First CTDs after 70 hours of playing

[bigv32]

Load order looks fine overall after a quick glance.

 

You should still turn off the autosave feature. In your case, you might as well because you don't even use the saves.

 

I use the quick save and then make a hard save after each play session. This way I know where I can more easily ID saves with mod additions and removals.

 

 

As for the scripts and bloated saves, I have been going over and testing a few of the tools on the nexus that are suppose to help clean saves up (these are all old save I use).

 

The most experemental one and one that is not recommended as any serious solution is a mod that sets all the scripts in the save to zero. It received a lot and I do mean a lot of flak when it first came out because it was like trying to due surgery with a chainsaw. There are a lot of side affects with quests etc., but I for one am happy someone at least tried it. I cannot stress this enough that you use this at your own risk and I only would use it as a last resort on a save that you know for a fact is corrupted and backed up. http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/31675 I track the file just to see what changes are made.

 

Another tool that has gotten a lot more possitive reviews about it is one that "resets" some of teh references in the game. Again it is something that I would consider experemental and should only be used on a backedup save.

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/31724

I have tested it on a few saves. However, these saves had scripting problems, so there was not much this tool could do about those. Overall, this mod seems more like one to use after a long time on the same save. There are reports of some sideaffects.

 

The third mod I know of that is suppose to help save game bloat is http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/4528. This one is interesting and should be looked at carefully. It is safe to use, but it may conflict with other mods that have the same features built in.

 

 

Finally, the latest version of SKSE has an option to build an ini file for it that allows the player to add:

 

[General]

ClearInvalidRegistrations=1

I just resently added this, so I can't provide much info on it. I can't even find a source that actually explains exactly what it is doing or how to tell its working. All I know is the SKSE team built it in and overtime it helps saves with their old scripts. I am using it personally just because I trust the SKSE team and what they have added to the modding community. I do believe this is experimental, so again, this is a use at your own risk. If anyone can provide more info on this, I would love to read it.

[ripple]

10MB is normal for a save game that's seen some service (it's actually pretty good for a 70 hours+ save game. A 'pack rat' save game would be more than that). Other than the new SKSE setting, the others are not necessary for someone in your situation. The first 'method' of cleaning save game bloat is for save games that simply can't be salvaged in any other way, as in you can't even load it, because your save game size is 50MB+ (and it's actually better to start a new game in such instances), and would quite literally destroy most save game data and is completely detrimental to save games that do not require this form of chemotherapy. The second utility isn't really doing anything that can't be done via a complete in game cell reset (in fact, it just forces it), so it's not really all that useful. The third (infinite ash pile fix), if I recall correctly, is already included in the USKP (so it's redundant for your set up).

You shouldn't really need to reboot your PC every few hours, although...how long are your Skyrim sessions? I think the longest non-stop Skyrim gaming session I've gone for is 4 hours (ever), and I can at best find the time to muster 1 1/2 to 2 hours before I need to quit and go do some RL stuff before coming back to Skyrim...I don't think this is a 'hardware issue', but what's your PC specs again?

Also, how frequent are your CTD, on average in the past 2 weeks?

Edited April 16, 2013 by ripple

[AndrealphusVIII]

Well on average I play about 2 to 3 hrs each session.

 

My specs are rather low, especially my GPU (which is quite ancient), but for now it seems okay:

 

• GPU: nVidia Geforce 9600 GT 512 RAM (PCIe Slot: 2.0 x16)
• Processor: AMD Phenom II X4 945 Processor (4 CPUs), ~3.0GHz
• 4096 MB RAM available, 3328MB RAM used (because of my OS: Win7 32bit)
• PSU: 450 Watt

 

My CTDs are very unpredictable. Sometimes I get them every 5 to 10 minutes, but on other days, I can go with 2 hrs+ without a single one.

In the past 2 weeks I haven't got that many CTDs, but then again, I haven't had that much time to play due to RL stuff.

Last say on average 1 CTD every 1hr 30mins.

[ripple]

I remember now, you have a below requirement GPU and you used the Ordenator to compress mod textures.

 

So you went 70 hours without a CTD then suddenly you started to experience frequent and consistent CTDs.....can you remember anything you did before the CTD started, not just modding-wise but things you did in game?

[bigv32]

to go along with ripple, is your computer a prebuilt system (did you buy it in a store) or did you build it yourself?

[AndrealphusVIII]

@ripple: the only thing I was doing differntly at that moment, was completing the MQ. (Ustengrav, and meeting Delphine) Before most of the CTDs happened, I was just doing side quests. I don't know if that's relevant though. Mods wise I didn't change anything than before the CTDs.

 

@bigv32: prebuilt

[bigv32]

If your comp is prebuilt, then I would not recommend trying to upgrade your GPU. Your power supply is weak and if it is prebuilt, the chances are it not a good quality one as well. If you are running texture mods, you could be running out of vram and that would crash your system. Overheating graphics card due to stress could crash the game as well. Do you have any moditoring tools you can use to see how hot and how much work/stress your graphics card it undergoing?

 

I too had an issue once about the same time as you in the main quest. After trying to figure out the issue, I ended up giving up on the save. The issue I determined was one of the mods I had uninstalled had left a script in my save that did not play well with the main quest and caused the engine to overload.

 

Let's know on the graphics card, and try uninstalling any texture packs you have installed for the time being to see if that helps.