Consistently inconsistent load/crash/freeze issues

[tVEC]

I hope someone with a better understanding of the game engine can help me decipher this mod related problem.

 

I have the same issues in 2 difference exterior cell areas: In and around Karthwasten, and the area west of Riverhold on both sides of the river. I also suspect other areas.

 

Problem is, I cannot load saves there, and pausing, combat, or just running around usually causes crashes, and magic or shouts usually causes freezes.

 

I quickly discovered it was mod related after I reinstalled the game as well as all mods through NMM and everything worked fine. So what I did was go to Karthwasten and add each mod one at a time, load, then save, then check the load. Then I would run around, do magic, pause, etc etc trying to make it crash. I did this with mods first and then esps using NMM. I got all the mods installed but one- my last one- static mesh improvement. Then it would not load.

I uninstalled SMIM and loaded the clean save before I installed it, but the save would not load, none would.I repeated the process, vowing never to use SMIM. I began with the original clean save, but this time other mods triggered the problem- W.A.T.E.R., Sounds of Skyrim - Fire, Midas Magic, Super realistic ore textures....

I got it working leaving these and others out but when I fast traveled the problems returned.

I tried PCB, I tried respawn and sleeping 48 hrs, possessive corpses.

I looked at those cells in CK but I don't know what to look for....

 

Any help would be appreciated!

Edited May 8, 2012 by tVEC

[Bannor9]

Likely it is the Water that is causing the issue. Not just any water mod, but the in-game water sections.

 

I get crashes if I ever save OR move too fast through any section with large rivers/streams with lots of waterfalls. This is fairly consistent for me, so I avoid any modifications to those specific areas, like the Markarth Smith section with those huge waterfalls and streams surrounding the area for example.

 

You could just adjust your vid settings and reduce water reflectivity, and water quality in general, and likely that will help.

 

 

However, there will likely be dozens of suggestions on this from various folks, and it all truly depends on your specific hardware and mod setups and the various vid quality settings you use.

 

Simplest answer is to reduce vid quality, shadows possibly too, and see what works for YOUR system.

 

Skyrim claims that my system can handle the game at highest possible settings... it can't, not an be truly playable. I had to turn OFF all water settings, all reflectivity and reduce shadows to as low as possible to be able to effectively move around outdoors.

 

Indoors, I don't seem to have the issue, likely due to the lower size of the individual cells, and that they are less likely to have huge flowing bits of water.

[Lumaan]

Tweaked "[Papyrus]" and/or "[budgetCaps]" in "Skyrim.ini" - I have had this CTD around Riverwood too and it was because of wrong values.

[tVEC]

Hello

Well I wanted to let folks know that I think I found the issues. I'm not 100% certain, mind you, but I think the crashing/freezing/no loading was caused by

 

1. Terrain Manager settings in SkyrimPrefs.ini- I had been using a suggested setting to minimize z-fighting. I believe this was causing the non-loads and some of the CTDs. I reduced the values and so far so good. I use this:

 

[TerrainManager]

fTreeLoadDistance=100000.0000

fBlockMaximumDistance=350000.0000

fBlockLevel1Distance=80000.0000

fBlockLevel0Distance=45000.0000

fSplitDistanceMult=1.5000

bShowLODInEditor=0

 

2. VATS Settings as suggested by The Dance of Death description to get better ranged killmove chance. It was suggested with a warning of CTDs, which I did not see....heh :blush: :blush:

 

3. The random freezes with magic use was the Deadly Spell Impact mod.

 

So yea! I can finally play! Except...now may saves are BLOATED......used clean saves, respawn then sleeping and possessive corpses, Mart's Debloatifier.... my saves never reached 8000KB now my saves are almost doubling with each new save...