Dragon Related CTDs

[shizuneko]

Something's wrong with game processing flames, scorched earth and all the dragon related stuff.

Year ago when I first played Skyrim the only CTD I had was in Helgen, but it was a single situation.

Now I have decided to play game once more after some OS reinstalls, patching the video card drivers and so on. I'm running SKSE with some mods. What came to my attention is that whenever there's a dragon related quest I have like a load of CTDs.
Helgen was a nightmare, game crashed every few meters. Finally I got rid of the problem by lowering every detail that was possible and running vanilla game. Prior to passing Helgen a great relief came as I had no CTDs since then. Every fight I took with sorcerers, dozens of particles splashing around weren't a problem.

Now after doing loads of quests, exploring all the world I decided to progress in the main plot. The problem I have is Dragon Rising quest.

As soon as I get to the area surrounding Western Watchtower game crashes. There's no dragon there yet, but the area is burned. I tried to run the game with lowest settings possible, but it still crashes as soon as Irileth orders men to look for the survivors.

What's the source of that issue? The time I ran vanilla Skyrim I had no problems at all, besides game was running pretty fluently on high settings.

 

@edit

I tried to run the game on the lowest settings and it succeded at the first take, but after loading the same save it keeps crashing as on high details. Then I loaded save game from the middle of the fight and completed the quest on lowest details. It seems that game has a problem when I discover quest location full of fires.

 

 

My rig:
nVidia GeForce GTS450 with latest drivers 320.18 (that's the thing that changed, last time I was playing Skyrim the drivers were like few levels below)

Intel Core 2 Duo 2.13 GHz

4096 MB of RAM

Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit (that has also changed, as mentioned I did some reinstallments and changed OS from 32 to 64 bit)

Realtek Soundcard (but now what I see it's more of a graphic than sound problem)

Edited June 5, 2013 by Severb

[ripple]

The time I ran vanilla Skyrim I had no problems at all,

 

Obviously, the problem is that you are using mods, which needs to be meticulous installed and managed in order to ensure game stability.

 

Post your BOSS log (with the messages), include the list of plugins not recognized by BOSS if one is generated. Enclose them in spoiler tags so they don't clutter the screen.

 

List all the mods you have installed which do not come with plugins (e.g. texture replacers, body replacers).

[shizuneko]

Actually I don't run BOSS at all.

 

The mods are following:

 

 

Skyrim.esm=1
Update.esm=1
RaceCompatibility.esm=1
Unofficial Skyrim Patch.esp=1
SkyUI.esp=1
EnhancedCharacterEdit.esp=1
CharacterMakingExtender.esp=1
WetandCold.esp=1
The Dance of Death.esp=1
StaticMeshImprovementMod.esp=1
Skyrim Flora Overhaul.esp=1
dD - Enhanced Blood Main.esp=1
DeadlySpellImpacts.esp=1
SGHairPack01.esp=0
SGHairPack02.esp=1
SGHairPack03.esp=0
SGHairPack04.esp=0
SGHairPack05.esp=0
SGHairPack06.esp=0
AH1 piercings.esp=1
nightshade_armor_UNPB.esp=1
Maxwell Outfit.esp=1
MashupUNP.esp=1
DCSorceress.esp=1
zz_GDRAHoods.esp=1
Osare HotPants.esp=1
Aradia Lace Dress.esp=1
Armored Bikini - UNPB BBP.esp=1
Blade and Soul Negligee.esp=1
NiaOutfit - UNPB BBP.esp=1
rosarmor.esp=1
Huntress.esp=1

 

 

What's more i had crash issues through Helgen playing vanilla Skyrim. The only help was setting everything to lowest quality, this is how I got through. As I mention in the edit note I passed the Dragon Rising quest by lowering details as much as possible. Previous time I played there was no need for altering my graphic settings in any way as the worst that could happen could be FPS drop.

[ripple]

Actually I don't run BOSS at all.

 

And this is your second problem.

 

Download, install, run BOSS, then post your BOSS logs. The best way to troubleshoot all of your issues is to address the problems systematically. While you are at it, download TES5Edit too, I have a feeling you don't have that either (and we will need it).

[shizuneko]

Alright, here it goes.

 

Recognised Mods

 

 

kyrim.esm Active
Update.esm Active
Bash Tag suggestion(s): {{BASH: Delev, Relev}}
Contains dirty edits: 92 ITM, 3 UDR records. Needs TES5Edit cleaning. A cleaning guide is available here.
RaceCompatibility.esm Active
Unofficial Skyrim Patch.esp Active
Bash Tag suggestion(s): {{BASH: Delev, Relev}}
StaticMeshImprovementMod.esp Active
Daedric chain.esp Active
Skyrim Flora Overhaul.esp Active
Contains dirty edits: 1 ITM, 0 UDR records. Needs TES5Edit cleaning. A cleaning guide is available here.
WetandCold.esp Active
SkyUI.esp Active
AH1 piercings.esp Active
Armored Bikini - UNPB BBP.esp Active
DCSorceress.esp Active
Huntress.esp Active
MashupUNP.esp Active
Maxwell Outfit.esp Active
NiaOutfit - UNPB BBP.esp Active
nightshade_armor_UNPB.esp Active
Osare HotPants.esp Active
rosarmor.esp Active
zz_GDRAHoods.esp Active
dD - Enhanced Blood Main.esp Active
DeadlySpellImpacts.esp Active
The Dance of Death.esp Active
SGHairPack05.esp
SGHairPack04.esp
SGHairPack02.esp Active
SGHairPack01.esp
SGHairPack03.esp
SGHairPack06.esp
CharacterMakingExtender.esp Active
EnhancedCharacterEdit.esp Active

 

 

Unrecognised plugins (nothing important, just clothing mods)

 

 

Aradia Lace Dress.esp Active
Blade and Soul Negligee.esp Active

 

 

SKSE Plugins

 

CharacterMakingExtender_plugin.dll

 

 

 

Summary

 

 

Plugin Type Count
Recognised (or sorted by user rules) 31
Unrecognised 2
Inactive 5
All 33
Plugin Message Type Count
Warning 0
Error 0
All 4

Your masterlist has been updated to revision 7122 (2013-06-06).
No change in recognised plugin list since last run.

 

 

 

It ain't that bad, huh?

[ripple]

1) Cleaning: download TES5Edit from the link in your BOSS log if you haven't yet, follow the instruction the same page, and clean the plugins flagged by BOSS as containing 'dirty edits.' You'll need to remove identical to master entries as well as undelete/deleted references. While you are at it, clean the plugins not recognized by BOSS as well. Since the BOSS database has no information on them, it won't inform you even if they contain 'dirty edits.'

 

2) You system is just barely making the minimum requirements. This normally isn't an issue with a small load order like this that does not appear to contain many engine taxing mods. However, you are using a lot of custom outfit mods and a custom hair collection mod. Some of them might contain 2K (or higher) resolution textures when a GPU like yours should really only stick to 1K textures or less. You can use something like 'Texture Optimizer' to compress custom textures to that size for some performance gain.

 

3) Have you made any edits to the game ini files? Is this a fresh installation of Skyrim or has it been on your PC since a year ago? If the latter, have you made sure all of your mods are updated?

 

4) Post your papyrus log if the game remains unstable after you've run BOSS on your load order and started a new game.

Edited June 6, 2013 by ripple

[nurmi90]

I run much more demanding setup with an old AMD dualcore and for tes5edit that guide video from Gopher is very simple, you can run the program side by side with the video and continue doing it for the other files.

 

Since you have SMIM installed re-check your distances as those quality meshes may cause your game go kapot.

Full settings reset is doable by deleting both .ini files from the documents and simply starting the launcher ..and I hope you haven't fiddled with ugrid setting as it needs ingame .ini fiddling or your saves will crash to loading screen.

 

For general performance try out Skyrim Project Optimization - http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/32505/? but it wont help with this dragon issue your having, or HAD as you managed to get that load order in shape! who knows. :D

 

SMIM may cause issues, id switch it any day for ENB & Realistic Lighting Overhaul - http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/30450/? which at least for me, only improved the performance. Weird behavior for lighting mod, huh?

[nurmi90]

I had like 2ghz amd dualcore, 2gb ram and Vista so your system is enough!

 

Just get this stuff modding hassle together and I also recommend that Texture Optimizer as I even now run everything through the maximum and it wont even touch aMidianBorn's beautiful textures, but generates lod's for this and that hideous work ..like horse armors! :biggrin:

 

Edit: Don't underestimate the dualcore shot, recommend sunglasses: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/images/63059/?

Edited June 6, 2013 by nurmi90

[shizuneko]

Sorry for not responding such long time, but the topic escaped my attention.

Since I ran BOSS check no CTDs had place. I mean so far I haven't really progressed with the main quest line as I'm much more focused on exploring the world, doing side quests, but as Dragon Quest has been completed the random dragon encounters appear. Every dragon fight goes smoothly, no CTDs have taken place which is very good.