Octopuss

I ran two more tests. First time I crashed in a minute, and the next one the game was stable for 10 minutes. I decided not to stop there, though. I wanted to see how far could I get - but after 20 minutes in total I got bored and my eyes started to burn and water, so I closed the game. I am happy with that result, that's stable enough for me. However, I have a question. The stuttering I get from loading tons of textures all the time at this speed is really annoying. I know it will not be noticeable when playing normally, but for testing, it really sucks. I was thinking, would packing loose textures into BSAs help that? The idea is that having to go through 10000+ files in one folder (say, the hires textures for example) really puts extreme load even on my really fast SSD, so what if the game was only loading a portion of a single file? BSA, being a native format to the game, might work better. Any thoughs about that?

The only thing I can think of that could possibly explain some instability is the card. I'll see if anything changes with next WHQL release (possibly in april). But like I said in my previous post - it's 500% better now.

I think I am pretty close to nailing it. Fully modded game just held for 8 minutes, and then unfortunately froze. But at least it wasn't a CTD, and for decently modded game, I think 8 minutes is good anyway.

It might just be some weird coincidence, but I feel like the crashes almost completely stopped after I physically removed "Skyrim - textures.bsa". Out of last 7 test runs I only got one freeze (not even a CTD) after 6 minutes, and in the rest of the cases the game held stable for 10 minutes. And I am already past the characters and creatures group, which was previously always crashing on me.

Yea that's what I understood. Is it possible that textures are loading slower when textures.bsa is "missing"? I am doing the vurt test, and it feels like it's significantly slower now.

Really? It looks a bit different. That's how screenshots made by someone else can easily trick you :P The gems, the gems...

Wow... We barely got used to the new meshes from SMIM yet!

That mean speaks wisdom. Extensionless links are obviously, for some weird reason, norm (which I don't agree with anyway) these days, so allowing them seems like absolutely logical thing to do.

After all textures are extracted, optimized and repacked, is it safe to simply delete (but keep a backup of course) all HRDLC files from data folder? Similarly, is it ok to delete textures.bsa? I was thinking those files wouldn't serve any purpose at all if I have the optimized stuff loaded. Plus, since the optimization process removes some redundant files from the BSAs, wouldn't keeping the original files basically negate that?

Ok someone please tell me how do I get a direct link to a file uploaded to the Drive. I can't seeem to get it to work. Even if I set a folder to "anyone with a link" and then share a file, I get links like this: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6U_nmGva2Z2TzFPYjJDS0dhQlE/edit?usp=sharing

When I upload files to Google Drive, are they publicly visible anywhere by default? If yes, how do I make entire folders private?

I am a bit worried about the amount of scripts these mods (and especially together) have. Just DCO alone has 100 of them

Ah he really did it on time! I have lots of awesomness to read for breakfast Just how much harder are dragons with DCO? I am kinda reluctant to try that part of the package. P.S. Apparently the best thing about it is that IT'S COMPATIBLE WITH SCHLONGS OF SKYRIM! Right? Riiight?!!?!!!

Ah ok. I actually have a Google account, so I'm going to give it a shot.

When I tried to copy an address of one of the images, I got this: https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/QlaQYJGlM-vvbZURv9tFIz2TYRNUnGOLug1ppIRTwLNvN5JbEPmqO_Km1qC6kTS35g=w1174-h778 Doesn't look much like an extension to me...

That's an interesting idea. I completely reinstalled Windows (hey it only takes like an hour including installing all programs) just for the hell of it, and tried with pure vanilla game again - no mods, no optimized textures, not even cleaned ESMs. No SKSE or ENB(oost) either. Game started from the launcher. run1: 10 mins without a crash run2: CTD after 1 min run3: CTD after 3,5 mins run4: CTD after 9,5 mins run5: CTD after 4 mins I really am not sure what to make of that. Obviously, the game is not designed for such load put on the engine and scripts, but then again, this is just the vanilla stuff. It could very well be the card. It's still relatively new stuff, and I believe there has been exactly one officially stable driver release since launch. edit: run6: CTD within 30s run7: 10 mins without a crash On the last run I looked at memory usage. The game process was using 1.4GB RAM, average VRAM usage was a little under 900MB with absolute maximum being somewhat under 1200MB.

Any extra files would be completely irrelevant (unless I left a dll from ENB there of course), because the game wouldn't recognize them in the first place. I do follow advices that make sense.

Uninstall what? The game? Why?! The files are INTACT. Do you think Steam lies with its consistency check? Yes I did create new MO profile (I didn't say that though). I did change stuff in the inis a few times, but I always eventually revert to vanilla version, which I create from the launcher (selecting ultra, and then disabling AF and AA) and then start a game directly (and without anything mod-related) so additional lines are added.

In that case I don't see how am I not following the guide. The files are intact. Inis are vanilla (sorry for not following the guide here, I didn't even add what it suggests yet!). The game crashes even before I add SKSE in.

Ok forget the whole thing, because I cannot follow the guide past ini tweaks - I am not forcing anything via CCC, period. Thus, the guide apparently doesn't apply to me. You can lock this thread as well.

Ok, since people either don't bother reading my posts or I didn't make it clear enough, let me write it again: The game randomly crashes/freezes even with no mods (I actually ran through Helgen keep to have a vanilla exterior save at hand to test without Alternate life as well) at all. It does so with or without SKSE (I do use the patched version that includes memory patch). I do not use full ENB (you can tell by looking at the attached files). I use vanilla Skyrim inis. My PC has 16GB RAM and Radeon R9 290 with 4GB VRAM. With partial STEP mods active (up to characters and creatures), VRAM usage was at roughly 2,5GB at the very maximum; on average it was much, much lower. A while ago it ran stable for 10 minutes with just the vanilla optimized textures (no hires pack), and when I tried again just to be sure, it crashes within a minute. I am starting to give up, this is not normal.

I do not use full ENB.... Did you not see the ini I attached? And the inis ARE vanilla, except for sIntroSequence= in skyrim.ini. Those 2,5GB were not how much RAM Skyrim used, but how much VRAM out of 4GB present on the card was used at max. When I talk about crashes, I am still talking about running the "vurt test". Oh, and I do use SKSE patched with the memory patch. Forgot to mention that.

I don't know what happened, but my stability testing results are only getting worse and worse. I thought I just had some minor problems, resulting in occasional crashes (and it looked like it!), but since yesterday, things have gone downhill. I didn't even change anything significant like graphic drivers. I am using vurt's stress test, and even the naked game crashes of completely freezes now (not immediatelly of course). It started happening some time during yesterday, and I repeat, I didn't make any significant changes to the PC at all. Basically, I am still only messing around with the game, MO, and ENB. After my previous thread got locked, I finally figured the approach of making sure STEP only setup was stable first was a good idea, so I started testing a bit differently. I started from pure vanilla (with just the DDSOpted vanilla+DLC+hires textures) and made my way down. I was getting some random CTDs I couldn't reliably reproduce, but they were there. Eventually I solved it by downloading the "optimal" version of SRO. I was still using the full 2k version at that point. It didn't make any sense, because my 4GB card was barely peaking at 2,5GB then, so I am really confused how could using lower res textures help. So I moved down the list over to landscape mods, and that looked pretty stable. I think I repeatedly managed 10mins of vurting. The crashes (and I think an occasional freeze) started with characters and creatures, and I believe that's where I couldn't make any progress anymore. I think it could be assumed stable, but I decided I didn't want to make any compromises. The two notes I made say I first got a CTD after 8,5min, and then after 10 (I guess right before I was about to stop the game). It lasted pretty long, but it was a crash nontheless. At that point I started experimenting with ini settings and ENB a little, but didn't get anywhere. Eventually I started moving back, and that's probably when things started to go downhill. I just couldn't get a crash-free run. I even got crashes with just the fixes category active. Right now the damn game crashes or completely freezes with just the hires optimized textures. After that I only have Live another life active (so I can test), and of course I run SKSE (I don't even use the alpha). Not even the unofficial patches (it crashed with them as well). I don't get it. I tried several things: - reinstalled drivers 3 times and tested again both with the stable and newest beta - switched to pure vanilla inis (they were 99% vanilla already though) - various combinations of ENB settings (like, ExpandSystemMemoryX64, manually setting VideoMemorySizeMb, ReservedMemorySizeMb) - completely removed ENB (that was a bad idea, because when Skyrim freezes there's no way to close it, you can't even bring Task Manager up) This is a proper WTF material right there.

I've just noticed an older update in the mod's description I completely missed, because I typically only read new comments. Assuming I am not the only one, maybe it will be an interesting reading for those curious what can be expected from the new version. I can't wait!

Ah wait, he only told me in a PM there.