Skyrim keeps crashing

[strikerdes]

Hey guys!

Installed all my mods onto Skyrim yesterday on my new laptop and was playing for around 8-9 hours!

Then today I started up again, playing for a few hours and suddenly my Game crashed to desktop!

Usually when this happens it will come up with an error message or something, but that didn't happen, it literally just went straight to my desktop.

First time it did this I looked at steam and in the top left corner it was doing something to my Game. like installing something, so I assumed at the time it was updating the game and had cancelled without asking me first (Steam is awful so I think this was an appropriate assumption)

So the install finished (or whatever steam was doing, it didn't actually tell me what it had done) and I booted up the game as usual, this time I'm riding through some forest and it crashed again!

At this time i'm getting seriously pissed!

 

So I get google up have a look around and it says something about the sound? So I changed my sound settings and the problem still exists.

I have lowered the shadows on my Game, even though there is no lag whatsoever with everything on Ultra so FPS isn't making this game crash.

As I said I do have Mods but yesterday my laptop was working fine with them!

 

Laptop Specs-

Nvidia GT 555M Graphics Card

16GB DDR3 RAM

Intel Core I7-2720QM 3.30GHZ CPU

500GB Hard drive

5.1 Audio Card

 

I'm Using an Xbox Controller if that helps lol

 

I just have no Idea what's going on!

Thanks in advance Guys and Girls :)

[daftshadow]

most of the time it is conflicting mods that causes CTDs. try using BOSS to load your order. see if that helps. it did for me in the past.

[bben46]

CTD = Crash to desktop. That is the way Beth games usually crash straight to desktop with no warning. There are many possible reasons.

Some of the better known

Run out of system RAM memory - A 32 bit Operating system is limited to 4G max, and a part of that is taken by Windows and other necessary stuff. So, about 3G max for the game.

The game itself is a 32 bit program and cannot use more than 4G no matter how much you have.

A 64 bit Operating system will allow you to use up to the 4G max as long as you have more than 4G installed. Most of your 16G will be sitting there twiddling its thumbs while you play games. I don't know of any games today that can use more than 4G, and most are limited to 2G. This is a limitation of making games compatible with older (32 bit) computers. Making them compatible with 64 bit would require a complete rewrite.

 

Some other program stealing the computer focus. If a background program decides it has to run something right now, it can cause a CTD if it doesn't return focus to the game quick enough. Sometime there will be a short pause then the game resumes if it gets focus back soon enough. IM programs that check periodically for new messages will do this. As well as things like Windows indexing, antivirus checks, defraging, checking for updates and anything else that runs in the background - including Steam doing something without warning you first. :rolleyes:

[Xotana]

In your quad core, try to set core affinity to core 0 and 2 and then try to load and play.

This 2 cores only thingy is the only trick that makes my Skyrim load Whiterun saves and others without the eternal load game screen. It sounds stupid but it works wonders for me.

Until starting to have random and stupid CTDs I used to play with all cores enabled. I added this shortcut to my target path:

C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /c start "TESV.exe" /affinity 5 "... ( what follows is the regular game exe path - you will find it on your target path). Affinity set to 5 means that only cores 0 and 2 are enabled to run Skyrim.

So, for me, all cores mean no Skyrim and loads....and 2 cores mean fun and playable game and loads in 2-3 seconds!!!

Also it doesn't crash as many times as before, I can play for 3-4 for hours with only a single CTD or none....also don't delete mods a lot or keep changing them...it will affect saves.

Edited May 7, 2012 by Xotana