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Question

Posted

Some key posts on this and related threads (experts feel free to note any errors or insights):

Wiki article (draft)

 

Thanks,

STEP

 

OP follows


First of all I wanted to thank you all for the great work you have done with STEP. Skyrim is the first game I installed on this computer and you guys have made it an AMAZING game. That being said, I have an issue that I hope you can help me solve.

 

My setup:

Vanilla Skyrim

gtx670 w/ 4GB @1080p w/ latest driver

16GB Memory

3770K at about 4GHz

Windows 8 64bit

ENB 149

Ultra settings

Highest available texture/quality

Mod Organizer

Step 2.2.1 + Skyrim Revisited + others

 

I have noticed a post here and there saying that Skyrim can't really address more than about 3.1GB of memory without issues. This seems to jive with my experience, meaning I CTD every time my memory hits that mark, but I couldn't really find anything definitive on the topic. The issue with googling the topic is the pre 1.3 skyrim that couldn't address more than 2gb of memory.

 

My mod list is mostly based on STEP which is why I came here for help, with about ten mods added onto the end (Interesting NPCs, Detailed Cities, Economics, COT, and a couple others). The reason I haven't included my mod list is that it doesn't seem to matter. As long as I keep the memory usage below 3GB I can have pretty much any combination of mods.

 

What I have tried so far (in no particular order):

  • resetting ini files
  • removing enb
  • not using attklt
  • only using a new game
  • removing all mods and adding one by one until issue crops up
  • running as admin
  • watching the papyrus log - it seems relatively clean, no obvious errors right before CTD

Yes, I can run STEP just fine without any issues, but I also never get near 3GB of memory. I have tracked VRAM usage as well and have seen a max of 2.7GB/4GB.

 

As an example of where I might run into issues: I start a new character with Alternate Start. I start with Breezehome. Run out of Whiterun, past the Brewry, up the hill to the bandits. Enter the cave (watching memory usage with Elys MemInfo), and it dies right after I see 3GB. I have this same issue not using AS, sitting through the intro, and then running over to whiterun.

 

I'm sorry if this post is all over the place. I have spent more than a week trying to solve this issue, and the only solution I have found is to reduce memory usage. I have got to the point where I can exchange two texture packs and get into the cave without a CTD, but with both I get a CTD. I didn't even think texture packs should even affect CTDs, but I'm relatively new to Skyrim on the PC, so I could be wrong. I also found I could get a bit further with ENB turned off, but would still crash once I got above 3GB of memory. Finally, if I reload a game after a CTD, I can play just fine...until I reach 3GB of memory.

 

I really hope you guys can help. I more than willing to try anything at this point, besides just disabling all of the mods.

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Posted

I'm not sure it is necessary to devise a way of inducing a memory related crash by extreme means in the vanilla game. The problem is that it introduces so may other factors - greatly increased geometry, physics, AI, and so on. This could work against the process of isolating memory as the cause. I would suggest to Beth that they simply test with a high texture load, as we have, to recreate the error. I'm sure they have access to plenty of assets to engineer such a situation, without resorting to 3rd party mods, which may also contaminate the experiment.

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Posted

With the latest memory optimizations in 1.9 I doubt they would do much more until the next, if any major patch.

 

On my Skyrim revisited setup then in the areas I could produce 3.2Gb RAM usage I in general had a drop by about 200-300Mb... Mainly because the game got better at unloading stuff not required to render the cells currently active.

 

Before I could go up to this point, quit to menu and reload the game and the RAM usage would have dropped because all non-required entries had been cleared.

 

In general I do not have any memory CTD issues atm. after a decent amount of texture optimizations, normal half sizes etc.

Most of the ini tweaks I have tried have either made more problems or just not had any visible impact.

The only ones I have found to really help reduce memory load is to reduce draw distances.... but that was also to be expected.

 

More could most likely still be done... one has only to enable freefly camera and go up high enough too see how much stuff that is not visible that is still rendered behind mountains etc. But most of this will most likely require Bethesda to do further optimizations to the game engine.

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Posted

I think that it would be be quite a large task to significantly improve the effeciency of the engine through occlusion and such like. I'm curious about the potential of fixing some buggy code. It is very odd that 3gb seems to be a sort of fuzzy limit, and there is no reason I know of that this should result in a crash. It is possible, though probably unlikely, that this could be traced to some fairly straightforward bug. But I fear it may be something buried deep in the many millions of lines of code that make up the ageing and much extended engine, which I suspect is largely held together with duct tape.

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Posted

I'm not sure it is necessary to devise a way of inducing a memory related crash by extreme means in the vanilla game. The problem is that it introduces so may other factors - greatly increased geometry physics, AI, and so on. This could work against the process of isolating memory as the cause. I would suggest to Beth that they simply test with a high texture load, as we have, to recreate the error. I'm sure they have access to plenty of assets to engineer such a situation, without resorting to 3rd party mods, which may also contaminate the experiment.

Yes, reproducing using purely vanilla means with the HR texture packs and all DLC as well as max texture resolution ... yada, yada, yada. Whether using fast travel or artificially spawning many objects should not matter. The point is to prove that this is not related to 3rd-party modding and is reproducible under pure vanilla so that no fingers can be pointed elsewhere.

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Posted

Oh, also be sure not to use an SLI setup when filing the issue, since then they'll just say: "Skyrim is best played with SLI disabled" and you'll have to do all the stuff all over again.

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Posted

 

This is bad for us.

We'll see; they'll be continuing to make minor updates.  Since we don't know where the problem is, it could be a 'minor' issue.  We lack enough information to have much of a clue either way.
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Posted

Well, at least there's hope that the new game will use a new (stable) engine and be 64-bit as well. I'm tired of people clinging to XP. Maybe we should ask Bethesda to code it for DOS 5 and use 8-bit architecture too. 

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Posted

non-related: There is actually an ENB shader that converts the game to 8-bit visuals... really hilarious :P

 

As for the issue at hand. Then I doubt they will change anything since the pure vanilla is made so it stays well below the RAM limit. If you want to to go above you have to create some weird "summon every different object in the game" at one location to force the game to load all textures at once.

Every texture only needs to be loaded in once after all.

 

But these stress tests of the engine are something they most likely already have done themselves.

But I hope they make another batch of memory optimizations in the future! Properly in relation to their work on the next engine.

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Posted

I was sad doing this too. I loved having 8192 mountain textures (Benjamin's instead of STEP recommended). It looked very nice, almost like walking around Jasper National Park. What I didn't love is having the game crash because I went into a city or a fort (or any building for that matter).

 

Funny thing was, I never maxed out my HD 9750. Most I ever got to was about 90% and 2.7 GB VRAM. I used the highest resolution option available without any optimization. And I used an ENB and parallax mapping for roads and bridges.

 

Maybe we could have some sweet sweet DX11 support and the ability to throw tons of RAM at TES VI or Fallout 4 without it crashing. I'd love to use the 16 GB of RAM at my disposal.

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