A Tale of Two Computers – One STEP Install

[Bandy]

Hello.  First off many thanks to all involved in STEP project.  Great effort.

 

As the thread title describes, I recently installed STEP extended (medium settings) on my son’s older computer, and then transferred the <nearly complete> mod install Skyrim folder to my newer gaming system where I finished off just the last step with high LOD patch.  Medium LOD on older system. 

 

My son’s computer: an ex-graphics workstation Mac Pro 1,1 running Bootcamp Win7 Pro x64 on HDD

4 x 2.66 GHz Xeon processors
4 GB 667 RAM (long story, Bootcamped Win OS apparently only recognizes 4 GB total, while system has 18 GB installed on Mac side)
GTX 560Ti 2 GB with AM cooler.

 

My gaming system: Win7 Pro x64 on SSD
i7 2700K mild oc’d to 4.4 GHz (no voltage change)
8 GB  1600 RAM
GTX 980Ti  6GB hybrid

 

RESULTS:
The i7 system runs the STEP-X install smooth and flawlessly over 6+ hours of gameplay so far –– all except my grass has disappeared (!) but other ground foliage/flowers are still present (please suggest how to resolve? Screenshot can be provided).  Not unexpected, the Mac Pro provides less fps, but most importantly has also crashed twice in only about 3 hours of gameplay.  I turned papyrus logging on after first crash, have yet to look after the second crash last night.

 

I want to mention the single install (transferred to second gaming system) was painstakingly done, each major step checked and double-checked, all ini edits, graphics settings, mods, etc. So I am relatively confident 98.9% that all is good on that end.

 

My next step to isolate is to ensure that unnecessary background system processes are not causing a memory issue, since the Mac Pro has unresolvable RAM challenges (see above).  I’ve followed Guru3D’s advice for OS optimization and have used a small app in the past called ‘Process Lasso’ to manage start up and suspend such memory hogs.  I noticed that Windows Media Player update exe was active in Task Manager, and am wondering if any sort of autoupdate may have triggered these two crashes.

 

Any other advice on troubleshooting would be appreciated.  If anyone is interested in seeing the gist of the Mac Pro papyrus logs, post here and I’ll provide once at home.
 

Edited February 22, 2016 by Bandy

[TechAngel85]

If you're only able to use 4GB RAM, that could very well be the issue. 4GB for modding is used up pretty fast. ENBoost should relieve this, but would require more RAM than 4GB if that is indeed the issue.

[Bandy]

Many thanks for quick reply. 

 

Yes, I know that system has memory limitations but it seems to otherwise be handling Skyrim well, and the two crashes thus far are very random, many hours apart, though too early to see a pattern.

 

Just an FYI, the first crash occurred after my son's new character had escaped/left the Helgen tunnels to exit onto Skyrim outdoors (just minutes into the new game/install).  I then made some GFX slider adjustments and verified ini settings within MO and he happily played for hours, ran all over Whiterun tundra, cleared Bleakfalls Barrow, and mopped up the brigand fort to the SW (name escapes me).

 

If worse comes to worse, I'll install vanilla TESV as that ran without issue for him for several days.  Just thought the comparison would be interesting for some people here.

[Bandy]

A brief update.  I looked into the papyrus logs of the Mac Pro TESV install and found mentioned in the very end entries after the last crash something like:

 

VM freezing then VM frozen...     I'm going to guess VM is virtual memory?

 

So I went and tweaked Win7 settings for performance (following Guru3D rec's https://www.guru3d.com/), increased the pagefile size on a separate harddrive, added an 8 GB flash drive for use via ReadyBoost (only works if using a HDD not a SSD), and set to manual or disabled several services and autoupdates that were hogging RAM (damn you Win Media Player!). 

 

nVidia and Logitec seem to be especially insidious, and turning off/disabling some modules (eg 3D stereoscopic, and joystick manager) even in their software control panels\preferences did not stop the background services from running, it had to be done manually.

 

So far so good, and maybe this will help someone else, though I feel like a late-night disc jockey with this thread,

"is anybody out there?" 

Edited February 26, 2016 by Bandy

[Fenric]

So far so good, and maybe this will help someone else, though I feel like a late-night disc jockey with this thread,

"is anybody out there?" 

What? I just got up, it's 7 AM here.  Glad you think the game is running better!  I'm still reluctant to revert to Windows 7, but it would be better.  I should really get around to doing it.

[TechAngel85]

Win 7 is the best platform for gaming on the PC, currently, until Microsoft fixes the DX9 memory limit issue. They're also suppose to be releasing the ability to turn off all the "phone home" features of Win 8/10 in an upcoming update. So that is a step forward for them where that is concerned. I think they received far too much bad press over it. "Power of the people!" Once they release that and get the DX9 issue fixed, Win 8/10 will become better platforms for gaming again. Until that time, I'm keeping my Win 7.

[DoubleYou]

VM freezing, etc., is referring to the Papyrus scripting virtual machine getting stuck and unstuck. If you tweaked papyrus settings in your INI files, that may be the cause, or tweaking them may help.

[Bandy]

Thanks fellows, I was just joking about the late night DJ thing...  LOL.

 

Just FYI, an answer to my log question above

 

 

[VM freezing, thawing, etc...]  this means game is currently paused this is not at all a problem whenever you will pause the game i.e open inventory menu or magic menu, press esc key or open skill menu, open favourites menu or open console command these message will be generated in log file...

Edited February 26, 2016 by Bandy

[DoubleYou]

After reading Arthmoor's really helpful guide to the Papyrus log here, I see that my description was inaccurate. According to Arthmoor, the VM freezing, etc., messages "merely tell you the Papyrus VM has halted to allow you to save (or load) the game. They don't mean the game engine froze up and stopped responding as SOME sites have erroneously reported." This makes more sense.