Skyrim complete PC crashes

[Davezor]

had the same problem here, black screen (sound continues for few secounds) followed by a complete system crash after playing a few minutes or open the map.

 

these are my specs:

 

2500k@4,5

ATI 5870 1024MB

Asus P8P67

 

Games like BF3, Anno2070, Rage, Arkham City,... run flawless, also Prime95 and Furmark runs stable for many hours.

 

A few months ago i had black screens with silent hunter 5 and the heaven benchmark, i didnt care much because all other games run just fine.

then came Skyrim and the black screen returned in great numbers :(

 

i tried a few things but skyrim did crash like s***, in the first time i could not belive the hardware may be a problem...

then i underclocked my graphics card way down from 850/1200 Mhz to 600/900Mhz. Finally i can play the game without crashing...

 

nevertheless i will send this graphics card back for warranty.

Edited January 12, 2012 by Davezor

[ibrad]

 

Kind regards from Germany

 

Dude, you seem to know what you are talking about because it does make perfect sense and answers questions I have had on my mind. You confirmed for me that Bethseda and their crappy development is still the culprit. Thanks for taking time to post!

Brad

[kingsofglover]

 

 

It's quite easy. Here is how with ATI Tray Tools. I've got similar pc to yours (6850, Phenom II x6 3.2).

 

Download and install ATI tray tools.

 

Run it as admin (or it won't work).

 

See picture!:

 

1. Right click on it's red and white icon in the task bar then go Hardware>Overclocking Settings

2. To start off, underclock the core to 750Mhz and the memory to 900Mhz (that's what I started with) and hit OK or apply. Make sure the Voltage is at 0.950.

3. Run the skyrim launcher and turn off anti aliasing. Put anisotropic filtering to 2 samples.

4. Play the game. Hopefully it works! If it does, you can slowly creep them up to test. If you set it too high, you will know as it will crash lol.

 

Of course whatever works for you may be different since you have a 6870, so just start low and see what works. With these settings I get steady 60fps, with intense scenes dropping to 35-40

 

P.S. For good image quality, make sure 3D>Texture Preference is set to High Quality. I tried high performance and it looks wayyy cruddy.

 

Did you guys think that this could work on a notebook (C2D T6500 2,10 GHz, 4GB DDR2 667MHz, ATI HD4650)? And what would be the most recommended setting?

 

You just gotta try it for yourself. The main things I would suggest is to turn off anti aliasing and anisotropic filtering, then underclock your video card.

Also, read the post from NotFromThisWorld - http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?/topic/456889-skyrim-complete-pc-crashes/page__view__findpost__p__4287399. His suggestions about editing the ini file and changing the affinity/priority in task manager allowed me to push my graphics card even higher (in terms of core and memory speed) then what I have been playing on.

 

Trial and error buddy!

Edited January 13, 2012 by kingsofglover

[jlcoving]

Wow, maybe it's a problem with the video card, because I'm having the same problem and my system specs are almost identical. I have a Radeon HD 6870 (1GB) with a AMD Phenom II X4 955 3.2GHz, 8GB ram, 64-bit Windows 7 Home. I have latest drivers for the Radeon, hopefully if it's a problem with the HD 6870 they will come out with a fix soon. It sucks not knowing when it's just going to black screen and make me have to manually reboot the computer.

 

I'm working with the HIS manufacturer now regarding the 9870 card. They are interested in this issue. Played last night for about an hour with the Core and Memory Clocks at 750Mhz and 900Mhz by using the MSI Afterburner tool and no problems even on high settings across the board. There was a comment about the game crashing even on the lower settings when the map overview was displayed, but that did not happen to me.

 

Personally, I do not think it is a hardware issue, but a game software issue.

 

 

I was the one that first tried to underclock the memory clock with msi afterburner and i play now for over a month fine without bsod problem...I encourage people to try this it is really working i had bsod from day one with the game and now i am lvl 61 and put over 100 hours in the game i just underclocked the memory a little... I found this solution by luck i downloaded msi afterburner in order to change fan speed but when i tried the underclock the game immediatelly became stable...Please inform us if HIS answers you

 

Couple of questions: is this easy to do? I'm not a computer pro but I'm not a newbie completely either. I've never done over/underclocking at all. Also, is there any risk of damage to computer from doing this and will it affect my other games (i.e. will I have to keep changing settings back and forth to play Skyrim?) Thanks for any help!

 

Also, what settings should I try to set it to for my computer? I have Radeon HD 6870 (1GB) with a AMD Phenom II X4 955 3.2GHz, 8GB ram, 64-bit Windows 7 Home.

 

It's quite easy. Here is how with ATI Tray Tools. I've got similar pc to yours (6850, Phenom II x6 3.2).

 

Download and install ATI tray tools.

 

Run it as admin (or it won't work).

 

See picture!:

 

1. Right click on it's red and white icon in the task bar then go Hardware>Overclocking Settings

2. To start off, underclock the core to 750Mhz and the memory to 900Mhz (that's what I started with) and hit OK or apply. Make sure the Voltage is at 0.950.

3. Run the skyrim launcher and turn off anti aliasing. Put anisotropic filtering to 2 samples.

4. Play the game. Hopefully it works! If it does, you can slowly creep them up to test. If you set it too high, you will know as it will crash lol.

 

Of course whatever works for you may be different since you have a 6870, so just start low and see what works. With these settings I get steady 60fps, with intense scenes dropping to 35-40

 

P.S. For good image quality, make sure 3D>Texture Preference is set to High Quality. I tried high performance and it looks wayyy cruddy.

 

Awesome, thanks it worked. I just set the memory to 900 and didn't change anything else and thankfully it worked so far with no crashes (played from last post up until now). Thanks everyone for all the help I very much appreciate it. I can finally actually enjoy the game instead of just worrying when the next crash is coming. Thanks again

 

Guess I spoke too soon...started crashing today :(

 

I'll try changing other settings as well (only changed memory down to 900 originally). Will report results back.

[AJ Rimmer Bsc.Ssc.]

i can feel the stress dripping off these posts.

 

 

do yourselves a favour and forget it,return the game for a refund,theres a massive amount of proof to show a refund is well deserved.

then if one day the modding community fixes the game you can buy it again for a fraction of the cost.

 

all you are doing right now is trying to polish a turd with a molten core of liquid poop.

 

why wreck your system for a game thats clearly buggered.

 

and if you do happen to get past the crashing,and terrible texturing and even worse optimizing,you will be greeted by the massive amount of broken quests and game breaking bugs.

 

we have had game developers rip it apart and found its probably the worst console port released to date.

its even buggered on consoles,so what hope can there be for the pc port.

 

 

return it [tells betthesda you are not pleased]

wait for the fix [if it doesnt come,then you have lost nothing]

before ever buying another bethesda game wait at least a month after release,as they have a rep for releasing betas and even alphas with no regard for the poor buyers at all.

 

i bought a cheapo nvidia card and played it through,and can promise you as a game it really is not worth this much effort.

[onemiguel]

i can feel the stress dripping off these posts.

 

 

do yourselves a favour and forget it,return the game for a refund,theres a massive amount of proof to show a refund is well deserved.

then if one day the modding community fixes the game you can buy it again for a fraction of the cost.

 

all you are doing right now is trying to polish a turd with a molten core of liquid poop.

 

why wreck your system for a game thats clearly buggered.

 

and if you do happen to get past the crashing,and terrible texturing and even worse optimizing,you will be greeted by the massive amount of broken quests and game breaking bugs.

 

we have had game developers rip it apart and found its probably the worst console port released to date.

its even buggered on consoles,so what hope can there be for the pc port.

 

 

return it [tells betthesda you are not pleased]

wait for the fix [if it doesnt come,then you have lost nothing]

before ever buying another bethesda game wait at least a month after release,as they have a rep for releasing betas and even alphas with no regard for the poor buyers at all.

 

i bought a cheapo nvidia card and played it through,and can promise you as a game it really is not worth this much effort.

 

I would have to wholeheartedly disagree - once I got the game working (see above), I've spent hours and hours and hours immersed in a beautifully rendered and engrossing game. Aside from the technical issues, this is quite possibly the largest AND most beautifully rendered (assuming you have the hardware) game I've seen to date.

[jlcoving]

i can feel the stress dripping off these posts.

 

 

do yourselves a favour and forget it,return the game for a refund,theres a massive amount of proof to show a refund is well deserved.

then if one day the modding community fixes the game you can buy it again for a fraction of the cost.

 

all you are doing right now is trying to polish a turd with a molten core of liquid poop.

 

why wreck your system for a game thats clearly buggered.

 

and if you do happen to get past the crashing,and terrible texturing and even worse optimizing,you will be greeted by the massive amount of broken quests and game breaking bugs.

 

we have had game developers rip it apart and found its probably the worst console port released to date.

its even buggered on consoles,so what hope can there be for the pc port.

 

 

return it [tells betthesda you are not pleased]

wait for the fix [if it doesnt come,then you have lost nothing]

before ever buying another bethesda game wait at least a month after release,as they have a rep for releasing betas and even alphas with no regard for the poor buyers at all.

 

i bought a cheapo nvidia card and played it through,and can promise you as a game it really is not worth this much effort.

 

I would have to wholeheartedly disagree - once I got the game working (see above), I've spent hours and hours and hours immersed in a beautifully rendered and engrossing game. Aside from the technical issues, this is quite possibly the largest AND most beautifully rendered (assuming you have the hardware) game I've seen to date.

 

I have to disagree as well...once it's working I love the game...very immersive. If it didn't work or it was causing a HUGE inconvenience to get it to work, I may be more bitter, but that doesn't change the fact the game is quality if it works right.

Edited January 14, 2012 by jlcoving

[AJ Rimmer Bsc.Ssc.]

and if my granny had nuts she would be my grandad.

 

124 pages and the games fine ?.....

 

for anyone reading the above 2 posts...simply take a peek here and at bethesda forums [well any forum talking about the game] and tell me if the 2 above have any credibility.

must be getting boring trolling the bethesda tech forums due to the lack of people even trying to play this god awful release.

 

[edit : of course i will also eat my text and bow long and long IF you can prove you bought a different version of the game that does actually work.

but then i would want to know how you got a different version of the game to everyone else. ;)

 

i get the feeling bethesdas broken promises of weekly updates and an early jan release of CK have finally struck a nerve with people.

 

 

next game please,preferably STALKER 2 ;).

unless of course they too have eaten the tainted biscuit and have decided to dip for the console trough and shaft thier pc fanbase.

Edited January 14, 2012 by AJ Rimmer Bsc.Ssc.

[maboru]

Yes, for literally millions of us out here the game runs fine. For the hundreds or perhaps even thousands who are having problems just keep checking up on solutions. Here's the latest mod that may help some -

 

http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=6131

[VaKhajDar]

maybe this can help,

 

Before I updated my rig, I had frequent ctd's or even complete pc crashes in the rift, or riften itself...(allways outside)

but I could play with a decent framerate and a lot of mods... as long as I didn't need to go to the rift, and as a thief, that wasn't really easy...

 

after updating cpu, mem, case,... everything BUT the GPU, I could only play with 4/5 if I was lucky 8/12 fps... and got a coupple of pc crashes outdoor

Only once I got a message saying the graphics driver crashed...

 

After a lot of trying, and for the heck of it, I took out the card, took the fan of of it, got allmost a heart attack when I saw the amount of cooling paste they used...

The small resistors surrounding the gpu, underneath the cooler where completely covered by paste, linking them together and for all I know, this stuff is somewhat conductive...

I could easy use this amount of paste on multiple cpu's without any cooling problem arising...

cleaned it all of, applied a little dot of good quality paste and put it back.

 

I am now playing with 55/60 fps, no crashing or CTD or anything...

 

If it is really bugging you, and your card is already out of warranty it is worth a try...