Sudden FPS Drop Problem

[muratguler]

Hi All

 

I have been playing this game for a while and I have a sudden fps drop problem. After playing for an hour or two, game starts to stutter drastically and even freezes for 3-4 seconds and come back. After this problem starts game never normalizes and I have to exit the game and restart it. To solve this problem, I added Vorontsov's "anti-freeze" patch and Queue's "Skyrim Startup Memory Editor" patch but they haven't solve the problem

 

http://enbdev.com/download_patch_skyrim.htm

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/50305/?

 

I request you to tell me how to solve this problem.

 

The mods that I am using are...

 

- High Texture Packs 1-2

- Dawnguard

- Dragonborn

- Heartfires

- Green water fix

 

My sistem is.....

 

- P45 mobo

- Intel E8500 @4.00 Ghz

- Ati 6950 1 GB VGA

- 4 GB ram

 

Thanks

[LeddBate]

Well, your system is a bit dated, but is actually adequate given that Skyrim is a three and a half year old game. However, your GPU's memory buffer of only 1GB is a bit low when you start adding mods. Especially texture packs and the like.

 

Following is my generic "troubleshooting" guide. It is gleaned from several years of valuable advice from others here on the Nexus.

 

START PASTE

1) Do you have SKSE (SKyrim Script Extender) installed? If not, that's a major problem right there. Many mods require it for stability. Get it at: http://skse.silverlock.org/ Be sure to watch the linked video for explanation of what it does and how to install it.

 

2) You should have the Unofficial Skyrim patch as well as the unofficial patches for all DLC's you have. If you don't have them, that's a likely cause for crashing randomly. So get them at:

Unofficial Skyrim Patch

Unofficial Dragonborn Patch

Unofficial Dawnguard Patch

Unofficial Hearthfire Patch

 

3) More mods that will help stabilize your game:

Stable uGridsToLoad Do NOT adjust the settings. Just use the default settings to help stabilize the loading of your cells (the areas your character can see from his vantage point.)

LOOT This utility will help you sort your load order for better performance. It will also tell you which mods have dirty edits, which you can clean with:

TES5EDIT The best utility for "cleaning up" the code in mods. WARNING: Some mods have "dirty" edits ON PURPOSE. Cleaning these edits can break the mod (and your save.) Read each mod thoroughly to see if they have any intentional dirty edits. If not, clean 'em up!

Skyrim Project Stability This isn't a mod but rather a complete guide to stabilizing your game and cleaning up your saves. It's a lot of reading, but this project is what helped transform my buggy game (that crashed every 3 to 5 minutes) into a smooth experience (with improved visuals) that hardly ever crashes. (Maybe once every 5 hours or so at worst.)

 

4) Troubleshooting.

After getting the above mods, LOOTing your load order and cleaning up your mods, you might still be experiencing crashes.

In your Nexus Mod Manager (you are using NMM, yes?) -click on the "Plugins" tab. You will now see your mod's plugins listed with a checkbox next to each one. Uncheck each one EXCEPT FOR THE FOLLOWING: Skyrim.esm, Update.esm, Unofficial Skyrim Patch.esp, Dawnguard.esm, Unofficial Dawnguard Patch.esp, Dragonborn.esm, Unofficial Dragonborn Patch.esp, Hearthfires.esm, Unofficial Hearthfire Patch.esp, SkyUI.esp.

Now restart your game. If you can play for (what seems to you) a reasonable amount of time without crashing, then you can rule out game settings as a problem. (See below for more on settings.)

Quit out of the game. Go back into NMM and choose one plugin and recheck mark it. Restart your game. Do you crash? Bingo! You just found at least one mod that is giving you a problem. Go to the Mod's page and carefully read it to see what it might be having a problem with. Chances are that you won't crash with the first couple of mods your re-enable. Most likely you will crash when two (or more) mods conflict. This is a tedious way to troubleshoot, true. But it will definitely help you pin-point mod conflicts. This is also why you should resist the urge to activate new mods you've downloaded in groups. Instead, install and activate just ONE mod at first. If you crash, well, you just saved yourself having to look through multiple mods trying to see which one(s) are causing you to crash.

Once you've figured out which mods won't work, check their pages to see WHY they won't work. It will usually (but not always) be a conflict with another mod. There may be a patch available to fix the conflict. Maybe the mod is modular and you simply need to re-install with some parts of the mod omitted to prevent a conflict. Read, read, READ the descriptions of each mod and save yourself guesswork.

 

Game Settings.

Since you didn't include your rig's info (especially what GPU you have) I don't know if you're pushing your system too hard. Skyrim may be over three years old, but it's still a pretty demanding game. If all of the above does not stop you from crashing, go into your options and turn settings down a notch (or two) and restart. See if that gives you more stability.

NOTE: If you are using SKSE (and you should be from now on) -you cannot get into your settings from the SKSE shortcut. instead, either start your game from your TESV.exe Or using the "Launch Skyrim" button in NMM. Either way, click on "Options", adjust your settings down a bit, then try restarting through SKSE again.

Now if the above troubleshooting actually solved all your crashing issues, and your GPU is rather beefy (2GB of GDDR5 memory or better) you might want to try turning up the settings a bit to make the game look better. Try just a few notches on a few settings then test the game. If it's still stable, try bumping up your settings a bit more.

FINISH PASTE

 

Hope this helps you. One final note, you may be forced to start a new game if your saves have been corrupted by adding and deleting mods.

[muratguler]

Well, your system is a bit dated, but is actually adequate given that Skyrim is a three and a half year old game. However, your GPU's memory buffer of only 1GB is a bit low when you start adding mods. Especially texture packs and the like.

 

Following is my generic "troubleshooting" guide. It is gleaned from several years of valuable advice from others here on the Nexus.

 

START PASTE

1) Do you have SKSE (SKyrim Script Extender) installed? If not, that's a major problem right there. Many mods require it for stability. Get it at: http://skse.silverlock.org/ Be sure to watch the linked video for explanation of what it does and how to install it.

 

2) You should have the Unofficial Skyrim patch as well as the unofficial patches for all DLC's you have. If you don't have them, that's a likely cause for crashing randomly. So get them at:

Unofficial Skyrim Patch

Unofficial Dragonborn Patch

Unofficial Dawnguard Patch

Unofficial Hearthfire Patch

 

3) More mods that will help stabilize your game:

Stable uGridsToLoad Do NOT adjust the settings. Just use the default settings to help stabilize the loading of your cells (the areas your character can see from his vantage point.)

LOOT This utility will help you sort your load order for better performance. It will also tell you which mods have dirty edits, which you can clean with:

TES5EDIT The best utility for "cleaning up" the code in mods. WARNING: Some mods have "dirty" edits ON PURPOSE. Cleaning these edits can break the mod (and your save.) Read each mod thoroughly to see if they have any intentional dirty edits. If not, clean 'em up!

Skyrim Project Stability This isn't a mod but rather a complete guide to stabilizing your game and cleaning up your saves. It's a lot of reading, but this project is what helped transform my buggy game (that crashed every 3 to 5 minutes) into a smooth experience (with improved visuals) that hardly ever crashes. (Maybe once every 5 hours or so at worst.)

 

4) Troubleshooting.

After getting the above mods, LOOTing your load order and cleaning up your mods, you might still be experiencing crashes.

In your Nexus Mod Manager (you are using NMM, yes?) -click on the "Plugins" tab. You will now see your mod's plugins listed with a checkbox next to each one. Uncheck each one EXCEPT FOR THE FOLLOWING: Skyrim.esm, Update.esm, Unofficial Skyrim Patch.esp, Dawnguard.esm, Unofficial Dawnguard Patch.esp, Dragonborn.esm, Unofficial Dragonborn Patch.esp, Hearthfires.esm, Unofficial Hearthfire Patch.esp, SkyUI.esp.

Now restart your game. If you can play for (what seems to you) a reasonable amount of time without crashing, then you can rule out game settings as a problem. (See below for more on settings.)

Quit out of the game. Go back into NMM and choose one plugin and recheck mark it. Restart your game. Do you crash? Bingo! You just found at least one mod that is giving you a problem. Go to the Mod's page and carefully read it to see what it might be having a problem with. Chances are that you won't crash with the first couple of mods your re-enable. Most likely you will crash when two (or more) mods conflict. This is a tedious way to troubleshoot, true. But it will definitely help you pin-point mod conflicts. This is also why you should resist the urge to activate new mods you've downloaded in groups. Instead, install and activate just ONE mod at first. If you crash, well, you just saved yourself having to look through multiple mods trying to see which one(s) are causing you to crash.

Once you've figured out which mods won't work, check their pages to see WHY they won't work. It will usually (but not always) be a conflict with another mod. There may be a patch available to fix the conflict. Maybe the mod is modular and you simply need to re-install with some parts of the mod omitted to prevent a conflict. Read, read, READ the descriptions of each mod and save yourself guesswork.

 

Game Settings.

Since you didn't include your rig's info (especially what GPU you have) I don't know if you're pushing your system too hard. Skyrim may be over three years old, but it's still a pretty demanding game. If all of the above does not stop you from crashing, go into your options and turn settings down a notch (or two) and restart. See if that gives you more stability.

NOTE: If you are using SKSE (and you should be from now on) -you cannot get into your settings from the SKSE shortcut. instead, either start your game from your TESV.exe Or using the "Launch Skyrim" button in NMM. Either way, click on "Options", adjust your settings down a bit, then try restarting through SKSE again.

Now if the above troubleshooting actually solved all your crashing issues, and your GPU is rather beefy (2GB of GDDR5 memory or better) you might want to try turning up the settings a bit to make the game look better. Try just a few notches on a few settings then test the game. If it's still stable, try bumping up your settings a bit more.

FINISH PASTE

 

Hope this helps you. One final note, you may be forced to start a new game if your saves have been corrupted by adding and deleting mods.

 

Well that IS a really explaining answer. I will apply your advices and write the results.

 

Thanks :smile:

Edited October 4, 2015 by murat guler

[muratguler]

@Leddbate

 

After reading your post I added the followings to Skyrim...

 

- Skyrim-patch-1.9.32.0.8

- Unofficial Skyrim Patch-19-2-1-3a

- High Resolution Texture Pack 03

- Unofficial High Resolution Patch-31255-1-1-9a

- Unofficial Hearthfire Patch-25127-2-1-3

- Unofficial Dragonborn Patch-31083-2-1-3

- Unofficial Dawnguard Patch-23491-2-1-3

 

I also added SKSE, corrected the load order with LOOT and fixed files that LOOT says problematic with TES5Edit 3.1 (update.esm, dawnguard.esm, hearthfire.esm, dragonborn.esm). Now LOOT doesn't indicate a problem with the game.

 

http://i.hizliresim.com/2kB3j0.jpg

http://i.hizliresim.com/1kqWLD.jpg

 

I used the TES5Edit 3.1 as explained in this video.

 

 

I played the game last night with some minor stutter problems but today it starts to crash to desktop (with both skse_loader.exe and TES5.exe). After wandering for about 5 minutes game crashes to desktop (when i enter-exit somewhere). When I enter certain places game crashes immediately (ex: Windhelm - Palace of the Kings Upstairs)

 

What might be wrong ???

Edited September 19, 2015 by murat guler

[muratguler]

I've found out that Unofficial Skyrim Patch causes the problem and I deactivated it at Skyrim Launcher. After that LOOT said Unofficial Hearthfire Patch, Unofficial Dragonborn Patch and Unofficial Dawnguard Patch needs Unofficial Skyrim Patch but it is deactivated. So, in order to prevent these files cause problem, I deactivated them too.

 

Game runs good for now....

[LeddBate]

Glad you got it working.

 

I suspect that your 1GB of mem buffer in your GPU is giving you trouble. Especially with texture mods installed.

[muratguler]

I installed unofficial patches after I started the game and probably that is why they crash my game. Maybe there is a way to solve this problem (like cleaning the save files...etc) but my game runs pretty good now and I don't want to exert with it....

Edited September 20, 2015 by murat guler