old Unofficial Patches have been replaced by the newer Legendary Unofficial Patch. My point is that the mod is old and has not been updated in years. It can work (as your friend stated) but you MUST follow the steps carefully. So, did you: A) Install SSME, ENBoost, SkyUI and SKSE? I realize that SSME and ENBoost are no longer necessary in general, but they do not hurt (other than to use in some plug-in slots) and the mod author explicitly states HIS mod needs them. B) Start a NEW game, THEN activate CWO? If you've done these two things, then let's look at your rig's stats (CPU, GPU, RAM) and your LOOTed load order of mods to see what else we can determine. Also, could anyone else that has experienced this issue (and found a solution) jump in here with some advice please?

Seriously, this is the best up-to-date troubleshooting guide I've seen for mod conflicts here on the Nexus forums. You should submit this to a moderator and ask them to pin it to the top of this section. It would be a great help to people looking for a comprehensive troubleshooting guide for mods.

Let's start with the basics. Have you read the following from the mod's page? "If you do not have any of these, install them: BOSS*, SSME, ENBoost, SkyUI, SKSE, and the Unofficial Patches^. *BOSS has been replaced by LOOT these days. ^The Unofficial Patches have been replaced by the Unofficial Legendary Patch these days. Sort your load order with BOSS LOOT. YOU MUST START A NEW GAME. No exceptions." As you can see from above, this mod has not been updated for several years. This, in itself, is not bad, but the mod author himself has pointed out that CWO will only work under very specific conditions. You simply cannot skip any of the steps/warnings/conditions he has listed on his mod's page. Be aware that any saves you have are probably not going to be usable now that you are experiencing problems. Remember, CWO only works on NEW games. If you've done the above, write back here with your system specs and mod list and perhaps we can figure out the problem.