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.

[Aiyen]

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

Do not spend that kinda money because you expect more wonders in Skyrim. ENB is rather unstable with SLI since it is not optimized for it at all. 

And the game can be run with a single card in the 600 (now 700) series and max out FPS without any issues. 

 

Spend smart... if you are going to spend that much on something then make sure there is a point to it! Skyrim alone is not a good point! 

[rootsrat]

Besides in SLI mode your VRAM won't be doubled, only the processing power. Not worth it IMHO, unless you're doing some serious image/video editing.

[exploiteddna]

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

Do not spend that kinda money because you expect more wonders in Skyrim. ENB is rather unstable with SLI since it is not optimized for it at all. 

And the game can be run with a single card in the 600 (now 700) series and max out FPS without any issues. 

 

Spend smart... if you are going to spend that much on something then make sure there is a point to it! Skyrim alone is not a good point! 

 

lol i hear you man. fortunately i didnt spend the money on these cards for skyrim. i got them for professional reasons  but have since managed to get myself hooked on skyrim :)

i guess ive been accustomed to *always* being hardware limited when it comes to the things do with my computers, but im finding out this is not so much the case when it comes to PC gaming (which is still fairly new to me, within the past few years)

[DanimalTwo]

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

Do not spend that kinda money because you expect more wonders in Skyrim. ENB is rather unstable with SLI since it is not optimized for it at all. 

And the game can be run with a single card in the 600 (now 700) series and max out FPS without any issues. 

 

Spend smart... if you are going to spend that much on something then make sure there is a point to it! Skyrim alone is not a good point! 

 

There is a reason to spend that kind of money. People think size does matter, like penises or fancy cars, it gives one bragging rights. The truth of it is what one does with it is what counts.

[MontyMM]

There is a reason to spend that kind of money. People think size does matter, like penises or fancy cars, it gives one bragging rights. The truth of it is what one does with it is what counts.

 

Anyone who feels his masculinity is enhanced by the teraflops of his GPU, is in serious, serious trouble.  :P

[Aiyen]

There is a reason to spend that kind of money. People think size does matter, like penises or fancy cars, it gives one bragging rights. The truth of it is what one does with it is what counts.

Well there also is such a thing as "minimum requirements" ;) 

 

In this case it is more "What one needs to do with it, that count" as well... so many more puns and jokes. I am just going to get another beer! 

[Azum]

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.

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

 

 

No need to remove anything. You can disable SLI in the Nvidia CP. However, I run SLI and haven't noticed where it causes any instability.

[phazer11]

 

There is a reason to spend that kind of money. People think size does matter like penises or fancy cars, it gives one bragging rights. The truth of it is what one does with it is what counts.

Anyone who feels his masculinity is enhanced by the teraflops of his GPU, is in serious, serious trouble.  :P

 

^This

Back on topic the OP solved their issue?

[mortimermcmire]

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.

This should be included first and foremost in response to "How do I stop CTDs from high RAM usage?" 

 

If your eye can tell the difference between 1024 and 2048 and you really care that much, apply only as many as you need for stability. But remember: 1024 textures playable is better than 2048 ctd every 3 minutes.

[Freyrgjurd]

What reduced my freezes/CTD was to make a two pass DDSOpt config in every texture mod beyond 20Mb.

 

First pass on non *_n.dds files with 2k resolution cap.

Second pass on *_n.dds (normal maps) with 1k resolution cap.

 

Summary: 2k textures with 1k normal maps.

 

This reduced the file sizes too. No problems with "looks" for me.

[exploiteddna]

What reduced my freezes/CTD was to make a two pass DDSOpt config in every texture mod beyond 20Mb.

 

First pass on non *_n.dds files with 2k resolution cap.

Second pass on *_n.dds (normal maps) with 1k resolution cap.

 

Summary: 2k textures with 1k normal maps.

 

This reduced the file sizes too. No problems with "looks" for me.

thats a pretty good idea.. i like that and may give it a shot. 

ive just about finished optimizing all my exterior/landscape textures and a good number of my interior/dungeon/cave/clutter textures, and have noticed a huge difference in my in-game DRAM usage. Many interiors are hovering at around 1.5-2.0gb, and most of my exteriors are staying between 2-2.5gb.  

Oddly enough, ive noticed that my DRAM usage while in solitude world (and some interiors like blue palace and temple of divines) is staying between 2.8-3.2gb and ive had a few CTDs there in the past couple days.  Ive tried optimizing all the textures there but it didnt seem to have any effect on DRAM usage like I saw in most other parts of the game. Thus, unless anyone has any specific knowledge of this issue, I'll probably try and constrain all the solitude normals to half the res of the diffuse maps and see if that yields favorable results.

[exploiteddna]

What reduced my freezes/CTD was to make a two pass DDSOpt config in every texture mod beyond 20Mb.

 

First pass on non *_n.dds files with 2k resolution cap.

Second pass on *_n.dds (normal maps) with 1k resolution cap.

 

Summary: 2k textures with 1k normal maps.

 

This reduced the file sizes too. No problems with "looks" for me.

Im having a hard time seeing an efficient way of doing this.. Since i dont see a way to tell DDSopt to "skip" diffuse/color maps and/or only process normal maps, I have resorted to manually removing all of the diffuse maps from the source folder so that only normal maps remain.. then go to the output folder and copy over the freshly optimized normal back into the original archive.

Surely there must be a better way of doing this..

[grhuff]

I swapped out my GTX 690 (2GB) for a GTX Titan (6GB) and I still can't run the big three texture packs at 2048k without instability. It just doesn't seem possible to load all high resolution textures along with a heavily modified install in a 32-bit game.

 

For folks that are are still having issues despite using things like HRDLC Optimized, Skyrim Performance Plus, and base 1k packs, several other mods have lower resolution options such as TreesHD (4k, 2k, and 1k). The STEP guide is a good resource for this. Look in the column called "Baseline" for mods with different resolution choices.

 

On the flipside, anyone with a graphics card with greater than 2 GB of VRAM could probably get by without using HRDLC Optimized and Skyrim Performance Plus provided they stick to the 1024 packs.

 

EDIT: I also want to point that I've been experimenting with SMCO for my DDS files. I made a full backup of my MO folder, then cut SMCO loose on everything. It's simple to use and seems to take a very cautious approach to optimizing DDS files. In fact, it leaves a lot of files alone, presumably because they are already "optimized." I would not touch NIFs and you probably shouldn't have to worry about BSAs either.

[Wormheart]

Easiest way that I know of to select just _n or unselect them is:

When trying to opt diffuse textures, load the textures, filter for _n.dds (make sure "show recursive" is checked) then use the button (red box with the x beside show recursive) to uncheck all (it only applies to the filtered view). If you then go back to an unfiltered list, you should see all the diffuse textures still checked and none of the normals.

 

Only processing the _n.dds is a bit easier, load the textures, make sure "show recursive" is checked, hit the red box with the x to uncheck all, filter for _n.dds, hit the green check to check all, unfilter and only normals should be selected and you can process them.

 

It can also help to leave the option "Ignore / Copy unprocessed and ignored files (passthrough)" off, that way it won't copy the unprocessed normals or diffuse maps. If they exist in the destination, it may skip them depending on a few other settings.

[exploiteddna]

Easiest way that I know of to select just _n or unselect them is:

When trying to opt diffuse textures, load the textures, filter for _n.dds (make sure "show recursive" is checked) then use the button (red box with the x beside show recursive) to uncheck all (it only applies to the filtered view). If you then go back to an unfiltered list, you should see all the diffuse textures still checked and none of the normals.

 

Only processing the _n.dds is a bit easier, load the textures, make sure "show recursive" is checked, hit the red box with the x to uncheck all, filter for _n.dds, hit the green check to check all, unfilter and only normals should be selected and you can process them.

 

It can also help to leave the option "Ignore / Copy unprocessed and ignored files (passthrough)" off, that way it won't copy the unprocessed normals or diffuse maps. If they exist in the destination, it may skip them depending on a few other settings.

ok ill have to mess with the "show recursive" and the red x box. 

when you say "filter for _n.dds" im not sure how youre doing this.. this is exactly what i was asking about in my original question but i dont see anywhere that allows me to define a filter..

 

 

EDIT:  :facepalm:  i see a filter box now lol... cant believe ive never noticed that before.. right in the middle of the window between the input top half and output bottom half .. :facepalm: