Getting crashes do I need more Vram?

[ZeroSaber39]

Hey guys, I'm a bit annoyed with my Skyrim at the moment because I keep getting sudden crashes. The crashes happen the most frequently in the Dawnstar area, they're also fairly common in Falkreath, Riften and Winderhold though not nearly as prevalent as Dawnstar, I also sometimes get them when I try open a container or while in the middle of browsing an inventory list and sometimes when I try to open the map or quicksave (quicksave crashing is less common then others).

 

Now my game isn't unplayable it's just that it feels tedious at times, like I have to watch my everystep and quicksave every 30 seconds in some areas. The crashes seem to happen almost exclusively while outside in the open world, I can't recall anytimes off hand in my current playthough that I crashed in a dungeon or other interior. I've played a little bit with skyrim performance monitor running and I've noticed my Vram tends to hover close to my limit (2 Gigs) Typically I have not problems running the game, everything stays very smooth and I rarely get lag or stutters but I do get these sudden crashes currently my texture mods consist of:

 

The Official High Res Texture Pack

Unofficial Texture Patch

Smim

Ruin Clutter improvement

Amidianborn Book of Silence (the entire set)

Bellyaches HD Dragon Replacer

*Various other armor retexture mods for armors not included with aMidianborn yet* (I can be more specific if necessary)

 

I'm not using anything higher then 2k textures.

 

I'm playing at 1920x1080 resolution with all settings on Ultra (except Shadows I put those on high).

 

I did some looking around before posting this and saw a few people in various places around the net saying that they started getting ctds in the Dawnstar area after installing the official high res textures and heard some people who were using 2gig vram cards mention upgrading to 4gigs fixed the problem.

 

What's bothering me most about this is I built this machine last year as my first gaming machine ever and I wanted it specifically to play Skyrim and the thing runs every game I've put on it perfectly except Skyrim. I know I might have dropped the ball on the GPU considering I got one with only 2 gigs of vram but I think I did decently for my first time, here are my complete system specs:

 

Motherbord: ASRock Z77 Extreme 6

CPU: i5-3570k

CPU Cooler: Hyper 212 Evo

GPU: GTX 670 2gig

Power: Corsair HX650

RAM: 16 Gig G.Skill Sniper DDR3

OS Drive: Samsung 840 120GB SSD

Game Drive: Western Digital Black WD1002FAEX 1TB HDD (Should have gotten another SSD I know)

Storage Drive 1: Western Digital Green WD30EZRX 3TB HDD

Storage Drive 2: Seagate Barracuda ST3000DM001 3TB HDD

 

I hope that's enough Information also I'm not overclocking (I tried to build my system with overclock potential I just haven't gotten around to reading up on how to overclock)

 

So my big question is do you think it could be my lack of Vram causing the crashes? And if so does anyone have any suggestions on what I should do? I've given some thought to getting a 770, 780 or even a Titan. But honestly I really don't want to spend a huge amount of money on this upgrade. I can can afford something like Titan if I wanted so money isn't really the issue it's more like I told myself that I was going to build this new machine for playing Skyrim and I was going to avoid major upgrades and stick with this machine until TESVI comes out, then I'll build a new machine :smile: but It's kind of pointless if it's not running Skyrim properly as it is.

 

Anyway I'm pretty pleased with with how my Skyrim looks at the moment with the 670 I just want the crashing to stop. (Or at least become less common, completely stopping crashing while using mods might just be a pipe dream) I'm also wondering, rather then upgrading to the 700 series or a titan would it be a better Idea to buy a 4gb 670 and put it in my system together with my 2gb 670? I'm still new to the pc gaming thing so I'm not sure how well the whole using 2 graphics cards works out. If I need to upgrade my GPU, I would really like to get that sorted out soon while the holiday sales are going on so I'd really appreciate some feed back.

 

Alright, I'm about to head off and try playing some Skyrim (I installed the Optimized Official Textures Mod, so hoping that helps my situation a bit). Oh and if it will help pinpoint any other possible crash issues, here's at all here's my Boss Log:

 

 

 

• Skyrim.esm Active
• Update.esm Active
  • Bash Tag suggestion(s): {{BASH: Delev, Relev}}
• Unofficial Skyrim Patch.esp Active
  • Bash Tag suggestion(s): {{BASH: Delev, Relev, Stats}}
• Dawnguard.esm Active
  • Bash Tag suggestion(s): {{BASH: Delev, Relev}}
• Unofficial Dawnguard Patch.esp Active
  • Bash Tag suggestion(s): {{BASH: Delev, Relev, Stats}}
• HearthFires.esm Active
• Unofficial Hearthfire Patch.esp Active
• Dragonborn.esm Active
• Unofficial Dragonborn Patch.esp Active
  • Bash Tag suggestion(s): {{BASH: Delev, Stats}}
• Falskaar.esm Active
• ClimatesOfTamriel.esm Active
• JSwords.esm Active
• SPERG.esm Active
• SPIKE.esm Active
• XFLMain.esm Active
  • Note: For safe mod uninstall see special uninstallation instructions on mod page.
• HighResTexturePack01.esp Active
• HighResTexturePack02.esp Active
• HighResTexturePack03.esp Active
• Brawl Bugs CE.esp Active
• Unofficial High Resolution Patch.esp Active
• Weapons & Armor Fixes_Remade.esp Active
  • Bash Tag suggestion(s): {{BASH: Stats}}
• SplashofRain.esp Active
• StaticMeshImprovementMod.esp Active
• StaticMeshImprovementMod-DragonbornTernFix.esp Active
• StaticMeshImprovementMod-FurnitureChestSnowFix.esp Active
• TradeBarter.esp Active
  • Bash Tag suggestion(s): {{BASH: Delev, Relev}}
• AMatterOfTime.esp Active
• Auto Unequip Ammo.esp Active
• CalienteVanillaArmorTweaks.esp Active
• Chesko_WearableLantern.esp Active
  • Contains dirty edits: 1 ITM, 0 UDR records. Needs TES5Edit cleaning. A cleaning guide is available here.
• Immersive Battles.esp Active
• Immersive Brigands.esp Active
• Immersive Dawnguard.esp Active
• Immersive Dragonborn.esp Active
• Immersive Factions.esp Active
• Immersive Mercenaries.esp Active
• Immersive Patrols.esp Active
• Immersive Travelers.esp Active
• Immersive Werewolves.esp Active
• Legionettes.esp Active
  • Bash Tag suggestion(s): {{BASH: Relev}}
• potionupgrades.esp Active
• Radiant and Unique Potions Poisons and Booze.esp Active
• Skyrim Immersive Creatures.esp Active
  • Bash Tag suggestion(s): {{BASH: Delev, Relev}}
• Skyrim Immersive Creatures - DLC2.esp Active
  • Bash Tag suggestion(s): {{BASH: Delev, Relev}}
• JSwords_Load_Screens.esp Active
• RaceMenu.esp Active
• RaceMenuPlugin.esp Active
  • Note: RaceMenuPlugin is optional and provides support to alter Height, Breast, Glute and Biceps. If you experience issues with it, disable RaceMenuPlugin.esp and inform the author.
• UIExtensions.esp Active
• SkyUI.esp Active
• BDYEB.esp Active
  • Bash Tag suggestion(s): {{BASH: Relev}}
• Cloaks.esp Active
• Cloaks - Dawnguard.esp Active
• 1nivWICCloaks.esp Active
  • Bash Tag suggestion(s): {{BASH: Relev}}
• 1nivWICSkyCloaksPatch.esp Active
• Craftable Invisible Helmets.esp Active
• Crossbows_Basic_Collection_EN_LL.esp Active
  • Contains dirty edits: 1 ITM, 0 UDR records. Needs TES5Edit cleaning. A cleaning guide is available here.
• Glass Variants.esp Active
  • Bash Tag suggestion(s): {{BASH: Delev, Relev}}
• hothtrooper44_ArmorCompilation.esp Active
  • Contains dirty edits: 7 ITM, 0 UDR records. Needs TES5Edit cleaning. A cleaning guide is available here.
  • Bash Tag suggestion(s): {{BASH: Delev, Relev}}
• Immersive Weapons.esp Active
  • Bash Tag suggestion(s): {{BASH: Delev, Relev}}
• JSwordsDistributionBalancePlugin.esp Active
  • Bash Tag suggestion(s): {{BASH: Delev, Relev}}
• LeatherBackpackBlack-300.esp Active
  • Note: Use only one LeatherBackPack Black esp.
• LeatherBackpackBrown-300.esp Active
  • Note: Use only one LeatherBackPack Brown esp.
• LeftHandRings.esp Active
• LeftHandRings - Dawnguard.esp Active
• Lore Weapon Expansion.esp Active
  • Bash Tag suggestion(s): {{BASH: Delev, Relev}}
• Lore Weapon Expansion - Goldbrand.esp Active
• Remodeled Armor.esp Active
• Remodeled Armor - Dawnguard.esp Active
• Remodeled Armor - Dragonborn.esp Active
• Dr_Bandolier.esp Active
• Dr_BandolierDG.esp Active
• BandolierForNPCMasterFile.esp Active
• BandolierForNPCsWIC_V2.esp Active
• BandolierForNPCsCheaperBandoliersDawnguard.esp Active
• LC_immersiveLoot.esp Active
• Smithing Perks Overhaul_Remade.esp Active
• Smithing Perks Overhaul_Dawnguard.esp Active
• Smithing Perks Overhaul_Dragonborn.esp Active
• Complete Crafting Overhaul.esp Active
  • Note: Will conflict with mods that modify existing recipes.
• HarvestOverhaulDawnguardDragonborn.esp Active
• HarvestOverhaulSalmonRoe.esp Active
• HarvestOverhaulCreaturesDawnguardHearthfireDragonborn.esp Active
• DeadlyDragons.esp Active
  • Bash Tag suggestion(s): {{BASH: Delev, Relev}}
• ElysiumEstate.esp Active
• Gildergreen Regrown.esp Active
• Homeoftheheroes.esp Active
• more plants all.esp Active
• My Home Is Your Home.esp Active
  • Contains dirty edits: 3 ITM, 0 UDR records. Needs TES5Edit cleaning. A cleaning guide is available here.
• OBIS.esp Active
  • Bash Tag suggestion(s): {{BASH: Delev, Relev}}
• OBISDB.esp Active
  • Bash Tag suggestion(s): {{BASH: Delev, Relev}}
• Run For Your Lives.esp Active
• When Vampires Attack.esp Active
• The Paarthurnax Dilemma.esp Active
• AAA_FyTy_Fixes_RelationshipRankQuests.esp Active
• Acquisitive Soul Gems.esp Active
• Book Covers Skyrim.esp Active
• Book Covers Dawnguard.esp Active
• Book Covers Hearthfire.esp Active
• Book Covers Dragonborn.esp Active
• Bounty Gold.esp Active
• Differently Ebony.esp Active
• FalskaarDawnguard.esp Active
• Guard Dialogue Overhaul.esp Active
  • Note: Do not clean. "Dirty" edits are intentional and required for the mod to function.
• Headtracking.esp Active
• mjhReducedGoldRewards.esp Active
  • Bash Tag suggestion(s): {{BASH: Delev}}
• NoMoreMinePests.esp Active
• SameWalkRunSpeedsLite.esp Active
• SkyFalls Plus SkyMills - All DLC and Falskaar.esp Active
• Convenient Horses.esp Active
  • Note: Do not clean. "Dirty" edits are intentional and required for the mod to function.
• wizDynamicThings.esp Active
• aMidianborn_Skyforge_Weapons.esp Active
• Helgen Reborn.esp Active
• Realistic Lighting Overhaul - Dawnguard Interiors.esp Active
• Realistic Lighting Overhaul - Major City Exteriors.esp Active
• Realistic Lighting Overhaul - Major City Interiors.esp Active
• Realistic Lighting Overhaul - Minor Cities and Town Interiors.esp Active
• ClimatesOfTamriel-Dawnguard-Patch.esp Active
• ClimatesOfTamriel-Dragonborn-Patch.esp Active
• ClimatesOfTamriel Falskaar.esp Active
• ClimatesOfTamriel-Dungeons-Hazardous.esp Active
  • Incompatible with: Realistic Lighting Overhaul
• ClimatesOfTamriel-Nights-Level-2.esp Active
• Realistic crime report radius.esp Active
• The Dance of Death - Ultimate Edition.esp Active
  • Contains dirty edits: 1 ITM, 0 UDR records. Needs TES5Edit cleaning. A cleaning guide is available here.
• SPERG.esp Active
• SPERG-DG.esp Active
• SPERG-DB.esp Active
• SPERG Immersive Armors.esp Active
• SPERG Weapons and Armor Complete.esp Active
• XFLConfig.esp Active
• XFLDialogue.esp Active
• XFLPanel.esp Active
• XFLPlugins.esp Active
• Feminine Females.esp Active
• SBF All In One + DLC.esp Active
• Blaze Of Eventide.esp Active
• Follower Trap Safety.esp Active
• moveitLWT.esp Active
• Orc Enhancer.esp Active
• RealisticWaterTwo.esp Active
• RealisticWaterTwo - Legendary.esp Active
• RealisticWaterTwo - Falskaar.esp Active
• RealisticWaterTwo - Waves - Falskaar.esp Active
• Bashed Patch, 0.esp Active

Notes: What you see above is exactly how Boss sorts my load Order for Recognized plug-ins, but I have to resort some things to make stuff work which I'll talk about here:

1: I have a TES5Edit Merge Patch as well, It's always placed at the end right above my Bashed Patch.

2: I also have "Realistic Lighting Overhaul - Brighter Dungeons.esp" but Boss doesn't recognize it yet, I usually place it right above "Realistic Lighting Overhaul - Dawnguard Interiors.esp" since that was where the regular Dungeons esp for Realistic Lighting Overhaul was placed.

3: Boss for some reason places the "Brawl Bugs CE.esp" between "HighResTexturePack03.esp" and "Unofficial High Resolution Patch.esp" Now I know according to the page for the unofficial patch it says it should be placed right after HighResTexturePack03.esp so I usually move the Unofficial High Resolution Patch.esp up 1 so it is in the recommend place. (Now that I think about it I might not even need the Brawl Bugs patch I know I used to use a mod that needed it but I stopped using it so... yeah... :sweat: )

4: I have to move the "SBF All In One + DLC.esp" down below "Orc Enhancer.esp" otherwise Borgahk and Ugor's faces will not look right.

5: I move "ElysiumEstate.esp" and "Homeoftheheroes.esp" down below "XFLPlugins.esp" because there is a bit of a conflict with "wizDynamicThings.esp" Dynamic Things will not recognize any home mod containers as "Safe for storage" unless they come as nume 129 or lower in the load order (by lower I mean lower on the list not lower in number) .

 

Alright I'm off to try and play the game for a while, thanks for your time.

[dave1029]

No it's not vram. I had more intense graphics mods running on my system and I never went above 1.5 gigs of vram. And that was flying across the map in a stress test.

[BlackRampage]

1: I have a TES5Edit Merge Patch as well, It's always placed at the end right above my Bashed Patch.

 

Don't bother making a merged patch if you already made a bashed patch. Merged patches and bashed patches are essentially the same thing. (OK, there are some differences, but they serve the same purpose)

 

I'd advise you to download and install the Skyrim performance monitor and keep track of Vram usage. If it comes close to 2 Gigs of VRam very often, you'll know what the cause is.

[ZeroSaber39]

I'm still thinking it's the Vram, I started up my gaming session tonight and I forgot to turn Skyrim Performance monitor on but I figured "whatever" so I didn't have it running for the start. I began at the Inn in Dawnstar and went with Erandur up to Night Caller Temple to do the Vermina Quest. Made it up to the Temple with no problems, entered and did the dungeon, didn't stutter or crash at all.

 

Afterward I went back down to Dawnstar, saved and went toward the Jarls house to deliver a message and crashed.

 

Restarted with Skyrim Performance monitor running, upon loading my game my Vram Usage is immediately around 1.8 gigs, it quickly goes up to 2gigs (I goes up to 2020-2030 and hovers between those points.)

 

I ran around Dawnstar, went about my business talking to everyone (it being my first visit in this playthrough) managed to complete the rounds without crashing so I left with my group of followers and headed off toward Mzinchaleft to retrieve Grimsever for Mjoll, I reach the Kahjit camp outside of town and and Dragon attacks, I crash.

 

Reload again, fortunately I saved before trying to leave town, once again Skyrim Performance monitor tells me I'm using around 2 gigs of vram. I head out of town, get no dragon attack this time so I continue on my way to Mzinchaleft, Vram usage is around 2 gigs almost the whole time. I reach the area near Mzinchaleft and crash.

 

Reload again (thankfully the sudden crashes have trained me to push the quick save button every 30 seconds for so) I go back to the Mzinchaleft area, get attacked by a dragon and kill it, I head inside with my followers (there are 10 of us if you're wondering) once inside Mzinchaleft I'm now using 1.5-1.6 gigs of vram and it holds steady. I play the entire dungeon I get not lag or crashes at all.

 

After completing the dungeon I return to the world space and decided to head for the Hall of the Vigilant before heading to Dimhollow Crypt. (Again running around 2 gigs of vram steadily) On the way In come across Frostmere Crypt. I see bandits fighting a woman so we join in, after the fight the women I helped gives me attitude so I kill her, I find her journal on he corpse and start the Pale Lady quest, I figure while I'm here might as well do it, I save and go to loot the remaining corpses and I crash.

 

Reload again, loot and go inside the crypt inside I'm doing about 1.7-1.8 Gigs of Vram, we go through and complete the dungeon and quest, we don't crash once. Exit back outside and again are doing a steady 2 gigs of vram, we continue to the Hall of the Vigilant and reach it with no distractions, the hall has been destroyed due to the Dawnguard quest line, I save and enter the ruined building and crash. i then decide I've had enough for one night and call it quits for the time being.

 

So yeah I really think it might be the Vram, I'm still not certain because if I load my mod test save (save right outside of Helgan that was made with not mods installed) and I go up to Dawnstar and Run around I can't seem to make the game crash if I try to though my Vram usage is still pretty high. :confused:

[BlackRampage]

If it indeed is the Vram, then you could give this mod a try: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/38649//?

 

Note that you need to have the ENB series software installed first, which can be downloaded from here: http://enbdev.com/download_mod_tesskyrim.htm

[ZeroSaber39]

You sure about that? I don't really understand ENBoost but from what I understand it forces you to use Vram as much as possible so wouldn't it try to force me to use more Vram that I don't have?

[Miguelr23]

You sure about that? I don't really understand ENBoost but from what I understand it forces you to use Vram as much as possible so wouldn't it try to force me to use more Vram that I don't have?

indeed enboost reduces ram usage by a very large amount but it loads some into vram

[BlackRampage]

It won´t if you use the correct binary that reflects the amount of VRam you have. Just download and extract it. You´ll see how the thing works.

[ZeroSaber39]

I installed it and played around a little bit, it really dropped my physical ram usage but my Vram usage was only lowered a tiny fraction, it still hung around 2 gigs, I did a quick run back to Dawnstar from the Hall of the Vigilant and crashed on the road. Reloaded and tried again, made it to Dawnstar but crashed a few seconds after arriving.

 

I loaded again and tried again, this time using F4 to manually flush the Vram, made it back to Dawnstar at about 1.8 Vram usage and crashed again but I think that crash was due to getting a sudden jump in Vram usage before the counter performance monitor could be updated. If it was due to something else I really not sure, the only mod I have that makes any changes to Dawnstar is Helgan Reborn, which places 2 npcs in the in for a quest if it changes anything else in the area I'm not sure, I still haven't finished that mod yet. (though I do seem to recall the first time I got a sudden CTD was in the Falkreath area after I had installed Helgan Reborn)

 

Anyway I loaded once again and again ran back to Dawnstar, I manually flushed the Vram again as I approached, upon reaching the town I was back up to 2gigs so I flushed the Vram again, did a lap around the the town, vram got up to 2 gigs again, manually flushed it again, after that I did about 10 or 12 laps around the town (couldn't keep track as I was staring at the vram counter) the counter hung around 1.9 gigs but never reached 2.0 gigs and I didn't crash at all.

 

So it might help if I played with Performance monitor and manually cleared the Vram when it gets close to the limit though honestly I think that's feels more like work then playing that game and it might not be as much fun but I guess it would be better then crashing but assuming my third crash in this testing was due to a sudden jump in Vram usage and not something Helgan Reborn did that means it's not a "perfect" solution (though nothing is really.)

 

I'll keep it for now and see how it goes tonight, after work when I sit down to have my regular Skyrim session.

 

I'm thinking I might have to bite the bullet and get a new Graphics card. The question is which card, with the situation I seem to be having the Titan's 6gigs of vram is really attractive but the Price Tag is painful (I can afford it, I won't be starving or anything, it's the miser in me talking) I could also get a 780 for around $500 right now but the 3 gigs of Vram doesn't feel like much of an improvement... Though with the 780 I could probably get away with asking for it for the holidays, the Titan on the other hand I would have to pay for myself because I'd feel guilty asking someone to spend that much on me. Another attractive thing about the Titan is the ENBoost page saying Titan users have reported a large stability improvement with ENBoost due to the huge Vram. I suppose if In am going to upgrade I should also plan a bit for the future, namely FallOut 4 since it looks like we might be getting some news on that next month (Bethesda games especially Skyrim are the reason I started PC gaming so they're my primary concern) I think I'll stick to my original plan and wait until TES6 before making a new machine so if I upgrade my GPU I need to make sure it's going to last until then.

[dave1029]

Dude just turn off some of your graphics mods and see if it crashes. If it still crashes it's a mod. If it doesn't crash, then it's your vram. As for the graphics card- I would get an AMD HD 7970, or one of the RX models that will support mantle. Nvidia got hosed with the consoles opting for AMD. 3 gigs of vram is plenty. I have a 7970 and when i monitored it, it was stable around 1.5 gigs vram.