Skyrim immediately crashes to desktop upon loading game

[exnecross]

Title says it all, Skyrim was randomly crashing (only occasionally), so I decided to update to the latest driver (I use Nvidia Geforce 465). After installing the driver and restarting my cpu, Skyrim immediately CTD when loading a game from the main menu. This is extremely frustrating. I've tried a clean install, verifying cache, etc etc. Any help would be appreciated greatly.

[Systex]

Have you changed uGrids? What mods are you using? Is this happening to all your saves? Post your PC specs? Have you tried the well-known sound fix?

The more information you post, the more likely we'll help you out.

[exnecross]

uGrids aren't the problem. Yes it happens to all my saves. I'm using a lot of mods but I'll list the ones that could possibly be doing something.

 

Superb ENB- RL

Enhanced Distance Terrain

Fores Idles

Vurts Flora

Realistic Smoke and Embers

Sky UI (with skyboost)

W.A.T.E.R.

 

The rest are just some armor textures and weapons.

 

I don't know of the sound fix.

 

OS Name Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium

Version 6.1.7601 Service Pack 1 Build 7601

Other OS Description Not Available

OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation

System Manufacturer Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.

System Model X58A-UD3R

System Type x64-based PC

Processor Intel® Core i7 CPU 950 @ 3.07GHz, 3060 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 8 Logical Processor(s)

BIOS Version/Date Award Software International, Inc. FB, 8/24/2010

SMBIOS Version 2.4

Windows Directory C:\Windows

System Directory C:\Windows\system32

Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume1

Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "6.1.7601.17514"

Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 6.00 GB

Total Virtual Memory 12.0 GB

Available Virtual Memory 9.61 GB

Name NVIDIA GeForce GTX 465

Driver c:\windows\system32\drivers\nvlddmkm.sys (8.17.12.9610, 13.00 MB (13,626,688 bytes), 5/8/2012 10:11 AM)

 

edit: I tried one of my saves wayyyyyyy back and it did load. Just nothing from the past week or so. I did change the ugrid to 9 a while back but I haven't touched it since, and the game was running fine on 9 before.

Edited May 8, 2012 by exnecross

[exnecross]

This may be of some use, found it in my skyrim.ini

 

SGeneralMasterMismatchWarning=One or more plugins could not find the correct versions of the master files they depend on. Errors may occur during load or game play. Check the "Warnings.txt" file for more information.

 

I don't have any "warnings.txt" file that it refers to however.

[tetradite]

I know this may sound crazy, but if updating your driver broke the game and it worked fine before, why not just roll-back your driver version? Do you need the updated driver for something else to work properly?

[exnecross]

The driver specifically said it's meant to run Skyrim better, and everything I've read keeps saying to make sure you have the latest drivers installed...

 

Just tried using no mods and no plugins besides the main one, still same thing.

[exnecross]

OK, so I've gotten it to work, it seems like Flintlock Pistol was the problem (wtf?)

[tetradite]

Glad you're sorted.

 

Personally I find drivers are a bit like Windows OS versions. If you're running the absolutely newest version as soon as it comes out then you're going to get the newest bells and whistles and shiny things, but it can also be less stable. Just in my experience anyway.

[BabyemoAshley]

I had this exact error. What finally worked for me was unplugging my 2nd harddrive! My primary drive with win7 x64 is a SSD, the 2nd is a platter 2tb caviar green. The 2nd drive works fine, but I remembered I had to unplug it to install windows.

 

That was the fix after not fixing it with- reinstalling directx, 3 different nvidia drivers, reinstall game, reinstall steam, BIOS update, Audio fix.