Skyrim freezing more often that I'd like/expect

[mikeymikec]

My PC spec here.

My PC handles the game perfectly well performance-wise, but I'd say that if I play the game for say 90-120 minutes at a time, that there's a 20% chance that it will freeze with some pretty graphics corruptions. Sometimes it will recover itself and gameplay continues after about a 30 second wait. Sometimes I'll need to force-quit the game (Ctrl-Alt-Del etc), sometimes the computer will freeze up totally.

I'm using the nvidia 340.52 driver. I was using the default settings (8xAA 8xAF) + ultra decal quality + FXAA, though I think I'll tone it down to 2xAA 2xAF. I switched on ultra decal quality at some point after the initial freezes, which I thought I'd fixed with a driver update.

No stability issues otherwise. I play SC2 semi-regularly and I've never had the PC freeze during 1-2 hour long games.

 

[TheELF]

You having 2x2gb and skyrim having problems with memory bugs probably explains it,do a search on google with "skyrim mem fix" and have a look around,it should be a memory leak problem.

 

[inachu]

After the mem fix if the issue continues then downgrade your video driver back to OEM what you got on CD that came with the video card and see how it acts for a couple of days.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Some reason you're not using 344.11 WHQL, or possibly newer?

 

[mikeymikec]

Some reason you're not using 344.11 WHQL, or possibly newer?

If updating drivers didn't fix the problem before, and unless newer drivers mention something Skyrim-specific, what's the point? Furthermore, updating drivers might introduce a new problem.

@ TheElf

When I google for that there appears to be a lot of modders talking about it, but I'm not using any mods for Skyrim. I have the three expansion packs installed (I bought the 'legendary edition'), that's it.

 

[inachu]

The point I was trying to make was that by down grading back to OEM might keep your video card cooler thus running better.

 

[ControlD]

Is your Skyrim install modded at all? I decided to go back and give Skyrim another play through recently, but I followed Gopher's Youtube tutorial on modding the game first. I have never had a worse experience trying to play a game in my life. Like you, I was lucky to get an hour of gaming in before something serious would wreck the game.

I finally just deleted the game and moved on to something else.

 

[mikeymikec]

No mods, just the 'legendary edition' (three expansion packs).

 

[TheELF]

@ TheElf

When I google for that there appears to be a lot of modders talking about it, but I'm not using any mods for Skyrim. I have the three expansion packs installed (I bought the 'legendary edition'), that's it.

Everybody with problems is talking about it,skyrim has a memory bug ,no matter if you have mods installed or not.

Look at this youtube video at ~1:30 he starts to explain the bug

 

[mikeymikec]

Is this freeze coming with the graphics corruptions as well as a potential nvidia driver restart? Because that's what I'm getting.

 

[XavierMace]

I actually just started playing Skyrim again over the weekend, running on an old GTX465. 110 mods installed, no issues with lockups but I've got 16Gb of RAM.

 

[inachu]

I actually just started playing Skyrim again over the weekend, running on an old GTX465. 110 mods installed, no issues with lockups but I've got 16Gb of RAM.

If that is the cure for no bugs then this clearly is a caching issue dealing with the windows swap file and by using 16 gigs of ram means little to no swap file use in the game.

Nice fix!

 

[Danrr]

Try this utilities:

http://skyrimgems.com/utilities.html

Especially LOOT and then TES5Edit.

Guides:

http://youtu.be/fw3g_N1jcZQ
http://www.creationkit.com/index.php?title=TES5Edit_Cleaning_Guide_-_TES5Edit

Regards,

 

[mikeymikec]

Thread update - since I changed AA/AF from 8x to 2x, no further episodes of instability.