Could any of these mods be causing my game to crash?

[Murkrow900]

Hi. I've been trying to stress test my game as of late since I'm getting close to a finished modlist. What remains to do is making a smashed patch as well as setting up Lods with Dyndolod.

But before doing that I've wanted to see if the game is stable or not. I ran around with player.setav speedmult 500 from all the cities. It only ended up crashing after the 40+ mark after i had left the game running for a while paused in a menu.

Unfortunately when i came back to the paused game the game just crashed instantly. I tried re-doing this and got roughly the same results but all in different locations so the location doesn't seem to impact.

Does this mean something is bad or is it more likely to be something random related to the stress test i performed?

Some of the problematic mods i am aware of that i do have installed because i thought they were fine is Frostfall, Obis and SIC (immersive creatures).

The first 20-25 minutes of the stress test i hadn't activated Frostfall in the MCM or looked up to the sky to activate it. 6-10 minutes or so after activating frostfall the game CTD after some running around and unpausing of the game. My ini/prefs are on high/ultra and i have the Bethini recommended tweaks.

SIC/Obis conspiracy is that I'm thinking that perhaps they're causing a crash since I have no smashed patch at the moment so perhaps the level lists are messed up? Could explain why the CTD isn't area specific but more about what's currently spawned? It's strange though because i encountered a lot of different enemies without issue before enabling Frostfall from the MCM menu.

Been working real hard on this setup so i would really love if it was soon to be ready so i can start playing.

Thank you. Answers are highly appreciated as always.

GTX 1080

16gb

I7 intel

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Modlist/Loadorder

https://pastebin.com/x1RLusJa

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Ini:

https://pastebin.com/wTiYTbEM

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Prefs:

https://pastebin.com/H7ZJkLPE

[IsharaMeradin]

Frostfall makes a lot of adjustments and utilizes scripts to bring it all together. When increasing the movement speed and crossing lots of cells, these scripts do not have enough time to do their thing before their objects get unloaded. This causes a build up that can lead to an eventual crash or lockup. Does not mean that Frostfall is a bad mod, just means that it is a mod best used at normal walking speeds.

 

Leveled lists would not cause a crash unless the object selected to load had some sort of issue with its mesh. In that case, the game would even crash when you tried to spawn the object via the console.

 

Furthermore, if your testing yields a roughly consecutive time frame for the crashing / lockup to appear chances are that your system is reaching its limit and giving up on the game. You have two choices:

save often and restart the game shortly before the crash would occur

remove additional mods that may be resource hungry

[Murkrow900]

Frostfall makes a lot of adjustments and utilizes scripts to bring it all together. When increasing the movement speed and crossing lots of cells, these scripts do not have enough time to do their thing before their objects get unloaded. This causes a build up that can lead to an eventual crash or lockup. Does not mean that Frostfall is a bad mod, just means that it is a mod best used at normal walking speeds.

 

Leveled lists would not cause a crash unless the object selected to load had some sort of issue with its mesh. In that case, the game would even crash when you tried to spawn the object via the console.

 

Furthermore, if your testing yields a roughly consecutive time frame for the crashing / lockup to appear chances are that your system is reaching its limit and giving up on the game. You have two choices:

save often and restart the game shortly before the crash would occur

remove additional mods that may be resource hungry

Thank you. I will try and disable Frostfall by not activating it in the MCM and then walk around with speedmult and see if it happens again. If it doesn't happen i will try enabling Frostfall and seeing if it occurs once more. I read somewhere that installing NET Script Framework can add some sort crash log which i can later post here for a synopsis? Furthermore do you think there's a better way to stress test the game that is more fair to the game system?

 

Your assistance means more than you know, makes me feel not so alone in these trying modding times! ^^

 

Random question but while on the topic, does tabbing out of Skyrim still cause CTD's after like 10-15 minutes of doing it? Or is that just an old superstitious tall tale?

 

Also wondering if the steam overlay is safe to use or if that as well is problematic? Also wondering if the command "TCL" is fair to use when stress testing and if so should i fly low or high? What speedmult would be fair, 500-700? I read someone used like 5000 but that just sounds silly as that would most definitely cause a CTD eventually even on the most stable system.

 

Thanks again.

 

//Murkrow

[IsharaMeradin]

I cannot give you definitive advice on stress testing the game.

 

I have never heard about using logs from the .NET Framework to determine why Skyrim crashed. SKSE has an option to create a dump report which may or may not help. Original Skyrim has a mod called Crash Fixes which has a log option as well (I do not know if there is an SSE version of Crash Fixes). Neither one should be taken as a definitive reason why, but they can provide avenues to explore.

 

I tried to limit tabbing out of Skyrim. I cannot speak to that. Personally, had no issues with the Steam overlay but then I rarely ever actually used it.

 

Going around the open world, TCL should be okay. It is when playing in dungeons that TCL might break things. TCL mode does not allow things like trigger boxes to recognize when the player enters or leaves. Thus those would not do their thing. If you need to TCL cause you fell and got stuck, that is fine. But using it to help zip through a dungeon, bad idea. That said, I would still limit the usage of TCL as much as possible.

 

If you think about it in this way: Your system has a finite amount of resources. The game requires a minimum amount of those resources and anything else you run at the same time will take up resources as well. Meaning, not running other programs while playing the game can help keep the game going longer.

 

If I were to test a particular system to determine whether the game would crash or not, I would play the game without mods. I would turn god mode on via the console and just run around the open world at regular speed. I wouldn't do any quests unless I was wanting to test something specific that required being at a specific point in a specific quest line. See how long the game can last on that system running at normal speed doing normal things before it starts going bad. I would note that length of time. Add mods and repeat.

 

Yes, there are crashes caused by bad meshes and other things which can be fixed. But the game itself will crash at some point simply due to running out of resources. I doubt that they fixed all of the memory management issues when converting to SSE. The goal is not to prevent the game from crashing but learn at what point the game will crash for the system and mod load you have. If that time frame is acceptable, save and restart before reaching that point. If not acceptable, reduce the mod load until that time frame is acceptable.

 

I could play the base game all day long without mods and have very little issues if any. As I added mods the playable time reduced. It wasn't a fixed amount per mod either. Some mods have such a small footprint that they hardly made a dent. Others not so much. As I got better computer systems, the number of mods that could be applied to the game before issues arose became greater as well. At no point did I ever throw 250+ mods at the game and hope it would work. I think 150 plugins might have been the highest I ever reached and that might have been giving myself an hour to an hour and a half before needing to exit and restart the game.

 

If you see the following things exit and restart the game. They are signs that the system is struggling.

Textures not showing up at all (i.e. solid color like black or magenta) -- can also be a sign of an improperly assigned texture file, check for that too

Distant LOD not swapping out as it should. -- ground looks muddy or blotchy in one cell while the one you were in looks fine.

Mammoths and other things falling from the sky.

Those are in no way an exhaustive list.

 

TL;DR

Keep an eye out for odd things, save often, restart occasionally and have fun playing.

[Murkrow900]

I cannot give you definitive advice on stress testing the game.

 

I have never heard about using logs from the .NET Framework to determine why Skyrim crashed. SKSE has an option to create a dump report which may or may not help. Original Skyrim has a mod called Crash Fixes which has a log option as well (I do not know if there is an SSE version of Crash Fixes). Neither one should be taken as a definitive reason why, but they can provide avenues to explore.

 

I tried to limit tabbing out of Skyrim. I cannot speak to that. Personally, had no issues with the Steam overlay but then I rarely ever actually used it.

 

Going around the open world, TCL should be okay. It is when playing in dungeons that TCL might break things. TCL mode does not allow things like trigger boxes to recognize when the player enters or leaves. Thus those would not do their thing. If you need to TCL cause you fell and got stuck, that is fine. But using it to help zip through a dungeon, bad idea. That said, I would still limit the usage of TCL as much as possible.

 

If you think about it in this way: Your system has a finite amount of resources. The game requires a minimum amount of those resources and anything else you run at the same time will take up resources as well. Meaning, not running other programs while playing the game can help keep the game going longer.

 

If I were to test a particular system to determine whether the game would crash or not, I would play the game without mods. I would turn god mode on via the console and just run around the open world at regular speed. I wouldn't do any quests unless I was wanting to test something specific that required being at a specific point in a specific quest line. See how long the game can last on that system running at normal speed doing normal things before it starts going bad. I would note that length of time. Add mods and repeat.

 

Yes, there are crashes caused by bad meshes and other things which can be fixed. But the game itself will crash at some point simply due to running out of resources. I doubt that they fixed all of the memory management issues when converting to SSE. The goal is not to prevent the game from crashing but learn at what point the game will crash for the system and mod load you have. If that time frame is acceptable, save and restart before reaching that point. If not acceptable, reduce the mod load until that time frame is acceptable.

 

I could play the base game all day long without mods and have very little issues if any. As I added mods the playable time reduced. It wasn't a fixed amount per mod either. Some mods have such a small footprint that they hardly made a dent. Others not so much. As I got better computer systems, the number of mods that could be applied to the game before issues arose became greater as well. At no point did I ever throw 250+ mods at the game and hope it would work. I think 150 plugins might have been the highest I ever reached and that might have been giving myself an hour to an hour and a half before needing to exit and restart the game.

 

If you see the following things exit and restart the game. They are signs that the system is struggling.

Textures not showing up at all (i.e. solid color like black or magenta) -- can also be a sign of an improperly assigned texture file, check for that too

Distant LOD not swapping out as it should. -- ground looks muddy or blotchy in one cell while the one you were in looks fine.

Mammoths and other things falling from the sky.

Those are in no way an exhaustive list.

 

TL;DR

Keep an eye out for odd things, save often, restart occasionally and have fun playing.

 

THANK YOU! Great stuff, really appreciate your take on this.

 

HOWEVER! I just ran a really hard hitting stress test and this were the results.

 

Is it 100% Frostfall causing my CTD's? I had the game on speedmult 700 and reaaaaaaally pushed the limits. I attacked s***, COC'd around and fasttraveled, saved, got attacked by lots of vampires, went into all capitals, activated the forgotten city quest, attacked all of solitude etc etc. Still had 60 fps all the time and no CTD or hiccup. I played for an entire hour and quit after getting bored.

But after activating Frostfall in the MCM i get a ctd about 15-20 minutes in on my stress test.

Thinking of switching it for the normal survival mod that comes from the Beth store.

 

Interested in peoples opinion here!

[IsharaMeradin]

If you think Frostfall is at fault, then do not use Frostfall. Only you can make that choice. Try the game in normal play and see if the crashing continues. Like I said, Frostfall makes a lot of changes and has scripts to tie a lot of it together. Running around at extreme speeds can cause these scripts to fail to execute properly. Running at normal speed may be fine. You will have to test that and make that decision for yourself.

[Murkrow900]

Thank you Ishara for responding to my posts. Will do that and get back to the Nexus.

 

/Murk