Best way to diagnose cause of game crash?

[peppergomez]

Been playing for a few days after completing a STEP install, and it seems that the game was running stable for about 2 days but has begun crashing with a bit more frequency. I think it's crashed 4 or 5 times since I began playing, mainly yesterday and today.

 

It seems to happen most often when I am moving from an interior to outside, soon after the loading screen finishes and the game world loads.

 

Any suggestions as to how I can begin troubleshooting this would be good. Thanks.

[rootsrat]

(Sorry peppergomez, I kinda hijacked your thread - unintentionally, I assure. Thought your problem was resolved - I see it is not, apologies). 

[torminater]

Get rid of z-fighting tweaks and the iLargeIntRefCount-tweak.

OK, did both. Will see.

 

But aren't both of these designed to prevent exactly the problems I'm having? Do they sometime cause CTDs?

The first one can cause to CTD, if your system reaches it's limits or the engine does so.

The second supposedly prevents CTD in interiors with lots of items... But it causes CTD on a full STEP install for many people, when entering an interior.

[peppergomez]

OK, got rid of both. Noticed that the game has sped up somewhat in interior spaces (an issue I posted elsewhere about) and no crash at all today during a 5-hour gaming session. Very encouraging.

 

One thing though, and I remember this happening back during the first month or so that the game was out, and when I was using 2 AMD Radeon cards in Crossfire:

 

There's a rapid jitter/shake when I approach objects, mostly indoors, and mostly small/mid-sized objects (and not say a huge door or column). It's not as bad as it was back during the early months of the game and when I used Crossfire, but it is distracting and annoying.

 

What can I do to minimize or remove this?

 

Thanks again.

[peppergomez]

(Sorry peppergomez I kinda hijacked your thread - unintentionally, I assure. Thought your problem was resolved - I see it is not, apologies). 

No problem.

[peppergomez]

Also, once in awhile the game won't load when I am leaving an interior back into the outdoors. The few times it's happened it's always been when I've been leaving a particular interior for the first time (ie the outside Skyrim world for that particular location is being loaded for the first time).

 

It happened a few minutes ago when I was exiting the Eldergleam Sanctuary. The load screen was onscreen for 30+ minutes (but the audio track kept playing and didn't lock up or stutter, so it wasn't a lockup in the total sense of the word).

 

When I Ctrl+Alt+Deleted, I saw this error message:

 

Skyrim

Failed to initialize renderer. Unknown error creating the renderer.

 

Crap- I just now noticed that Steam is loading Skyrim in my Library- it's at 71% and loading. WTF is up with that? I have updates set to off and the game is fully current. Why the hell woudl that be happening?

And more to the point, I hope that doesnt' mean Steam is replacing my optimized DDS files with vanilla unoptimized ones!

 

 

Any thoughts about this type of crash and why Steam is loading a game that's already fully loaded?

[torminater]

OK, got rid of both. Noticed that the game has sped up somewhat in interior spaces (an issue I posted elsewhere about) and no crash at all today during a 5-hour gaming session. Very encouraging.

 

One thing though, and I remember this happening back during the first month or so that the game was out, and when I was using 2 AMD Radeon cards in Crossfire:

 

There's a rapid jitter/shake when I approach objects, mostly indoors, and mostly small/mid-sized objects (and not say a huge door or column). It's not as bad as it was back during the early months of the game and when I used Crossfire, but it is distracting and annoying.

 

What can I do to minimize or remove this?

I'm not an expert, but I'ld say this is a vanilla PhysX-issue. You are not using More interactive items, are you? If you do, disable that mod and see again.

Thanks again.

 

[torminater]

Also, once in awhile the game won't load when I am leaving an interior back into the outdoors. The few times it's happened it's always been when I've been leaving a particular interior for the first time (ie the outside Skyrim world for that particular location is being loaded for the first time).

 

It happened a few minutes ago when I was exiting the Eldergleam Sanctuary. The load screen was onscreen for 30+ minutes (but the audio track kept playing and didn't lock up or stutter, so it wasn't a lockup in the total sense of the word).

Called Infinite Loading Screen. Have you still disabled all z-fighting tweaks (especially in the Terrain Manager section)?

When I Ctrl+Alt+Deleted, I saw this error message:

 

Skyrim

Failed to initialize renderer. Unknown error creating the renderer.

 

Crap- I just now noticed that Steam is loading Skyrim in my Library- it's at 71% and loading. WTF is up with that? I have updates set to off and the game is fully current. Why the hell woudl that be happening?

And more to the point, I hope that doesnt' mean Steam is replacing my optimized DDS files with vanilla unoptimized ones!

 

 

Any thoughts about this type of crash and why Steam is loading a game that's already fully loaded?

 

[peppergomez]

No, I am not using More Interactive Items.

Any ideas what might be causing that shake, now that I undid the tweaks to Terrain Manager (z-fighting) and the iLargeIntRefCount?

 

Here's what I have in the Terrain Manager Section of SkyrimPrefs. I switched them back from what's in the STEP guide to vanilla, I believe:

 

 

[TerrainManager]

fTreeLoadDistance=75000.0000

fBlockMaximumDistance=250000.0000

fBlockLevel1Distance=70000.0000

fBlockLevel0Distance=35000.0000

fSplitDistanceMult=1.5000

bShowLODInEditor=0

[torminater]

Yep, looks good...

Are you using VSync?

[peppergomez]

In NVIDIA Control Paenl I have Vertical Sync set to "Use the 3D Application Setting"

I don't see any option for V-Sync in the Skyrim Launcher menu. Nor do I see anything about it on the latest STEP guide...so I guess the answer is No, unless I'm overlooking something?

[torminater]

Well, then you most certainly have vsync enabled (normally it is). I conclude, that either there is some driver incompatibility with skyrim's physX or it's just Skyrim as it is. Every once in a while I see things flying around my head, too. Plates, goblets, ... even a cheese wedge! It missed my head by about an inch. Oh, funny story, I was playing a dead-you're-dead playthrough and when trying to enter the riverwood trader - i had more interactive items installed - i ran in to the hitboxes of the couple of pots before the store and the accelerated between me and the wooden beam right behind me, that my poor character encountered his instant death. Too bad. Was a pretty short biography xD

[peppergomez]

That's pretty entertaining. Death by physics glitch!

 

So do I want VSync enabled or not, and if not, where might I disable i?

[torminater]

Keep it enabled. When vsync is disabled and your framerate goes up by a lot all sorts of funky things can happen...

[peppergomez]

OK. I have no less than 4 options within NVIDIA Control Panel:

 

On

On (smooth)

Adaptive

Adaptive (half refresh rate)

 

Adaptive "will only be on for frame rates above the monitor refresh rate...eliminates tearing at high frame rates while avoiding excess performance loss at lower frame rates."

 

There's no description about the difference between On and On (smooth). Will google it and see.

 

My monitor's refresh rates (I game on 3 30") are 60HZ each, and I doubt that I am getting above 60fps anyplace in game.

[torminater]

... Ok, if you want to lower your fps cap, you might use nvidia inspector, if you want to keep it at the default of 60, set the setting to application-controlled and Skyrim will use vsync unless

 

[Display]
iPresentInterval=0

is set in SkyrimPrefs.ini. If it is set to "1" this enables Skyrim's own Vsync.