Random CTD's and saves won't load

[Texximus]

I also added all the Quest, Places, & Faction mods from the Steam Workshop... figured those were after CK. But if they're game breaking they're not worth it. Same with the Enhanced Gameplay mods: Enhanced Game Play - Wilderness Encounters and Enhanced Game Play - Randomized Leveled Objects,

 

The ENB I'm using is the Goddess ENB... wasn't too sure about it at first but I like the DoF and how it's not so damn bright outside... I came out of the starting cave without it installed and about blinded myself! LOL If anyone know a better ENB out there please let me know... one thing I DON'T like about using ENB is how dark the dungeons get... I like immersion but I also like to see where I'm going.

[Texximus]

I'm going to back up all the mods I have now, probably just copy the data folder somewhere, along with my .ini files and the NMM folder. Then... start fresh install. Please any suggestion like above about what mods to avoid etc that would be greatly appreciated.

[Texximus]

 

And I read somwhere that if you save a game then quit right away that can create a corrupt save file.

 

I've never heard this one (and I do it all the time). Are you sure you didn't mistake it with something like 'don't keep saving over the same save game slot'? Because that will contribute to corrupt saves.

 

If the situation has not really improved that much, and you feel the CTDs are still too frequent for your taste, the last thing that can be explored is a complete reinstall of the game and (a more modest number of) mods. If you do this, I recommend you use a mod manger like the 'Mod Organizer', which won't install mods directly into the game data folder (so if, by chance, you ever need to do another 'full reinstall', you actually won't need to 'reinstall' the game because there will be no loose files in the game data folder, if you installed all your mods via the MO). You can list the mods you'd like to 'add back' to the new installation, and I am sure many users will drop by to let you know their own experiences with such mods. Aside from that, I can't think of anything else to try.

So how will this work with NMM & Steam Workshop mods? I've never heard of this Mod Organizer before....

[Texximus]

Install about complete... (had to run a few errands and forgot to start it). I don't want to start adding anything besides the DLC's and the Unofficial Patches until I get some advice as to really how to do this with this Mod Organizer thing. I have mods that I'm subscribed to in the Skyrim Workshop that will be installed I'm sure.. should I unsub to all of those? Damn this is hard... and I just remembered I'll have to clean the mods again. Oh well... nothing else going on tonight. If I can get it all done tonight and still be awake enough to try & play LOL.

[ripple]

Personally, I do not download mods from the Steam Workshop. The SW treats users like morons, and automatically update/delete subscribed mods (when those mods are updated/deleted from SW, which is just ridiculous...). You also cannot check out the contents of the mod package before it is installed into your game data folder. That's not that big of a deal since all mod resources need to be packaged as BSA's when they are uploaded to Steam, so it's easy to use a BSA browser to look around 'under the hood' if one install mods one by one rather than 100 at once. But it's all part of that 'we are going to treat you like a moron' method of mod installation and management that I find utterly distasteful. Using SW along with another mod manager like NMM or MO is doable, but messy. NMM has come a long way (from when I first tried it), and is a now a fairly good mod manager. MO is just ahead of the curve in general. The biggest perk of MO is that it does not install mods directly into the game data folder so there is no overwriting of files, no need to worry about orphan loose files when you uninstall mods, and you can adjust mod 'installation order' as easily as you adjust plugin load order. It's not easy to set up, mostly because users need to set up utilities like SKSE, BOSS, TES5Edit, etc, as 'executables' in MO and run those utilities through MO, so they can read MO's 'virtual data folder' rather than the default game data folder (which should contain only the default game resource files, no mod resources).

 

I'd recommend a serious trimming of mods. Find 100 mods or less that you consider 'essential' and just stick with them. If you keep adding mods, and the new list is just as big as the old list, it's probably not going to make the new game any more stable.

[Texximus]

Yeah I'm really "digging in deep" to what mods I REALLY want... do I really want that armor cuz it looks cool even tho I probably won't actually USE it as a stealth sniper assassin type? Probably not even tho with the dress up ring I can put it on whoever I want. That's a really cool mod btw hehe. But yeah the work continues.. I'm nervous about the MO thing but I'll give it a go. Sadly some mods already installed through the workshop but I'm not too worried..... yet.

[ripple]

Custom weapons/armour/clothing mods are ok, assuming that all they do is add items, crafting/tempering recipes, maybe edit some leveled lists to distribute the items to NPCs, and do not do absurd things like come with '4K textures' or contain 'dirty edits.' You can literally run 20 'Immersive Armor'-like mods (where the texture resolutions are 1K) and your game will still be more stable than a mod setup running just something like 'Warzones.' The 'more actor spawns' type mods are particularly troublesome, and you might consider getting rid of the ERSO optional plugins for 'travelers and adventurers' and mods like 'monster wars.'

 

The crafting menu CTDs sounds like they are caused by too much crap being loaded up at the same time (all the meshes/textures for the crafting recipes), so you should probably scale back on the texture replacer mods you use to take some stress off your rig. I have a 2GB GPU, use only the hi-res DLCs, ELFX, and aMidianborn's 2K armour/weapons texture replacers, and it's enough to stress my card.

[Texximus]

Ugh I Monster Mod & Monster Wars are ones I really wanted to play with too... say... what do ya think about The Lost Art of the Blacksmith, More Craftables, @ Complete Crafting Overhaul mods... I know those are pre-CK and my crafting lists have a LOT of duplicates. Do I still need those or are they obsolete now?

[ripple]

I use the 'Lost Art of the Blacksmith.' It just adds some crafting and tempering recipes for default game items that didn't have them, completely harmless. Although I seem to recall I did have use TES5Edit to fix some error records...can't remember. I'd check it out in TES5Edit if I were you, just to make sure, or at least check around to make sure you have the latest version if an 'updated fix version' has been uploaded. I do not know about the other 'crafting overhaul' type mods. The only other mod I use that falls into this category is Arthmoor's 'Ars Metallica', which allows smelting of many items into ingots, and my own 'Worn Shrouded Armor Temperable' mod.

[blitzen]

I had serious problems running Monster Mod and Monster Wars, or even just Monster Mod. I stopped using either one quite some time ago. It's possible that a problem was caused by some other mod I had installed at the time, which has since been removed or updated, but I haven't tried them. I only know that I couldn't run them without severe game stability issues. I have a mid-level computer ( i5 2500k CPU, 8 GB RAM, nvidia GTX 570 with 2.5 GB VRAM) which I run at 1600x900 resolution, so it shouldn't have been a complete hardware overload causing the problems. Just try running without them for a bit and see if that makes a significant improvement. I was able to run earlier versions of those when I didn't have so many mods installed, but over time my game became very unstable as I added more and more mods and those two mods underwent several updates. All this happened with a much earlier version of Skyrim too, so who knows what it's like now.

Edited May 22, 2013 by blitzen