Is your Skyrim stable?

[rawr22]

I've spent many many hours since Skyrim was realeased trying to come up with Skyrim installs with various mods that are stable, and failed every time and eventually have to abandon the save and install due to too many CTDs. I've tried to keep mod numbers down, keep to ones I believe are safe, created bashed patches, cleaned .esps and test throughly before playing and saving, but sometimes problems don't occur until hours later.

 

So my question is this: Is there anyone that acutally has a stable install of Skyrim with more than a few mods installed? If so what is your mod list?

[LargeStyle]

I currently have the most stable Skyrim I've ever had and the only words of "advise" I have are...

 

 

1) Keep mod installations to a minimum - as in really consider which mods you want and which you're not actually going to miss if unused. The original unmodded game is perfectly playable without any mods whatsoever so I consider any mods used to be a small bonus.

 

2) Mod the game in a way which suits not only your tastes but your computer too - a good example being texture sizes: don't use 4k textures when you can't see any improvement from 2k textures, or even use 1k over 2k if you don't notice any difference.

 

3)) Avoid removing mods while using your main playing save game file - this is where references within the save file can remain and upset your game. Certain mods such as textures can normally be installed and uninstalled at whim, but other mods (in particular scripted mods) can be harmful to your game if uninstalled correctly.

 

4) Always read mod description pages to obtain instructions and advice for mod installation / use / uninstallation, and find general information regarding mod requirements and compatibility.

 

5) Personal preference: avoid scripted mods apart from mods which you deem to be essential. Scripted mods are getting "safer" nowadays with the possible use of a MCM option to stop mod scripts before mod uninstallation. However, my computer has a rather old CPU so I avoid mods which I'd like to use but contain scripts and aren't really essential.

 

6) Generally speaking, just be sensible about things. I have several mods which greatly improve distance detail in the environment which makes the game look great but causes noticable fps loss and on average pushes the game engine harder than it was designed to be pushed, so I decide to keep within the limits and not use these mods.

 

7) Playing and enjoying the game is (or should be) more important than modding it. I'm currently taking a step backwards with my time spent modding as I've recently rarely sat down and actually played the game.

 

 

As for mod used, my current mod list is:

 

Lighting:

Climates of Tamriel

Enhanced Light and FX

Dark Dungeons for ENB

Custom ENB based on later (ENBoost) version

 

Gameplay (non script mods):

Oblivious Horses

Eternal Torch

Realistic Ragdolls and Force

Dead Body Collision Fix

A Thinner Compass

Main Font Replacement (Centaur Font)

 

Gameplay (scripted mods):

SkyUI

Better Stealth AI for Followers

Face to Face Conversation

Wearable Lanterns

Customisable Camera

iHud

Auto Unequip Helmet

 

Visual (Textures):

Bethesda HiRes DLC Optimised

Realistic Water Two

Trees HD Skyrim Variation

Superior Lore Friendly Hair

Winterhold Delete Snow Patches

AmidianBorn Caves

Real Snow

Ruins Clutter Improved (with meshes)

Skyrim Flora Overhaul (with meshes)

Ethereal Elven Overhaul (with meshes)

MacKoms Real Skin for Men

SG Textures Renewal

 

Visual (Meshes):

Slimmer Horse Shape

Improved Closed Faced Helmets

UNP Body

UNP Female Armours

SkyFalls

Closer Quiver and Longer Arrows

Windmills Resized

Skyrim Particle Patch

Better Dynamic Snow

Project Parallax Remastered

Realistic Teeth

Skyrim Distance Overhaul

 

Audio:

Additional Music Project

True Medieval Tavern Music

 

Animation:

360 Walk and Run Plus

 

Quests:

Falskaar

 

Patches:

All Unofficial Skyrim Patches

 

 

The following are all mods which I'd ideally want to use and still remain in my NMM, but are currently deactivated due to performace / stability reasons...

 

No Stretchng

Enhanced Enemy AI

Distant Detail

Enhanced Distance Terrain

Moss Rocks

Real Clouds

The Eyes of Beauty

Fires Hurt

Get Snowy

Deadly Spell Impacts

Ash Pile Retex

Distant Decal Fix

Natural Grass Texture

Skyrim HD2K

AmidianBorn Book of Silence

Less Intrusive HUD

Burn Freeze Shock Effects

Footprints

Static Mesh Improvement Mod

Archery Spinning Arrows

 

 

Ultimately this mod setup is obviously a result of my preferences and computer limitations so it's not neccessarily a recommended setup - it's just an example of how I've organised and prioritised mods.

Edited September 10, 2013 by LargeStyle

[baltasaronmeth]

My Skyrim is not stable. I have at least one CTD every two hours at random locations. My Map addon seems to make the game stick at the load screen at times (better: I read that somebody read, that it was supposed to be connected to the map addon), so I regularly save my game. I do not care to fix this much, because one of my RAM sticks throws errors and my hard disk is faulty, After turning off the paging in Windows entirely, Skyrim became noticably more stable, but this has nothing to do with Skyrim or the mods, but rather with my broken machine.

[Hashwagon]

However, my computer has a rather old CPU so I avoid mods which I'd like to use but contain scripts and aren't really essential, such as "Footprints", "Get Snowy" etc.

 

 

 

The mod author of Get Snowy says this on his page:

 

"Keeping it simple philosophy:

Get Snowy doesn't do everything, and it never will because it doesn't use scripts at all.

Meaning No Save-Bloat, No Crash to desktop, No need for SKSE, and a simple safe uninstall."

 

What issues have you been seeing on it? I've been using it and haven't had a problem so far. I've read that it's a great alternative to Wet and Cold which does use scripts.

[LargeStyle]

Thanks Hashwagon - I was making that post mainly from memory so didn't check Get Snowy - my bad. You're correct of course, that mod doesn't contain scripts - I've edited my first post now.

 

It's not that GS directly caused performance / stability issues for me, it's just that I have a certain personal list of mod categories - such as non essential immersion mods which include: GS, Footprints, Fires Hurt, Moss Rocks, DSI etc which I either have installed as a group or uninstalled as a group.

 

This isn't mainly an intended technique as such, it's just throughout the course of time I can't help but add more and more mods to the game, then one day I get fed up with the reduced fps and go on a performance / mod removing mission, only to gradually / unintentionally add them back in again when I get bored. Repeat and rinse...

 

...and even though this sounds contradictory to my point no.3 above (because it is) - this is why I now advise to not mess around with mods too much as since I've started my latest new game playthrough I picked the mods I wanted and just stuck with that - probably hence why my game is currently the most stable it's ever been.

Edited September 10, 2013 by LargeStyle

[rattlehead5000]

It's better than it used to be, but it's not entirely stable. I have had 4 CTD's in about 18 hours of play. I can live with that. I used to get CTD's every 10 minutes or so...

 

I don't think there is such a thing as an entirely stable Skyrim...even my friend's Xbox version has crashed a few times...it happens. The engine is just buggy by nature I guess.

 

To reiterate what was said above, I just read very carefully the mod description and compatibility issues it may have, I also read the comments page (not all of it, but a few pages) just to get a feel about what people are saying about the mod, I add the mod page to my favourites for easy reference, and I lurk quite a bit on the STEP forums, because those guys know their stuff and I've learned quite a bit from reading their posts.

 

Also, BOSS is a must for load order. You can use your own discretion at times, but generally I leave BOSS to do it's thing.

I'm still not convinced about NMM to be honest. I've been a manual installer for ages but started using NMM because my left mouse button is wonky and dragging and dropping is a pain. But NMM is good, but not faultless. It's okay I guess. I still prefer a manual install, but that's just me.

 

I've gotten my game to a point where it's pretty decent, stability-wise. (touch wood.) I have made a backup of my entire game folder with a text file stating what mods I've got running with it, just in case. I have also backed up my saved games and my skyrimprefs.ini file, because I might not remember exactly what all tweaks I have made if I have to reinstall my game.

 

From this point on, if I install some mods, I play the game for a few days at least to check if everything is stable before adding more mods. I also back up my entire game folder as a precaution before installing more than one mod, especially if they contain scripts.

 

Speaking of scripted mods, I definitely think I was just using a combination of too many scripted mods, too many mods that increased the spawn rate of monsters, and too many hi-res texture mods, and that's why I was crashing so often.

 

Now I'm much more wary to install a big ambitious, heavily scripted mod, or a super-duper hi-res texture pack. For now, I'm using just the official DLC textures, WATER and SFO LIte.

 

I'm at work so I can't remember all the mods I have installed or the load order, but basically it's:

 

 

All unofficial patches for Skyrim and DLC

CoT nights

RLO (major cities, minor cities and towns etc.)

Realistic Needs & Diseases

Vilja

Skyrim Immersive Creatures

Amazing Follower Tweaks

Immersive Armors

Immersive Weapons

ACE (all modules except BYOG and Magic)

SkyUi

iHUD II

TAVE Solitude

Beautiful Whiterun

SignTowns

Deadly Dragons

Deadly Monsters

Inconsequential NPCs

Trade & Barter

ApachiiHair for Males

 

Also a couple of makeovers for followers, UNP, superior lore-friendly hair and a couple of other cosmetic mods. I also have ENB Boost as a precaution more than anything.

 

I do want to add a few more mods, but I'm going to be very cautious about it. One or two at a time and then play/test for a few days before adding more. Mostly these will be mods that contain no scripts like Immersive Patrols, OBIS, Get Snowy and a few others...but one step at a time.

 

Also, Frostfall. Man, I miss that mod. It's so brilliant. I'd really like that and Convenient Horses back, but we'll see. Oh, and Inigo and Interesting NPCs.

But hang on...wait...I'm being greedy aren't I? :smile:

That got me into trouble last time.

 

It's a balancing act at the end of the day I guess. Right now even if I don't add any other mods I've got a pretty darn good game to play, but the temptation to add just a few more mods is always there.