Flytrap

Hi, Josh. If you recall our first conversation in this thread, that is the exact test I was doing because I was having similar issues. I hit around 2.8 GB there since making the changes detailed in this linked post and the one I just posted above. As requested above, please PM me with specific questions as to not derail this thread with further optimization talk. If the conversation proves fruitful, we can make a new post with our findings.

Hey, folks. Just a brief follow-up to my lengthy testing/suggestions that started HERE earlier up in the thread. If I have to go beyond this short update, I'll start a new thread or tack on to someone else's to avoid getting off topic into optimization as MontyMM requested. As I've only got this tidbit of info, I'm posting it here to avoid confusion and provide closure for those that have been following along by putting it alone in a whole, new, separate thread disjointed from it's parent posts. This is the combination that has been working for me the last couple weeks, meaning keeping highest visual appeal while allowing me to stay below 3 GBs and avoid crashes: 1) HRDLC Optimized Hybrid+Vanilla Normal Maps Version. This has made all the difference in the world, and since many of the textures are overwritten, the visual impact is small. Using the smaller normal maps allows me to use the higher-res textures mentioned in #2. 2) All normal 2-4K STEP textures EXCEPT NPCs, weapons, and armor. This means no eyes, hair, freckles, feet, beast race skins, Book of Silence, etc. I know, it sucks, but I'd rather have beautiful environments than people since I do a lot more looking at that. Plus, people move around a lot, so texture issues are less noticeable, but the cumulative impact on RAM was significant. A couple of exceptions I have enabled are the Improved Closefaced Helmets, Beards, Brows, Female Vampire Fangs, Breathing Idles, and armors that appear infrequently, like Daedric and Nightingale. By doing this, I have been able to restore all my original environment textures. I said earlier that the difference with them all resized to 2K was insignificant at 1080p, but after lots of this testing, I decided the difference, though small, was worth it to me. That said, further improvement is probably very possible through optimization of some kind, but I am still learning about that. 3) Vurt's Hi-Res Pines resized to 4K. 8K are marginally better, as, like I mentioned, I am running Bigger Trees, but 4K strikes a nice balance between visuals and cursing at CTDs. You may find that 2K suits you with normal-sized trees. That's it! Hope this helps someone! Any further updates/trials/etc. will be posted in a new thread if the need arises. PM with questions if needed. Cheers, Flytrap

Yes, I was only looking for a texture resize. I have not really experimented with the other features. If I did, I would probably go with DDSOpt, as everyone says that does a more reliable job. Actually, if I think about it, just as a fun "let's see what happens," I did do one pass where I enabled everything, and, while performance was definitely improved, there were weird artifacts around road signs and other things that became more apparent with ENB applied. I immediately restored my backup and did not experiment further. It was really just an experiment for curiosity's sake. I had achieved most of what I was looking for through just resizing to the 2K max. I am sure there is further optimization one could do with beneficial results.

I just tried this outside Windhelm. I did player.placeatme 64b33 100 (Goat Cheese Wheel) in batches of 2-400, and while it did begin to stutter when they spawned, once they were bouncing down the hill, it smoothed back out. I tried 500 twice, and the first time it slowed way down for a second, and the second time it froze, but that was after about 5000 wheels were already on screen. Results: 1) It was fun. 2) As I kind of suspected, RAM usage did not increase during the test. At no point did any resource start to max out, even when I finally locked up. Actually, GPU % and temp actually started to decrease, perhaps because I was opening the console repeatedly, easing its workload. Skyrim PerfMon graph below; test begins around the 650-700 mark, I believe, once I had climbed up the hill. Screenies Say cheese!: Performance: I believe a successful test might come from a batch file spawning many DIFFERENT items, though. As I eluded to in my last post, I think that a single item is probably only cached in RAM once, which is why I have to enter many different buildings to build up RAM- it is adding only the items I have not yet encountered into RAM at each cell change. Again, this is just a logical opinion based on my own experiences inside and out of Skyrim, not any actual knowledge of Beth coding, but it seems to fit the evidence. -Flytrap EDIT: A little more brainstorming about how to set this up. Might be good to make multiple batch files of 50-100 unique items, File1, File2, File3, etc., and fire each one off after the previous items have dumped instead of one giant file with thousands of items because of the lockup I received when spawning too many cheese wheels at once. Just an idea.

I don't think that will do it. I'm guessing that the resources are probably stored in RAM once as they are encountered to be used as they repeat within a cell or in case PC returns to that cell, and are cleared when the cell buffer is, like on travel if that is enabled. Also, it seems like a relatively small number of recent cells are stored because the RAM usage stays relatively steady as you move through the world unless there are several cells entered within close proximity/time. For example, when I was building test scenarios to start testing RAM reduction techniques, running in and out of the same house in Riverwood wouldn't work; I had to run into 5-6 buildings in the immediate area in order to build up enough resources in RAM to induce a crash. It seems like quite a challenge to induce a 3 GB crash with vanilla resources. I never hit 2 that I can remember, even in the most easily crashed modded scenarios (Anga's Mill to Windhelm gate, for example). I am sure someone more clever than I can come up with something, though.

I used Optimizer Textures instead of DDSOpt. Most people around here would probably do the opposite, but I discovered OT first, and I only needed the resizing features. It was super easy to use. Like you, I had used as many hi-res packs as I could find, so I just resized them instead of going back to get the 2K or less versions. Some, like the Trees HD 4K pack, still look great when resized. In my experience, the 4K pack resized to 2K looks better than the 2K available on Nexus, and is nearly indiscernible from the original, even up close at 1080p. YMMV. Don't forget that when you try the Hybrid+Vanilla Normal Maps HRDLC Optimized, you are going to be overwriting many of the textures you see with better one from Skyrim HD, Serious HD, etc., so don't worry too much about lo-res textures everywhere. It's the vanilla normals that made the difference to me. I tried it without HRDLC Optimized, with Hybrid 2048+1024, and with Hybrid+Vanilla Normals, and the last one really made the difference performance wise, and, like I said, I am hard pressed to notice a difference. I do agree, though, that more and more folks could see problems with this, and I hope a solution comes about. Until then, well, here we are. :) Exactly. In the Mod Organizer left pane where you determine texture overwrite precedence, I placed Skyrim Bigger Trees just before Skyrim Flora Overhaul, which comes before Trees HD per STEP. Then, I let BOSS sort the .esp load order. -Flytrap

@joshkope: I also have been frustrated by running into this problem after a PC upgrade, and I mentioned some things earlier, but have since done even more experimenting. Like you, I discovered 3 GB crashes around Windhelm, even after the extensive testing I mentioned above, so I added a test save in an indoor cell at Anga's Mill down the road, and ran to the Windhelm gate with Skyrim Performance Monitor running until I got it licked. I am running at 1920x1080, and the changes I have made that had the biggest impact on decreasing RAM usage while maintaining visual quality in order are: 1) Resizing all textures to a max of 2048. The only exception to this, as I said earlier, is I use Vurt's Hi-res Pines from the optional files in Skyrim Flora Overhaul resized down to 4096. 2) Installing the "Hybrid+Vanilla Normal Maps" version of HRDLC Optimized. After resizing my textures, this has given me the single biggest decrease in system RAM usage (around 2-400 MB around Windhelm gate) with (to my eyes) insignificant decrease in quality. In the comparison shots on the mod page on the Nexus, the differences are obvious. During my actual time playing the game, however, I haven't been able to tell a difference except now I don't crash when I visit Windhelm. 3) Disabling mods that improve bodies, clothing, weapons, and armor. This one may not be necessary after the first two, but it is worth noting that I tried this during some of my testing because maintaining environment quality was more important to me than NPC quality. So, I turned off the XCE, Better Feet, Better Freckles, Better Circlets, Book of Silence, Elemental Staves, etc., and I did see decrease in RAM without having to sacrifice environment textures. For me, I don't think this is necessary after doing 1 and 2, but if I get crashes again, this is where I'll start testing. Best of luck. I know how frustrating it can be to run into this when your rig has horsepower to spare and should be eating STEP for breakfast. It has been a couple of weeks of repetitive testing, but I am now actually playing Skyrim instead of fixing Skyrim, and I hope this advice helps someone else do the same until a better solution comes along (if it ever does!). Take care, Flytrap

Only thing I resized was Vurt's Hi-Res Pines. They come in 8K size, and I noticed a difference in performance around Riverwood after resizing them without losing much quality. Everything else that had a 2048 option, I picked that instead of the 4096 option. The exception is Trees HD, and you can see the tree stump and trunk up close in the screens. Well worth it, plus I never CTD in the woods. It's mostly in towns. If I had to guess, I'd say there's a lot of additional textures that get loaded into RAM around cities, whereas in the woods, it's the same ones used over and over. I got some missing textures when sorting through a ton of gear and crafting in Riverwood today, so that kind of backs that theory up to me. Those menus load a bunch of new items into RAM as you scroll through them. I tried ATTK, and it did improve my Skyrim PerfMon numbers while in a single cell, but it didn't help with the CTDs at all because it all of the textures were still going into RAM at cell changes. I would see 5-10% lower usage on some things, then go into the Bannered Mare or something, and RAM would bounce up all the way up from 1700 MB to 3025 or so and crash anyway. I didn't really notice a performance difference in practice because it because I've already maxed out everything I know to do and my rig still runs at 60 fps most of the time; however, YMMV based on your rig/mods/settings. RIght now, I have it uninstalled, but I will def try it again if crashes get more frequent. The other thing that clears ram is the pcb command, but it's a chore to watch RAM and use it regularly, especially since I use the Xbox controller primarily. I have also read to only use it in interior cells, and that it may break scripted scenes in the area, so be careful. Also, that was not very helpful when I was crashing in exteriors. :) -Flytrap

Thanks! I'm really enjoying it (finally!). Most of my mods and STEP deviations are listed in my other post in the 3.1 CTD thread. It is basically 95% STEP 2.2.3 with Skyrim Bigger Trees, the Summer, Overgrown, and Hi-Res Pines (resized down to 4K) optional files from Skyrim Flora Overhaul, Realistic Lighting Overhaul, Climates of Tamriel, and SkyRealism ENB Cinematic preset with the saturation turned down just a bit to compensate for RLO. Happy modding! Flytrap

Say, you're right. Must have been residual from when I experimented with uGrids a while back (I never inhaled!). Will correct that! Thanks! -Flytrap

Hey, folks. New guy here. Been tinkering with this for a while, and I posted in another thread that the only thing I have been able to to do to reduce SYSTEM RAM usage is drop my 4K texture packs in favor of 2K ones. I kept 4K textures from Trees HD and Vurt's Hi-Res Pines add-on to Skyrim Flora Overhaul (resized down to 4K) because I run Skyrim Bigger Trees, so I get up close and personal with a lot of big tree trunks and pine branches. I also made several test saves in key CTD-prone areas, and re-ran them over and over while monitoring with Skyrim Performance Monitor until I was able to get CTDs down to almost 0. They were: 1. Guardian Stones running to Riverwood 2. Honningbrew Meadery to Whiterun main gate 3. Mountain pass between Riverwood and Bleak Falls Barrow with the troll 4. Entering every building in Riverwood one after another (fills up cell buffers) 5. Entering and exiting the Bannered Mare repeatedly 6. Same for Bleak Falls Barrow dungeon Now system RAM usage gets very near but almost never over 3GB. I also had to cut "iPreloadSizeLimit=xxx" from Skyrim.ini because for me it caused crashes everytime I entered Bleak Falls (boy, did THAT take a long time to figure out). I hope this advice can help someone else. Some random screenshots: https://imgur.com/a/iYNUi Specs: i7 3820 + 2x GeForce 680 4GB SLI + 4x4GB RAM Mods: 95% STEP 2.2.3 with all 2K textures + 4K Trees HD + 4K Hi-Res Pines from Skyrim Flora Overhaul SFO Summer Edition + Overgrown add-on (iMinGrassSize=10 in Skyrim INI to thicken it up) Skyrim Bigger Trees (placed before SFO and Trees HD in Mod Organizer to get their textures) Realistic Lighting Overhaul Climates of Tamriel SkyRealism ENB Cinematic (reduced saturation slightly for RLO) - Every setting enabled except EnableReflections because it gave me strange stutters when looking around in dungeons without maxing any resources Immersive Armors & Weapons (plus aMidianBorn's IA textures) Cloaks of Skyrim + Winter is Coming Telescope Wet and Cold Build Your Own Home Expanded Towns and Cities Atlas Map Markers Beast Skeletons Frostfall + 2K Cloaks add-on SkyRealism Simple Save System Arrows in the Everywhere Increased First-Person Height Dovahkiin Relaxes Too

Hey, there. I'm in the same boat as you. I'm running into this as well and have been hawking these boards to see if anyone comes up with a fix. But in the meantime, I started being able to stay very near but under 3 GB by switching all of my 4K texture packs down to the 2K equivalents. Now, the only 4K textures I run are Trees HD and Vurt's Hi-Res Pines feom Skyrim Flora Overhaul that I resized down to 4K. This was the only change I was able to make that affected SYSTEM RAM usage. I run in 1920x1080 with an i7 3820 + 2x 680 4GBs in SLI, and I can max those cards out with AI, draw distance (NOT uGrids!), heavy grass, ENB, etc, all I want, but once I hit 3.02GBs or so of system RAM in Skyrim Perf Mon, it's over. Mod Organizer says I'm at 321 mods including all of the patches and such, and it runs very stable if I keep under that magic 3 GB line. I made several test saves in problem areas (Pelagia Farm to Whiterun, Guardian Stones to Riverwood, mountain pass leading to BFB from Riverwood with the troll, entering every building in Riverwood one after another (fills up cell buffers), entering and exiting the Bannered Mare, same for Bleak Falls Barrow) and just kept switching 4K texture packs for 2K ones until I could pass each test reliably without CTDs. Now, I very rarely get one, and the few I do get are worth it to me to keep the hi-res trees because I use Skyrim Bigger Trees, so I see a lot of tree trunks and giant pine branches up close when tromping through the woods. Oh yeah. I also deleted the iPreloadSizeLimit=xxx from my INI because it made me crash when entering Bleak Falls dungeon. Some random screenshots: https://imgur.com/a/iYNUi Hope this helps! Flytrap