Game freeze problem in the wilderness.

[Deepblue321]

Basically the game runs really smoothly everywhere else.

I'm using lots of mods but they aren't affecting anything.

 

Until I leave a town ,cave, ruin or where ever I am.

In the wilderness everything still runs smoothly but now and again the game suddenly gets choppy when it starts loading up everything around me.

It wouldn't be so bad if it didn't happen every so often.

 

If I keep going and ignoring the choppiness now and again, the game will eventually freeze. Music keeps going.

Task manager tells me the game crashed.

 

This is of course even worse when I use a horse since it moves faster and therefore the choppiness as everything loads up in the area happens more often.

I end up having to stop every 15 seconds to let everything load up and hope the game doesn't freeze.

 

This makes travelling incredibly hard to do because I have to keep quicksaving every 10 seconds so hopefully I don't end up re-travelling too much when I start the game up again after a freeze.

 

I know this is an old game but even the likes of Half life 2 (which is older) runs perfectly.

I've tried a few things to prevent this such as removing the auto save from every instance possible (I do this with Skyrim and it really helps prevent crashing) and even installing the directX drivers that come on the game's disc.

 

 

Like I said, once I enter a dungeon or town, everything runs perfectly.

I really want to play this game again but this problem is really ruining it for me.

 

Graphics settings are on the highest with HDR enabled just incase this means anything.

Always good to have all info possible.

Edited November 10, 2012 by Deepblue321

[Hickory]

It sounds to me like your graphic card is not coping very well on highest settings. You failed to mention what mods you have installed. If you have, for instance, RAEVWD installed, this is going to happen out of doors, anyway. More details are needed, like a complete load order taken from Wrye Bash.

[Deepblue321]

The only mods I can think of that would affect the outside area in such a big way would be Unique Landscapes and Qarls texture pack. Another possiblity could be Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul but I'm not sure. These are the mods that add the most to the game filesize-wise.

I could try using reduced versions of the texture pack and disable Unique Landscapes altogether.

 

 

I mostly asked incase it turns out to be something else entirely.

Since I could reduce crashing at really high player levels in Skyrim by removing autosaves and turning off the Steam cloud.

 

I have noticed that the Shivering Isles seems to be just fine. But I'm guessing this is down to the smaller landmass.

Edited November 10, 2012 by Deepblue321

[Hickory]

The only mods I can think of that would affect the outside area in such a big way would be Unique Landscapes and Qarls texture pack. Another possiblity could be Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul but I'm not sure. These are the mods that add the most to the game filesize-wise.

I could try using reduced versions of the texture pack and disable Unique Landscapes altogether.

 

 

I mostly asked incase it turns out to be something else entirely.

Since I could reduce crashing at really high player levels in Skyrim by removing autosaves and turning off the Steam cloud.

 

I have noticed that the Shivering Isles seems to be just fine. But I'm guessing this is down to the smaller landmass.

 

As I said before, if your graphics card is not up to it, Quarls texture pack alone will stress it to the point of explosion. Unique Landscapes does have some areas that are resource heavy, but not nearly as much as Quarls, and not all areas. Oscuro's will NOT make any difference whatsoever.

[Deepblue321]

It's rather strange because besides the stuttering when entering new areas (and possible chances of a freeze during this time), the game runs flawlessly.

My graphics card isn't exactly brand spanking new as of this time (as in, this month) but it isn't exactly a cheap one neither.

 

I know what you said before, it's just a rather odd way for my graphics card to not handle something.

Normally if my PC can't handle something, it just plain struggles to run smoothly.

 

First time I have a PC that can't handle something to an extent that it runs perfectly but freezes now and again.

 

 

Well I've switched to a more optimised version of Qarls and removed Unique landscapes.

I'll see what happens and then I'll remove the textures altogether if it doesn't fix anything.

 

I wasn't even going to dare to try using something like RAEVWD.

Edited November 11, 2012 by Deepblue321

[Striker879]

Hard drives are the second slowest part of a machine (right after DVD/CD drives). Make sure your game hard drive is defragmented. You could also have a look through the suggested tweaks in Koroush Ghazi's Oblivion Tweak Guide (specifically the ones mentioned in the Memory, Loading & Multithreading Variables part of the Advanced Tweaking section).

[Deepblue321]

I'll try defragging since I haven't done one in a while anyway and I'm probably due to do one.

 

Although all the time I've had the game, I've never heard of defragging just after installing.

Would it still work if I already have a save?

Edited November 11, 2012 by Deepblue321

[Striker879]

The problem you've described sounds like a hardware issue to me. Providing your machine has sufficient RAM and your video card is fairly recent the next most likely cause for stuttering is fragmentation on your hard drive. Unless you defrag before you install something to your hard drive, the installer will use whatever available space it can find, regardless of whether or not that space is contiguous on your hard drive.

 

After re-reading your OP two other things come to mind. Though you don't describe any of the 'classic' symptoms, I wonder if this is a save with a large number of hours on it. If so you may be affected by the 'A-Bomb' problem. Wrye Bash has a utility to solve the problem or you could use Animation Fixer. The other thing is the use of quicksave. Quicksave is a known corrupter of save files. You would be better off using either the save from the Esc menu or the save command from the console.

[Deepblue321]

It's not a long savegame, I've only recently re-installed the game.

 

I'll make a note of the quicksave problem too.

In fact now that I think about it.....sometimes when I'll be quicksaving in case the game freezes, I have noticed the game freeze the moment I quicksave (although the quicksave finishes up regardless and I can still use it)

 

So....a defrag won't do anything unless I reinstall again?

Edited November 11, 2012 by Deepblue321

[Striker879]

No a defrag may help without needing to re-install the game (it won't hurt anything to try it ... if fragmentation is not the problem you'll be no worse off). My point was that if you don't defrag before installing something it will be fragmented ... even a brand new drive with only Windows installed will have fragmentation. Windows deletes temporary files during it's install of the operating system, so after the OS install is complete a lot of fragmentation is left behind.

 

Also take note of those tweaks I linked, in particular ones like uExterior Cell Buffer and uGridsToLoad. Read through that entire section of the Tweak Guide, as many of the suggested tweaks rely on how much RAM your machine has.