Assistance with mods and crashing

[kipland007]

Hey guys,

Played Skyrim for a long time on Xbox but just got it for PC and have been working on getting my mods sorted out. Unfortunately, I find my game crashes pretty frequently (around an hour or so into each game) at random times (loading screen or just mid run it will completely close). I was hoping someone could look at my mod list and see if I'm doing anything wrong. I've used NMM, BOSS and SKSE and cleaned up the dirty edits on them last night, but for some reason it still crashes.

My load list is:

Skyrim.esm Active

Update.esm Active

Bash Tag suggestion(s): {{BASH: Delev, Relev}}

Dawnguard.esm Active

Bash Tag suggestion(s): {{BASH: Delev, Relev}}

HearthFires.esm Active

Dragonborn.esm Active

Falskaar.esm Active

ClimatesOfTamriel.esm Active

SPIKE.esm Active

WARZONES - Civil Unrest.esm Active

Unofficial Skyrim Patch.esp Active

Bash Tag suggestion(s): {{BASH: Delev, Relev, Stats}}

Unofficial Dawnguard Patch.esp Active

Bash Tag suggestion(s): {{BASH: Delev, Relev, Stats}}

Unofficial Hearthfire Patch.esp Active

Unofficial Dragonborn Patch.esp Active

Bash Tag suggestion(s): {{BASH: Delev, Stats}}

StaticMeshImprovementMod.esp Active

StaticMeshImprovementMod-DragonbornTernFix.esp Active

StaticMeshImprovementMod-FurnitureChestSnowFix.esp Active

WetandCold.esp Active

SkyUI.esp Active

hothtrooper44_ArmorCompilation.esp Active

Bash Tag suggestion(s): {{BASH: Delev, Relev}}

Immersive Weapons.esp Active

Bash Tag suggestion(s): {{BASH: Delev, Relev}}

Forgotten Windmill.esp Active

HillHouse.esp Active

Civil War Overhaul.esp Active

Convenient Horses.esp Active

Note: Do not clean. "Dirty" edits are intentional and required for the mod to function .

Helgen Reborn.esp Active

Open Cities Skyrim.esp Active

EnhancedLightsandFX.esp Active

ELFX - Exteriors.esp Active

ELFXEnhancer.esp Active

Apocalypse - The Spell Package.esp Active

The Dance of Death - Ultimate Edition.esp Active

3DNPC.esp Active

Alternate Start - Live Another Life.esp

Also, just want to say I don't believe it is a performance issue as I'm running a high end machine but would be happy to hear any suggestions (I'm running a GTX 780 with i7 and 16gb of RAM, but I'm not sure if any of that stuff needs to be tweaked).

Thanks!

[acidzebra]

The short answer is your mod load is so heavy it makes the skyrim engine explode.

 

What your machine specs are is less relevant than what the skyrim engine is: 32 bit and aging a bit.

 

Warzones, by itself (aside from not really being maintained anymore - I think, I haven't checked) is a stupendously heavy mod. I love playing with it but when I do it's without any other mods running, or a very light sprinkle, in an isolated game.

 

Open Cities brings all previously separate worldspaces for cities into the big main worldspace. It's a great mod, but there's both system load and potential incompatibility to consider.

 

I haven't played skyrim recently but I think the civil war overhaul, by its very nature, is going to touch on a LOT of skyrim assets and bend them in interesting ways.

 

My advice: remove warzones and open cities, forget your current save, start a new game. Check for stability.

Edited October 22, 2013 by acidzebra

[kipland007]

Thanks, I will check out disabling those mods. I am correct in thinking that disabling those in my current game will disrupt it and not fix the issue? I know that's usually the case but didn't know if the nature of either of those would mean you can basically toggle them.

[acidzebra]

That's why I said forget your current game, start a new save.

 

Here's what I consider a basic rule of the skyrim engine: for any mod more complex than a texture overhaul, you're essentially stuck with that mod for that particular playthrough. It's not 100% true, but it's close enough. And it's especially true when there is scripting involved. Nothing wrong with papyrus or using scripts in mods, just the way the engine is set up.

[Reaper0021]

That's why I said forget your current game, start a new save.

 

Here's what I consider a basic rule of the skyrim engine: for any mod more complex than a texture overhaul, you're essentially stuck with that mod for that particular playthrough. It's not 100% true, but it's close enough. And it's especially true when there is scripting involved. Nothing wrong with papyrus or using scripts in mods, just the way the engine is set up.

Actually, the engine and the game saves are done in such a way that once you start to use a mod in your game, then say decide later to uninstall it in your playthrough...your pretty much asking for your game to break. This has NOTHING to do with any mods, but the way the engine is utilized and the way the game saves games. What Acid has said is 100% spot on and good advice. This is the only downside to using a PC version of Skyrim as once you start using mods, you have to keep using said mods throughout the rest of your play through or you WILL break your game.

 

P.S.

I love "Potion Combiner" Acid.

Edited October 22, 2013 by Reaper0021

[kipland007]

OK, looks like that will be my first thing to try.

 

In terms of visual mods, can either of you see anything conflicting? This is mainly what I want to verify as I'd like to get those set (after that I'm fine removing a few mods for certain playthroughs).

[Reaper0021]

I use:

RC_RN Pure Version

Enhanced Lights/FX

Pure Waters

Skyrim HD 2K Textures

SMIM

 

What your using looks good to me and should run very well together. I especially like ELFX as it adds such immersion to the game. You should be fine.

[kipland007]

Thanks. One more question and something I should've mentioned earlier. I did end up loading a few mods in the middle of a game (as opposed to starting a new one), which include the Interesting NPCs and ELFX. I'm guessing this was a dumb thing to do? Is it possible that this caused the problems? I'm more curious because I seem to be having more issues now than when I started, though that may have to do with the game progressing more and loading more quest lines than were in place in the early game.

[Reaper0021]

Thanks. One more question and something I should've mentioned earlier. I did end up loading a few mods in the middle of a game (as opposed to starting a new one), which include the Interesting NPCs and ELFX. I'm guessing this was a dumb thing to do? Is it possible that this caused the problems? I'm more curious because I seem to be having more issues now than when I started, though that may have to do with the game progressing more and loading more quest lines than were in place in the early game.

Adding mods during a play through is nothing compared to deleting them. Adding them does almost nothing except of course add/alter content, etc. Removing that content that makes a save reliant on it is what leaves behind scripts running in the background, etc. That's what WILL break your game. Interesting NPC's is a pretty big mod and I do know that when I added it during a play hrough, in the middle of one I should say, it did cause me some issues. But once it's loaded and your using it then don't remove it as one can only imagine the problems you'd face.

[kipland007]

OK. So if I want to use these mods, I should basically create two different characters and have one use half (such as CWO and Falskaar) and one use another half (War zones and Interesting NPCs) and just make sure that I only load certain mods when opening different save files? Or should I keep a select few and just play one character until I'm done, then load other mods and start a new one? I hope that makes sense.