Help - Exterior World Space Freezes and CTDs

[MadWizard25]

I get CTDs and freezes in Exterior World spaces quite often, and it is becoming a major irritant. The freezes are total; i have to ctrl+alt+delete TESV.exe to exit Skyrim, and the CTDs are CTDs without any warning. This only occurs in world spaces, i.e. outdoors, wilderness, etc. My experience with oblivion tells me this is a mesh issue usually, but disabling mesh mods does not seem to fix the issue for me. Before i launch into frantic troubleshooting mode I was hoping if anybody else had experienced this issue? Any help or ideas would be appreciated, as i desperately try to avoid disabling mods one by one.

 

Additional Info:

- Only since latest patch

- Occurs with STEP setup, without any extra mods, vanilla is fine

- Occurs with or without texture optimization

- Occurs when trying out a new game

- Searched nexus, bethesda, and steam forums to no avail. plenty of people seem to have this issue? (in reality probably small minority)

- SoS sound mods do not cause it

- I occasionally hit 2GB VRAM allocation (use?), but using skyrim performance monitor shows that the crashes are not linked to hitting the VRAM ceiling

- Using gamebooster, steam offline, no overlay, all desktop notifications/ popups disabled, fully defragged

- Tried Papyrus and budgetcap ini tweaks

- Clearing all cells after 31 day wait, no effect

 

So if anybody has experienced this issue and/ or somehow fixed it, even if it was with one of the things i already tried above, i would grateful for any comments. Thanks!

 

Edit:

- Freezes and CTDs, occurring frequently, averaging ever 15/ 20 minutes.

- Default ini's, (uGrids=5) after other ini tweaks failed to fix the issue

- Verified game cache

 

Second Edit:

- fps booster did not help

- cpu core affinity did not work

- underclock did not work

[bitdman]

I've started getting some freezes lately. I was using the STEP guide with 0 issues for about a week when they suddenly started. I have added a number of gameplay-related mods in the days after the initial STEP install so it will be difficult to pinpoint the problem. I'm leaning towards Frostfall though. The freezes are pretty few and far between, but they seem to always occur after a loading screen when the game is autosaving. I updated my nVidia drivers from 304.48 to 304.79 in hopes that that fixes the issue. I don't really want to trial and error with mods. I'd hate to disable Frostfall... I really love that mod.

How many saves are you up to? and what size is the last save? What level too by the way? Not sure if this makes a difference or not though.

[JudgmentJay]

 

I've started getting some freezes lately. I was using the STEP guide with 0 issues for about a week when they suddenly started. I have added a number of gameplay-related mods in the days after the initial STEP install so it will be difficult to pinpoint the problem. I'm leaning towards Frostfall though. The freezes are pretty few and far between, but they seem to always occur after a loading screen when the game is autosaving. I updated my nVidia drivers from 304.48 to 304.79 in hopes that that fixes the issue. I don't really want to trial and error with mods. I'd hate to disable Frostfall... I really love that mod.

How many saves are you up to? and what size is the last save? What level too by the way? Not sure if this makes a difference or not though.

 

Through papyrus logging I was able to eliminate the freezing (I think... roughly 10 hours freeze-free). The culprit was Enhanced Blood Textures. I do still get some CTDs though, but I suspect More Village Animals. As for saves, not sure how many... maybe 10 or so. The latest one is almost 6mb. I'm level 29 I think.

[frihyland]

There are a lot of problems with autosave, I recommend turning all of them off. These vanilla engine problems are compounded with mod use and can result in freezing or ctd's.

[torminater]

Have you been Running the newest ebt 2.0?

 

edit: sry, wrong file xD

[MadWizard25]

Have you been Running the newest ebt 1.8a 2.0?

Fixed :D

[bitdman]

What is the possible cause of the game freezing in the exact same spot. Yet I can walk a ways around the spot and no problem. This spot is a wood bridge that crosses a drainage creek outside a main gate to whiterun.

[frihyland]

either a bad mesh or a spawn point with bad scripts is what comes to mind, check ur log

[Valor]

Hello, i have something like troubles.

Have you finally found the way to fix them?

[MadWizard25]

Yes, although its not a specific fix.

 

There are several reasons for CTDs and freezes in exteriors.

 

1. Freezing while walking around - Running several script intensive mods such as Warzones, wars in skyrim, SkyTEST, Real Wildlife, or any other mod that affects spawns, especially the ones that increases spawns (such as ASIS, SkyMoMod, uGrids), can cause freezes. The trick here is to find what your computer can handle. Most people can only run a few.

 

2. Freezing in combat - similar to above. If you are running a lot of combat related mods, such as Deadly Combat, Dual Combat, Dance of Death, etc, can cause freezing. Again, uninstall until the issue goes away.

 

3. VRAM limit - If you massively go over your vram limit, then it can cause the game to freeze. The fix is to slowly reduce hi-res mods you have installed, and use a program such as GPUZ to monitor how much vram skyrim uses.

 

4. Corrupted save game - if you have corrupted your save game somehow, usually buy installing mods, you can either start a new game or follow this guide to try cleaning it; https://wiki.step-project.com/Guide:Troubleshooting#tab=Mods_and_Savegames

 

So generally it is a case of having to many script or vram heavy mods. Regarding the scripts, it seems it is a game related issue. So no matter how good your computer is, running many script heavy mods is very hard to do.

[khamuld]

 

3. VRAM limit - If you massively go over your vram limit, then it can cause the game to freeze. The fix is to slowly reduce hi-res mods you have installed, and use a program such as GPUZ to monitor how much vram skyrim uses.

 

 

 

Regarding this cause, does the freeze always happen at the same spot? Or are they totally random? I used GPUz to track VRAM usage today and after crash Max VRAM usage was at 2023MB(GTX 670 2GB), is it an indication this is the case I'm having?

 

Some more information. I did a clean install before following S.T.E.P., was having mad CTD's in the wild (particularly between Riften and Ivarstead). Got the game stable after removing a bunch of quest mods from Steam, was able to run all the way from Riften to Makarth and back without issue. Then random freezes started happening in Whiterun and Riften (do they even count as exterior world?). Although I do have SkyMoMod/SkyTest installed, I highly doubt they are the cause because they were my top suspects and CTD/freeze still happened after removing them(branding new char using console).

 

Edit:Did some more test, two hour session without freeze/cod stopped playing and checking CPUz, max VRAM usage was at 2036mb. Only thing I did differently was to wait 10 second to do anything after every fast travel...

[Neovalen]

3. VRAM limit - If you massively go over your vram limit, then it can cause the game to freeze. The fix is to slowly reduce hi-res mods you have installed, and use a program such as GPUZ to monitor how much vram skyrim uses.

 

 

 

Regarding this cause, does the freeze always happen at the same spot? Or are they totally random? I used GPUz to track VRAM usage today and after crash Max VRAM usage was at 2023MB(GTX 670 2GB), is it an indication this is the case I'm having?

 

Some more information. I did a clean install before following S.T.E.P., was having mad CTD's in the wild (particularly between Riften and Ivarstead). Got the game stable after removing a bunch of quest mods from Steam, was able to run all the way from Riften to Makarth and back without issue. Then random freezes started happening in Whiterun and Riften (do they even count as exterior world?). Although I do have SkyMoMod/SkyTest installed, I highly doubt they are the cause because they were my top suspects and CTD/freeze still happened after removing them(branding new char using console).

 

Edit:Did some more test, two hour session without freeze/cod stopped playing and checking CPUz, max VRAM usage was at 2036mb. Only thing I did differently was to wait 10 second to do anything after every fast travel...

kahmuld you have private messaging disabled so I was unable to respond to your question directly so I will do it here:

Simply install Birds of Skyrim, SkyMoMod, and SkyTEST then run BOSS to sort the esps. I had no issues with vanilla 1.7 that way. Obviously I install them in the order in which they appear in my personal mods guide. No Guarantees with Dawnguard though, as I'm just now running through and finding the incompatibilities.

[Valor]

Hello again, I have a concrete problem - i have stable CTD's when using shouts or when Draugr Overlord use them. What mod may effect this?

Right now i had 5 CTD's when Draugr Overlord used shout, before i finally killed him, giving no chance to use Thu'um.

[skwareballz]

This is probably cause by something that modifies shouts, if it's the Draugr Overlord then that modifies the BossDraugr (or DraugrBoss) list. Some mods like LSB BattleHammers disable the disarm shout so your weapons can't be removed and fall through the floor, so look for something that changes shouts.

 

And take note of what shouts are being used that cause CTDs.