Instability and Frequent CTDs

[razym]

Greetings, everybody!

 

I've been having a heck of a time trying to get STEP, Skyrim Revisited, and ASIS-SKYRE working. Essentially, this is my sixth time trying to get it working properly, with two STEP installs, two Skyrim Revisited installs, and a Skyrim Revisited & Asis/Skyre install under my belt. The issue is mostly freezing that ends with an unresponsive window and the occasional CTD. This is on a machine running on W8 x64, two 4GB GTX 680s, and 16GB of memory. The whole thing runs at 2K resolution and ENB and never goes below 30FPS.

 

I understand that the engine is relatively unstable with this many mods and textures. I don't believe VRAM to be a limiting factor as it never goes above 3000MB, but I have a feeling RAM usage is a factor as I can easily hit 3000MB. It's been incredibly frustrating, though I've never given up hope. I am getting to the point where I may just make a Mod Organizer profile labeled "$&%!" and just do a vanilla playthrough with Skyre and ASIS, because since launch I haven ever even gotten past High Hrothgar due to always waiting for mods.

 

I'd be glad to post papyrus logs, a load order, or possibly a skyrim performance monitor log, though my papyrus logs don't appear to have much in them apart from some minor script errors. Can anybody throw out some ideas on why CTDs would occur so often? All INI tweaks are from Skyrim Revisited and nothing else differs except for the files and fixes from the ASIS-SKYRE guide (including the modified 1.4e ENB).

 

EDIT 1 - One of the things I noticed from Skyrim Revisited is that my horses have a white tail and saddle (see https://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/577864844207233589/E34BEF2C97A93ADF5D1A9B2309DF9AFADD7A8BA9/2048x1152.resizedimage ). Apparently, this was due to the DLC3 optimized textures conflicting with Convinient Horses, so I renamed the DLC3 files in MO. Could it be that my optimized textures were not ripped or optimized properly?

 

EDIT 2 - Some of the errors in the Papyrus logs were narrowed down to be Realistic Predator Vision, both Werewolf mods, as well as the Increased Spawns in ASIS. One of the most common errors involves the main quest in Skyrim. Will post some newer logs and a load order when I get home.

 

EDIT 3 - Note the high VRAM and RAM usage in the picture above. Disabling optimized textures and leaving on just the texture packs (SRO, 2K, VURT, FO) didn't help, and neither does optimizing them or lowering them to 1K to alleviate freezing and crashes. It does drop RAM and VRAM usage a bit, though.

[Jormungand24]

...but I have a feeling RAM usage is a factor as I can easily hit 3000MB.

 

Since Skyrim is a 32Bit executable, the game will always CTD the moment your RAM usage reaches 3.1GB. 

 

It's a problem for me too that I am currently working and tossing around ideas to help lower RAM usage.  Right now before starting Skyrim I monitor my systems RAM at 4.1GB.  When I load Skyrim Revisted and start exploring the world, I can still continue to gauge my RAM usage on my second monitor, and once I hit the 7.2GB area (Which means I'm pulling 3.1GB from Skyrim) I crash to desktop.

[Iroha]

Greetings, everybody!

 

I've been having a heck of a time trying to get STEP, Skyrim Revisited, and ASIS-SKYRE working. Essentially, this is my sixth time trying to get it working properly, with two STEP installs, two Skyrim Revisited installs, and a Skyrim Revisited & Asis/Skyre install under my belt. The issue is mostly freezing that ends with an unresponsive window and the occasional CTD. This is on a machine running on W8 x64, two 4GB GTX 680s, and 16GB of memory. The whole thing runs at 2K resolution and ENB and never goes below 30FPS.

 

I understand that the engine is relatively unstable with this many mods and textures. I don't believe VRAM to be a limiting factor as it never goes above 3000MB, but I have a feeling RAM usage is a factor as I can easily hit 3000MB. It's been incredibly frustrating, though I've never given up hope. I am getting to the point where I may just make a Mod Organizer profile labeled "$&%!" and just do a vanilla playthrough with Skyre and ASIS, because since launch I haven ever even gotten past High Hrothgar due to always waiting for mods.

 

I'd be glad to post papyrus logs, a load order, or possibly a skyrim performance monitor log, though my papyrus logs don't appear to have much in them apart from some minor script errors. Can anybody throw out some ideas on why CTDs would occur so often? All INI tweaks are from Skyrim Revisited and nothing else differs except for the files and fixes from the ASIS-SKYRE guide (including the modified 1.4e ENB).

 

EDIT 1 - One of the things I noticed from Skyrim Revisited is that my horses have a white tail and saddle. Apparently, this was due to the DLC3 optimized textures conflicting with Convinient Horses. Could it be that the optimized textures were not ripped or optimized properly? Disabling optimized textures and leaving on just the texture packs (SRO, 2K, VURT, FO) didn't help, and neither did optimizing them or lowering them to 1K. Additionally, neither did disabling ENB in preventing the freezing or crashes.

 

EDIT 2 - Some of the errors in the Papyrus logs were narrowed down to be Realistic Predator Vision, both Werewolf mods, as well as the Increased Spawns in ASIS. One of the most common errors involves the main quest in Skyrim. Will post some newer logs and a load order when I get home.

1.your hardware configuration is too powerful for skyrim:D. SLI is cool but can be one of reasons of CTD with ENB or vanilla skyrim, tweaking driver settings for skyrim per STEP guide with SLI is dangerous IMO.

2. 3,1 RAM is limit for skyrim. it's originally was developed for x86 architecture, with all consequences. 

3. scribed papyrus errors are common and harmless in general. Only Predator vision from SR guide starting to work randomly - perhaps its delayed too long sometimes in critical moments during game start due to extremely high skse scripts count. It can activate itself properly, but may not as well. In second case it won't work until you will do "clean save" and activate mod.

4. Never saw white horse tails.

[Aiyen]

Actually the 3.1 is just an avarage value.

Some people report CTD at 2.7Gb, some at 3.5Gb

This in both VRAM (For 4Gb card users ofc. For people with only 2Gb cards lower values are used, but the game stability is about the same.) and RAM... so there is a certain uncertainty involved in the measured values. Annoying as it might be.

This is also why the current recommendations go to replace all exterior textures with their 1k versions, so that there is room for armor and weapons and cosmetic textures instead in the future.

[Jormungand24]

Actually the 3.1 is just an avarage value.

Some people report CTD at 2.7Gb, some at 3.5Gb

 

I have found this to be true too.  Usually it is right at 3.1GB when I CTD... but sometimes I can squeeze a couple more hundred megabytes and get to like 3.4GB before CTD.  But so far it's never been less than 3.1GB.

[Iroha]

There is a trick that help to reduce RAM usage, and keep it stable for long time. It's just a way of exploring - never "jump" from one location(cell) to another too fast, especially if it is exterior, good if you don't miss your chance to visit interior cell if you see it nearly, interiors also is very nice for saving. Skyrim engine keeps # of cells in memory, and always loads # neighboring cells, but it purges cells that is unused also, just give it some time, CTD and haste are best friends:)

[phazer11]

Actually the 3.1 is just an avarage value.

Some people report CTD at 2.7Gb, some at 3.5Gb

This in both VRAM (For 4Gb card users ofc. For people with only 2Gb cards lower values are used, but the game stability is about the same.) and RAM... so there is a certain uncertainty involved in the measured values. Annoying as it might be.

This is also why the current recommendations go to replace all exterior textures with their 1k versions, so that there is room for armor and weapons and cosmetic textures instead in the future.

Well I'd imagine those cases are either their buffer overflowing from a sudden torrent of new textures say going from 1k interiors to 2k exteriors; or simply the data loading itself unusually fast (talking about microseconds here) and therefore whatever monitor is being used doesn't have time to plot the new resource usage.

 

Either way SLI seems bad for these modding conditions (especially with ENB), Optimized Textures good, triple checking load order good. Progressive install (with multiple test-runs in script intensive areas Helgen intro for example) for non-step, non-Skyrim Revisited mods good. Cleaning said as yet unsupported mods for good measure also probably good.

[razym]

Thank you for your replies, everybody!

 

Okay. So, I guess I'm disabling SLI for Skyrim then. I'm going to revert the INI completely just in case, then make a fresh save and re-enable all script based addons. I'll redownload, optimize, and enable only 1K textures (half of what my monitor runs, 2k). Load order is 100% good, all mods are cleaned, and I feel like I have so many patches it makes my head spin.

 

You may be right regarding data loading too fast. I run Skyrim on a RevoDrive, which is quite a fast SSD. The tweak in the INI to wait longer for scripts to load is essential because they can load much much faster than the time it would usually wait. I guess in this case, I might have to move over my ModOrganizer and my Skyrim folder onto two raided harddrives instead of my SSD.

 

Would you guys say it's generally safe to run the ASIS-SKYRE Modified ENB (v1.4e) or ENB in general? It shouldn't affect stability, but I do wonder if it's contributing.

 

Finally, let me report another bug I have noticed that I haven't seen before. Essentially, starting the game without Alternate Start has parts of the carriage clipping into your character model, with no visible NPCs around you, though you still hear the sounds and the NPCs talking. When you get to the gate, it's closed and your carriage crashes into the other one. I really should make a video of it, as it's very entertaining! Any ideas? I just turn AS back on if it happens, but I'm still curious why I can't do a fresh save with it back off with all AS patches disabled!

[Aiyen]

ENB should not affect stability noticeably, only performance. If you do get more CTD´s and you can isolate it to ENB then it is most likely driver related and not mod related.

[grhuff]

I use a GTX 690 card which advertises itself as a 4GB card but in reality only has 2GB of useable VRAM per GPU. So because of that I have to be careful with texture mods. In general, I haven't knowingly installed any textures greater than 2k. I'm going to list out some of the tweaks I've made because prior to this I was able to easily reproduce CTDs when approaching Riverwood from Helgen and also when walking toward Anise's Cabin across the river from Riverwood. But I was able to alleviate them with the following tweaks:

• Use the 1k versions of Skyrim HD, Skyrim Realistic Overhaul, and Serious HD packs (already mentioned by a few folks here)
• Add the 2048 tree LOD optional for Skyrim Flora Overhaul after the main mod (also mentioned a few times)
• Add the Medium optional for WATER after the main mod
• Install SMIM once using the default option per the SR guide, then install a second version right after it in MO and choose the "half-size" texture option in the Custom menu
• Use the HRDLC Optimized (hybrid + vanilla normals) and Skyrim Performance Plus texture packs from STEP and load them right before the other mods in the SR Foundation section (I put these right before No Stretching)

I've also gone through my entire esm/esp list in TES5Edit and cleaned each one. I found a few that needed cleaning that weren't specifically called out in SR (but of course I didn't make a note of them to benefit the community - sigh). I've found with this combination I have very few CTDs and freezes and when they do occur they are seemingly random and infrequent. This also gives me room to experiment with some non-STEP/SR mods and textures without pushing myself too close to my RAM/VRAM limits.

[phazer11]

Wrong Thread

[exploiteddna]

wow im so glad i ran into this thread.  similar to the guy/gal in the original post, I have tried multiple configs and setups and still struggle with CTD, freeze, and hanging load screens.  I have never read anything about this DRAM limit, i suppose i just havent read enough or have been looking in the wrong places.  Im relatively new to the STEP forums, but unlike many other forums, there seems to be a fair amount of experienced modders here, which is good. 

 

my current setup is (2) gtx680 4gb Classified in SLI (tweaked myself in NVInspector), i7 3770, 2x4gb 1866 dram, win7 x64 on 64gb ssd, Steam, skyrim, and mods on 120gb ssd, and storage on 500gb hdd.  I was actually thinking about upgrading to 16gb of dram just because i feel like im running out of options. but after reading this thread, i dont think it will do me any good.  I will definitely try removing one of my cards and see if that makes a difference.

 

Another thing that concerns me is what im reading here about only running the 1k textures of Skyrim HD, low res SMIM textures, etc etc etc.. I mean, i understand the logic (kind of) but it almost seems like im buying nice hardware and getting nothing good out of it. Why buy beefy hardware to run only 1k textures? It's just slightly disappointing that's all.

 

Im curious, how are you all monitoring your dram and vram usage? i know i can use gpuz to monitor my vram, and i guess maybe windows' resource monitor for checking dram? or is it easier with a program like AIDA64?

 

Lots of good insight in this thread, i will definitely keep my eye on this! thanks again

[Neovalen]

https://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/2006/?

This is the tool I use to measure RAM in game.

 

As far as VRAM, I have PrecisionX showing it on my G15 Keyboard LCD.

 

As far as texture size goes, it really takes a lot of testing to see what works for you... I'm in the process of doing a lot of that testing now as I build up the new SR:LE.

[exploiteddna]

https://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/2006/?

This is the tool I use to measure RAM in game.

 

As far as VRAM, I have PrecisionX showing it on my G15 Keyboard LCD.

 

As far as texture size goes, it really takes a lot of testing to see what works for you... I'm in the process of doing a lot of that testing now as I build up the new SR:LE.

ah thats convenient.. i dont have a g15 though .. darn mechanical keyboards are boring when it comes to fancy features like that lol

i use precisionx too since i have evga cards (even though i know that makes no diff, more of an ocd thing.. dont wanna use afterburner (MSI) to tweak evga cards lol)

anyways, yeah im currently running through all of my texture packs and using the STEP ddsopt settings, but ive put the max resolution at 2048^2 in case theres some 4k scattered throughout. I mostly use "stock" textures and packs, but some of my packs have been mixed together using textures from multiple sources, and some textures ive made myself using bethesda hd textures as a base. I do my best to keep all my textures very organized in such a way as i know where each individual texture has come from. But, I digress...

The main thing i think for me right now is to monitor my DRAM bc im fairly certain im not even crossing the 3gb mark on my 4gb card(s). In doing this I will continue to make sure im using only textures that are 2k and below.

The next thing i need to try to do is find the will to remove one of my graphics cards and thus stop using SLI .. but, it pains me to even think about it. .. then again, if its likely going to improve my gaming experience (for skyrim), well.. hmm.. i dunno.. meh

 

EDIT: i just read your sig and youre running two evga 670s in sli .. so shouldnt be any reason for me not to run two evga 680s in sli

 

EDIT 2: for the life of me i cant find where to setup a signature for my account .. i did read somewhere that sigs are for registered users only.. does that mean only moderators or something?

[rootsrat]

https://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/2006/?

This is the tool I use to measure RAM in game.

 

As far as VRAM, I have PrecisionX showing it on my G15 Keyboard LCD.

 

Nice find that, Neo! Will make a thread for it in MS forum.

 

As for the G15... Jealous! 

 

I wanted to get the G19 one, but some other financial stuff cropped up and I ended up not buying it... 

[stoppingby4now]

EDIT 2: for the life of me i cant find where to setup a signature for my account .. i did read somewhere that sigs are for registered users only.. does that mean only moderators or something?

 

You can edit your signature once you reach a post count of 10.