Bizarre video error preventing me from playing Skyrim

[mcmuchacho]

Hey everyone!

 

So I've had this weird video-related problem that's been plaguing my planned Skyrimming since about last Sunday (11/13). I started playing Skyrim early in the day and had a session that lasted about 8 hours.

This was the first time I had played the game.

 

I exited the game and went off to run some errands. A couple of hours later, tried to reboot the game, but I couldn't make it past the main menu/loading screen.

This is what happens everytime I boot up the game now: http://i.imgur.com/mL72z.jpg

I apologize about the picture quality; I had to use my camera phone.

Basically the game will launch, Bethesda logo shows up, then the Skyrim logo will fade in out of darkness. Then, the game seems to freeze a bit and my

display explodes into colors and lines like it's on some kind of techno-acid. After several seconds of this, the screen will go dark, but I can still hear the title music playing in the background.

Unfortunately, my computer becomes completely unresponsive to commands and I have to do a hard-reset to get it working again.

 

Things I've tried to fix this:

• Updated my graphics drivers
  
• Updated DirectX
  
• Re-installed the game
  
• Deleted/re-installed my video drivers
  
• Patched the game to run up to 4gb memory
  
• Lowered the graphical settings
  
• Verified my game files through steam
  
• Switched the audio to 44100hz
  
• Ran the game through the installation folder instead of steam
  
• Ran the game in windowed mode
  

 

Nothing seems to work.

 

All of my other games play just fine (TF2, Bad Company 2, Half-Life, etc.). Skyrim is the only one giving me this problem.

I honestly don't know what to do at this point, and I'm incredibly frustrated that I just

can't sit down and play the game I bought.

 

My specs are:

AMD Athlon II X2 240 Processor

HD 4850

4GB Ram

 

I've also attached my dxdiag file, if that helps.

 

I don't really know what else to do, and I thought turning the nexus community would be my best bet on finding out what the hell is going on.

 

Thanks for your time, and any help is greatly appreciated.

 

 

Edited November 22, 2011 by mcmuchacho

[theviceman]

That can occur because of overheated or broken graphics card. I had similar problem few years ago with BF2 game, and what made it 'funny' was that most of the games worked perfectly.

[mcmuchacho]

Hmmmm, I see. The thing is, my card's temp is around 49-51C when it crashes. I don't see how it can be broken if Skyrim is the only thing giving it problems.

[TentGuy]

Ive looked around. This exact thing happens to me. It happens during loading screens. There is a bad workaround, but if you tab out somehow so that the graphics of the load screen dont render then you can play.

 

The common denominator is the HD4850. The game doesnt get along with our card. I hope Bethesda will address this issue ASAP, I have given up trying to play, so many freezes. Its so amazing when it works, but it doesnt work anymore and its very disappointing.