SR:LE - Live Another Life Freezes

[Nevertide]

Hey everyone,

 

Just to preface I did a search prior and didn't turn anything up. Though that might very well be because I'm not looking for the right things so hopefully someone here can point me in the right direction.

 

I've got SR:LE up and running and everything is nearly perfect. One issue that I keep running into is that nearly every alternate start in Live Another Life is causing me to freeze up before I even see a loading screen after I sleep in the bed. I'm hoping one of you guru's here can point me in the right direction on where to look.

 

What I've tried:

• Renamed my SKSE.ini.txt to SKSE.ini
• Looked through Live Another Life records in TES5Edit for any strange overrides (as if I know what I'm looking for...)
• Re-ran boss, re-built my bashed patch, and re-ran SUM/FNIS.

 

I haven't tried every start (in the process now) but the only ones I'm able to get working so far are the "I own land" ones that place you in a home. I know for a fact that the College of winterhold start freezes me in addition to the Orcish stronghold start. Let me know if you'd like my mod list/order.

 

Thanks!

[phazer11]

Are you sure your memory blocks as well as ENB or ENBoost are working as intended?

https://forum.step-project.com/topic/6726-common-ctds-freezes-ils-and-memory-issues/

Also are you sure you've followed the conflict resolution sub-guide of SR:LE.

[Nevertide]

  On 1/14/2015 at 3:00 AM, phazer11 said:

Are you sure your memory blocks as well as ENB or ENBoost are working as intended?

https://forum.step-project.com/topic/6726-common-ctds-freezes-ils-and-memory-issues/

Also are you sure you've followed the conflict resolution sub-guide of SR:LE.

Thanks for the response! I've been toying with it more all night and also suspect its a memory allocation issue. I didn't catch it at first since my first small test play loaded me into my first alternate start choice and kept going strong as I ran around and loaded several cells in Markarth.

 

Insofar as I can tell my ENB settings are working correctly (no warnings or errors on startup). However when using Sheson's memory logging plugin I realized that I seem trapped at 256mb for my heap memory regardless of what I do. My skse.ini was originally a txt file but I converted it (and checked file extensions to make sure). Added the -forcesteamloader argument in MO and even tweaked the heap size to various numbers. All these things resulted in the memory log reporting the exact same 256mb crash. I also installed safety load just to give it a shot and saw a definite improvement (made it out to the actual Skyrim world) but soon crashed anyway.

 

If you'd like, I can easily post my details in the linked thread so I'm on topic and we can perhaps delete this thread to avoid confusion? Thanks again =)

[phazer11]

Does your skse.ini look like this?

https://wiki.step-project.com/Skyrim_Script_Extender

[General]
ClearInvalidRegistrations=1

[Memory]
DefaultHeapInitialAllocMB=768
ScrapHeapSizeMB=256

Also please post your system specs and enblocal.ini in spoilers like so

[spoiler] text [/spoiler]

[Nevertide]

  On 1/15/2015 at 3:15 AM, phazer11 said:

 

Does your skse.ini look like this?

https://wiki.step-project.com/Skyrim_Script_Extender

[General]
ClearInvalidRegistrations=1

[Memory]
DefaultHeapInitialAllocMB=768
ScrapHeapSizeMB=256

Also please post your system specs and enblocal.ini in spoilers like so

[spoiler] text [/spoiler]

 

I've actually discovered at least part of the problem. I was being a complete idiot and didn't realize that my ini file was located outside of the SKSE folder in MO - moving that confirmed the change via memory blocks log. Also just to be clear my ini does look like that.

 

That said, I've getting pretty constant CTDs still (every 10-20 minutes) once I'm in game - though at least I can now load in. I'm thinking its my GPU as I'm seeing it hover around 95%+ usage using the performance monitor. I find the whole thing a bit weird as I don't have a weak rig at all. Any pointers at this point would be really appreciated as I'm not entirely sure where to move from here.

 

My system specs:

CPU: i7 @ base 3.5GHz

GPU: GTX 770 4gb

Memory: 16gb RAM; running windows from SSD and all other files from HD

OS: Windows 7 Home Premium x64

 

Here is my current enblocal.ini - this is including several tips I attempted via the enboost ini.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

[PROXY]

EnableProxyLibrary=true

InitProxyFunctions=true

ProxyLibrary=d3d9_smaa.dll

 

[GLOBAL]

UsePatchSpeedhackWithoutGraphics=true

UseDefferedRendering=false

IgnoreCreationKit=true

ForceFakeVideoCard=false

 

[PERFORMANCE]

SpeedHack=true

EnableOcclusionCulling=false

 

[MULTIHEAD]

ForceVideoAdapterIndex=false

VideoAdapterIndex=0

 

[MEMORY]

ExpandSystemMemoryX64=true

ReduceSystemMemoryUsage=true

DisableDriverMemoryManager=false

DisablePreloadToVRAM=false

EnableUnsafeMemoryHacks=false

ReservedMemorySizeMb=256

VideoMemorySizeMb=3968

EnableCompression=true

AutodetectVideoMemorySize=false

 

[WINDOW]

ForceBorderless=false

ForceBorderlessFullscreen=false

 

[ENGINE]

ForceAnisotropicFiltering=true

MaxAnisotropy=16

ForceLodBias=false

LodBias=0.0

AddDisplaySuperSamplingResolutions=false

EnableVSync=false

VSyncSkipNumFrames=0

 

[LIMITER]

WaitBusyRenderer=false

EnableFPSLimit=false

FPSLimit=60.0

 

[iNPUT]

//shift

KeyCombination=16

//f12

KeyUseEffect=123

//home

KeyFPSLimit=36

//num /       106

KeyShowFPS=106

//print screen

KeyScreenshot=44

//enter

KeyEditor=13

//f4

KeyFreeVRAM=115

 

[ADAPTIVEQUALITY]

Enable=false

Quality=1

DesiredFPS=20.0

 

[ANTIALIASING]

EnableEdgeAA=false

EnableTemporalAA=false

EnableSubPixelAA=false

EnableTransparencyAA=false

 

[FIX]

FixGameBugs=true

FixParallaxBugs=true

FixParallaxTerrain=false

FixAliasedTextures=true

IgnoreInventory=true

FixTintGamma=true

RemoveBlur=false

FixSubSurfaceScattering=true

FixSkyReflection=true

FixCursorVisibility=true

 

 

 

Finally, I should also say that I just removed Skyrim Realistic Distance Overhaul as per Neo's recommendations for low FPS. Granted I still hover around 40+ FPS in game, thought I'd give that a go. I'm still testing that as I just finished it - still not 100% sure since the last two tests I was killed before crashing and I crash on death now too lol.

 

Thanks =)

[Pretendeavor]

Looks like a fine enblocal.ini to me.. Except you have UseDeferredRendering set to false (and thus UsePatchSpeedhackWithoutGraphics set to true). I think this disables all the graphical modifiers like SSAO DOF Reflection etc, is this on purpose? I'm not sure if it has any negative impact on ENBoost (the memory part) though, probably not. Maybe try fiddling around with ReservedMemorySizeMb (512, 768, 1024? I somehow get the best results at 512) but it seems weird to me that you have so many CTDs.. I have a newer card but also 4Gb VRAM and have set a similar VideoMemorySizeMB which seems to work fine. You could try EnableOcclusionCulling=true for potentially some more FPS but I don't think it will fix any CTDs.

 

I don't use memory blocks log or SSME and I rarely crash because of memory issues unless I downsample to like 4k resolutions. I have never used a log to confirm if the SKSE.ini memory patch works but I did try tweaking SKSE.ini in the past which led to instability, so I assume it is working properly with its default settings. I have it just in my Skyrim Script Extender -> SKSE folder in MO, so I don't know if moving it directly to the Data->SKSE folder will make any difference.. Btw I don't think you should do anything fancy like 'converting' a text file, you can easily make any .txt file an .ini by just renaming it after unchecking the 'Hide extensions for known file types' option in map options. (that way you won't ever make those obnoxious xxx.ini.txt files again)

 

As for mods, what options do you check in the ASIS SUM patcher? If you are using things like increased spawns, that could potentially mess things up. If you do use increased spawns and all that stuff with ASIS you should get the 'ASIS Improved INI Files' from the Nexus. And do you use Interesting NPCs? That mod has an Alternate Start patch that you should probably use. Other things I can think of are your regular Skyrim inis.. if you have tweaked them a lot (not counting the SR:LE tweaks) I'd suggest removing those you added or restoring them to default values, especially any Papyrus tweaks. Tweaking SKSE.ini has only caused me trouble so I'd refrain from doing that, but it might work out perfectly fine for others. Another thing to mention would be the recent switch from ELE - Interior Lighting Merged to the new ELE Lite. The SR Conflict Resolution esp changed a lot with that, make sure you have the most recent version of both that esp and the guide.. And rerun the RSPatch, that recently caused me some issues :p

 

Finally about your GPU usage.. it should be that high! That only means your GPU is doing its work. At times it will drop lower because Skyrim is being an unoptimized piece of **** again :p Try to monitor your GPU in modern well optimized GPU-heavy games, you'll notice that it sits near 99% most of the time. That just means you're getting the most out of your card!

Edited January 15, 2015 by Pretendeavor

[Nevertide]

Thanks a ton for the tips - I intend to play with the enblocal.ini and set some of the features back (like edge AA and deferred rendering) slowly to evaluate their impact.

 

I've found the CTD culprit! It must have been a VRAM issue because disabling the Distance Overhaul mod dramatically cut it down - though if someone reads through this make sure you also remove the SR Conflict record for it or you'll CTD on startup. I haven't tested it on a true play through but I don't seem to be experiencing any of the CTD's I was before except for the really weird CTD on death issue - which at this point I'll live with if my mod list will stabalize lol. Just more incentive to live. Still seems a bit odd that my card struggled so much but it's all good.

 

For clarity with everything you asked (in case you have any idea what's causing the weird death CTD and for future reference) I only installed the NPC Echantment fix for ASIS and altered the equipment slots for DSR per Neo's guide. I also enabled the "show well known extensions" feature in my control panel to prevent any future mishaps. Finally, the only other mods I've added to the mix at this point (now that I seem to be running mostly stable its time for tweaks/me to break it - all this post death bug btw) are Thunderchild and PerMa/PaMa.

 

I appreciate the heads up and you taking a look =) I hadn't really monitored my GPU during games previously so I thought I was potentially reducing it to a ball of explosive fire lol.

[Pretendeavor]

Hm right, glad you figured things out! Btw I'm not an expert on any of these things but I have encountered a lot of problems myself. I'd still say it's weird you had so many CTDs though :p I don't use PerMa, but from what I've read about it I feel it can singlehandedly cause a lot of issues.. Did you have the same issues with PerMa disabled? As for Thunderchild, I have no experience with that mod either but did read a lot of the guide Modular Morrowloot Overhaul (https://wiki.step-project.com/Pack:Modular_Morrowloot_Overhaul) and seem to recall they had a lot of patches for Thunderchild.. so it might be a potential culprit?

 

The way I'd go about it is to first keep SDO and see if you get the CTDs on a clean save with 'Vanilla SR:LE'. Then if the problem persists it could indeed be memory related and if not it could be PerMa/Thunderchild related. But if what you've done now works for you then who am I to tell you to do otherwise :P I'm just guessing here

[Neovalen]

Well, as the author of vanilla SR:LE I can tell you I haven't had a CTD or Freeze in the last 6 months running this setup. However, installing PerMa (beta-pre-release) did result in some CTDs in the wilderness but I hear that is not uncommon with PerMa and that it is definitely NOT bug free at this point.

[Nozzer66]

Hmm I'd been running PerMa for some time and I couldn't tell you when I last CTDed. I will agree there's still some bugs. That is true.

[Nevertide]

Thanks guys - the death bug CTD seems to have resolved itself, perhaps I mispatched something without realizing it during my tinkering on tracking down the original culprit, which I very well might have fixed when repatching with PerMa & co.

 

Also Neo, thanks for the extremely excellent guide - its much appreciated! I'm really not sure why the CTDs were coming so fast and furious. All of the crashes were happening on a vanilla install of SR:LE prior to my adding the add'l gameplay mods, specifically because I know PerMa is still in its infancy (and cause overhauls). I was averaging 40 FPS or so while the game was running and then sadfaces. Sometimes I'd be in combat, other times just walking around, though it always happened in the open world which is why I suspected it was a VRAM issue. For the record these tests were all on new games. I figure leaving all alone is probably preferable, but if you'd like me to test or anything I'd be happy to help.

 

Either way, it seems to be running nice and stable without SDO so I'm not too worried, might try another enhanced LOD mod sometime in the future if I feel like chancing things =D