The OFFICIAL Anandtech Forums TeS V: Skyrim Thread

Page 97 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

VulgarDisplay

Diamond Member
Apr 3, 2009
6,188
2
76
Game breaking quest bug on "The White Phial" has pretty much ruined the game for me. If you start that questline do yourself a favor and save your game. Then be sure you have no briarhearts in your inventory.

I had to revert back to a save that was almost 5 hours back. Learned my lesson, but also basically lost all interest in continuing the game.
 

PrayForDeath

Diamond Member
Apr 12, 2004
3,478
1
76
What type of character are you playing? I'm only level 18 or so but I don't have any problems with the dragons I've come across so far. In fact I just face them and hack away with my sword till they die. I basically ignore their breath attacks and heal in between a bit. I'm playing a single handed sword / shield character. But I've been careful to level my one hand skill before everything else.

I'm playing a mage/archer combo. I usually start combat with the stealth arrow, then cast armor/summon pet and continue raining arrows until they get close, then use a combination of shouts, spells, arrows to finish my targets.

It's kind of a jack-of-all-trades style of play, but it's tons of fun. I also dismissed my companion (Lydia) cause she fucks up my stealth, and tends to die alot. I made her join the blades though, lol.

I finally got around to installing SKSE and SkyUI. It's a nice mod, but it doesn't change the screen that opens when you loot stuff (shows the original menu). So I used the part of QD Inventory that modifies the loot menu and added it to SkyUI. It actually worked! And now I have the best of both worlds :D

I also installed the CPU optimization mod (forgot its name) and I noticed that my game runs smoother now. But I still suffer from slowdowns after going through multiple loading screens. This has been happening since v1.0 and the latest update didn't fix it. After playing for an extended amount of time, the framerate drops and I get extreme input lag. I can only get rid of it by restarting the game.
 

HydroSqueegee

Golden Member
Oct 27, 2005
1,709
2
71
Game breaking quest bug on "The White Phial" has pretty much ruined the game for me. If you start that questline do yourself a favor and save your game. Then be sure you have no briarhearts in your inventory.

I had to revert back to a save that was almost 5 hours back. Learned my lesson, but also basically lost all interest in continuing the game.

what broke? that was one of the first quests i did and nothing seems off to me.
 

HybridSquirrel

Diamond Member
Nov 20, 2005
6,161
2
81
Game breaking quest bug on "The White Phial" has pretty much ruined the game for me. If you start that questline do yourself a favor and save your game. Then be sure you have no briarhearts in your inventory.

I had to revert back to a save that was almost 5 hours back. Learned my lesson, but also basically lost all interest in continuing the game.

I wish there was a better auto-save script so it did it ever 3-5 minutes. Whenever I forget to save and my game crashes it sets me back an hour and I lose interest in playing.
 

Qbah

Diamond Member
Oct 18, 2005
3,754
10
81
OH SHIT!
Muthafuckin Sheogorath and Pelagius having tea!

(...)

:awe:

That quest was hilarious! :D

Edit: I really hope Bethesda can make a DLC as awesome as Shivering Isles... That was honestly more fun than anything in vanilla Oblivion.
 
Last edited:

homercles337

Diamond Member
Dec 29, 2004
6,340
3
71
Game breaking quest bug on "The White Phial" has pretty much ruined the game for me. If you start that questline do yourself a favor and save your game. Then be sure you have no briarhearts in your inventory.

I had to revert back to a save that was almost 5 hours back. Learned my lesson, but also basically lost all interest in continuing the game.

I have a few broken/borked quests in my "misc" area, but nothing game breaking yet. Is white phial part of the main quest?
 

AMDZen

Lifer
Apr 15, 2004
12,589
0
76
I have a few broken/borked quests in my "misc" area, but nothing game breaking yet. Is white phial part of the main quest?

He has to be over exaggerating. I think he is saying he lost interest in the game after this quest broke, not that this quest actually broke the game.
 

Visaoni

Senior member
May 15, 2008
213
0
0
How did you guys go about losing an hour or five? I compulsively drop saves before I start something remotely new (basically before every non-fast travel loading screen), anytime it seems like it has been awhile since I saved (mainly during long dungeons, when I'm exploring, or wrapping up a bunch of quick quests in the main world), and I quicksave constantly.
 

AMDZen

Lifer
Apr 15, 2004
12,589
0
76
How did you guys go about losing an hour or five? I compulsively drop saves before I start something remotely new (basically before every non-fast travel loading screen), anytime it seems like it has been awhile since I saved (mainly during long dungeons, when I'm exploring, or wrapping up a bunch of quick quests in the main world), and I quicksave constantly.

I guess they never played a TES game before.

I personally agree with you
 

VulgarDisplay

Diamond Member
Apr 3, 2009
6,188
2
76
what broke? that was one of the first quests i did and nothing seems off to me.

If you have briarhearts in your inventory when you start this quest you cannot finish it. Also, from that point on any briarheart in your inventory becomes a quest item that you cannot remove or use.

Basically my game was fucked. So I had to load the last time I saved which just so happened to be about 5 hours prior to that point. Like I said it's my fault for not making actual saves and just relying on quicksaves. Either way I really don't feel like playing anymore.
 

AMDZen

Lifer
Apr 15, 2004
12,589
0
76
If you have briarhearts in your inventory when you start this quest you cannot finish it. Also, from that point on any briarheart in your inventory becomes a quest item that you cannot remove or use.

Basically my game was fucked. So I had to load the last time I saved which just so happened to be about 5 hours prior to that point. Like I said it's my fault for not making actual saves and just relying on quicksaves. Either way I really don't feel like playing anymore.

You do realize that one simple console command would fix this right?

Did you even bother googling it?
 

boxleitnerb

Platinum Member
Nov 1, 2011
2,605
6
81
Has this been posted already?

Some guy made a patch that optimizes Skyrims code, replacing x87 with SSE instructions and such. A special program was needed (Skyrim Script Extender, SKSE) but now an independent and improved version of said patch is available:

http://alexander.sannybuilder.com/Files/tes/SkyBoost_r2.zip

This will boost fps in CPU bound areas by as much as 20% (although the author claims 40%, the highest increase I witnessed on my system was roughly 20%). I'm still amazed how one guy can boost the performance of the game by so much. Quite embarrassing for Bethesda...
 
Last edited:

cytoSiN

Platinum Member
Jul 11, 2002
2,262
7
81
Or Bethesda could finally create a game for once without game breaking bugs.

Side-quest breaking ≠ game breaking imo. And asking for perfection from a game this size is an exercise in futility, also imo. Anyway the beauty of the PC version is the ability to console your way out of most (all?) bugs, game breaking or not. The console process isn't exactly self explanatory, but it's easy enough to google (or come here) for help, and it makes the PC version of this and all bethesda games infinitely better than the console versions.
 

shortylickens

No Lifer
Jul 15, 2003
80,287
17,081
136
Got the nice mansion, in Solitude. Now for the arduous task of lugging all my junk from one house to another and figuring out where I'm gonna put everything. Really wish Bethesda had included an inventory sorter. The fact that people keep putting homemade sorters on TES Nexus and FalloutNexus should have clued them in by now. The last 4 games have had them.
Morans.


Also with they hadnt dumbed down the inventory. I miss being able to separate soul stones from everything else. Would also have been nice if they separated ranged from melee, heavy from light, etc.
 

shortylickens

No Lifer
Jul 15, 2003
80,287
17,081
136
Side-quest breaking ≠ game breaking imo. And asking for perfection from a game this size is an exercise in futility, also imo. Anyway the beauty of the PC version is the ability to console your way out of most (all?) bugs, game breaking or not. The console process isn't exactly self explanatory, but it's easy enough to google (or come here) for help, and it makes the PC version of this and all bethesda games infinitely better than the console versions.

Yeah I had a problem with the first Companions quest where Falkar or whatever would not start attacking the Silver Hand. So I had to clip through the gate, run a kill command on him, wipe out everyone myself, then resurrect him to continue things. On the Playstation I would have been screwed.
 

zerocool84

Lifer
Nov 11, 2004
36,041
472
126
Side-quest breaking ? game breaking imo. And asking for perfection from a game this size is an exercise in futility, also imo. Anyway the beauty of the PC version is the ability to console your way out of most (all?) bugs, game breaking or not. The console process isn't exactly self explanatory, but it's easy enough to google (or come here) for help, and it makes the PC version of this and all bethesda games infinitely better than the console versions.

The problem is that it's usually the same bugs over and over in all their games. The game is too addicting to stay away from though.
 

Visaoni

Senior member
May 15, 2008
213
0
0
I guess they never played a TES game before.

I personally agree with you

It isn't just TES games I save like a maniac in. Like TES games aren't known for their stability and lack of bugs, but other issues can crop up that are not issues with the game such as a power outage, BSOD, video driver commits hari kari and refuses to revive itself, hardware issues, and other such things. Such things rarely come up, but it can happen. You can also just forget to save for awhile, and not hit an auto-save point, and die.

Like VulgarDisplay and Hybrid Squirrel losing a decent chunk of progress in a game really demotivates me from going back to the game. I know this about myself, so I've trained myself to save often enough that even a corrupt save is unlikely to put me so far back that I don't want to return to the game.

Plus, sometimes you just really want to go back and try something out, and your current progress in the game precludes you from doing so. Old saves can be really useful then as well.

Or Bethesda could finally create a game for once without game breaking bugs.

As I said above, it isn't just issues with game stability and other bugs that punish lack of consistent saving. And as others have stated, many issues are fixable with console commands. It isn't the prettiest way of doing things, but it will work in a pinch.
 

s1njin

Senior member
Apr 11, 2011
304
0
0
Has this been posted already?

Some guy made a patch that optimizes Skyrims code, replacing x87 with SSE instructions and such. A special program was needed (Skyrim Script Extender, SKSE) but now an independent and improved version of said patch is available:

http://alexander.sannybuilder.com/Files/tes/SkyBoost_r2.zip

This will boost fps in CPU bound areas by as much as 20% (although the author claims 40%, the highest increase I witnessed on my system was roughly 20%). I'm still amazed how one guy can boost the performance of the game by so much. Quite embarrassing for Bethesda...

Anybody else try this?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 

zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
111,864
31,356
146
welp, I've done it. gone and ruined the next 2 or 3 months of general productivity.


current major super gripe--when assigning "hotkeys" to weapon sets, as broken as the vanilla system is, is there any way to make sure that switching between sets (1-8--9 seems to be broken for me), actually retains an offhand item, like shield or 2nd weapon?

whenever i switch from sword/shield or sword/axe to sword/magic, then back to my offhand set, it always retains the magic in my offhand, or unequips my lead weapon. you can't really assign both weapons (or weap+ shield) to the same numbered hotkey, so is there an in-game way to do this, or is this a community fix, somewhere?
 

Markbnj

Elite Member <br>Moderator Emeritus
Moderator
Sep 16, 2005
15,682
14
81
www.markbetz.net
welp, I've done it. gone and ruined the next 2 or 3 months of general productivity.


current major super gripe--when assigning "hotkeys" to weapon sets, as broken as the vanilla system is, is there any way to make sure that switching between sets (1-8--9 seems to be broken for me), actually retains an offhand item, like shield or 2nd weapon?

whenever i switch from sword/shield or sword/axe to sword/magic, then back to my offhand set, it always retains the magic in my offhand, or unequips my lead weapon. you can't really assign both weapons (or weap+ shield) to the same numbered hotkey, so is there an in-game way to do this, or is this a community fix, somewhere?

I've seen the same or similar screw-ups with the hotkeys. I usually just hit it again and it loads the right weaps. However I've run into some situations in a fight where it just stops working at all, and hitting the number does nothing.
 

zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
111,864
31,356
146
I've seen the same or similar screw-ups with the hotkeys. I usually just hit it again and it loads the right weaps. However I've run into some situations in a fight where it just stops working at all, and hitting the number does nothing.

yes, fights are the worst. You can adjust it once, and cycle through and back and all of your sets "working," but as soon as you engage an enemy--say go from bow-dual-sword+magic-dual, the dual sets will always be fucked up. either empty off hand or empty lead hand. really annoying.

also, doesn't save state with saves. I'm not about to consider a console fix, as this isn't something that should be updated every time I try out a new weapon set.

ALready annoyed that I have to re-enter the console command to up my storage weight every time I quick load.

Still--beautiful game. :D