Skyrim SexLab - Sex Animation Framework v1.62 - UPDATED Jun 3rd 2016

[Ashal]

The main issue with raising the limit beyond 500 is speed. The more animations you install, the longer it'll take for sex animations to start. And 500 animations is already an excessive amount that is guaranteed to slow things down in SexLab.

 

I'd argue that at 500, you're just installing anything and everything, you'd probably be better served by being more selective with your installed animations and using sexlabs suppress animation system to prevent any installed animation you don't like taking a slot. 

 

Every animation slot added increases the potential for animation problems. I'm already hesitant to have 500 like it does now in this regards. But I recognize enough people have been asking for it that I may increase it to 750 or so next update but no promises; I'll have to do some testing first to see if it can even handle that many without issues.

[Guest]

I understand, thanks for explaining it if it really causes a bad slowdown then I would say you're right not to add it and yea basically I wanted alot of choice so that I would less likely see the same animations being played twice although there are still some animations I don't like but they're few.

[Ashal]

If there are animations you don't like, I would strongly recommend going to the SexLab MCM toggle animations page, disable that specific animation, then go to the last MCM page and click "Suppress Disabled Animations" then clicking the option on that page to reset the animation registry.

 

Once an animation has been entered into the suppressed list this way, they will never show up again, and will not take up any animation slots so you have more room in the current 500 limit.

[Nazzzgul666]

Ah... that's why it takes so long now in my games. I'm not even sure if i should wish for a higher limit, knowing pretty will that i probably can't resist... but that's my responsibility, no reason not to do it imho.

Question: Am i right that SLAL animations installed but not registered to sexlab don't count here for the speed, and for suppressed animations as well?

 

You're wrong though if you believe it's hard today to reach the limit... it would probably be hard to hit 750 immediatly, but only because it's 500 for creatures and 500 for humans. And those limits are quite easy to reach now. Another reason that would stop me from 750 each is the FNIS limit, i'm not too far with pretty much sex animations only and using the XXL version... unless fore offers an XXXL version, at least nobody would exceed 750.

[WraithSlayer]

 

Question: Am i right that SLAL animations installed but not registered to sexlab don't count here for the speed, and for suppressed animations as well?

 

If they're not registered, then SexLab isn't going to be aware of them at all when selecting animations for a scene. The only negative of having SLAL animations installed but not SexLab-registered is that you're filling up FNIS with animations that you're not actually using.

 

 

 

You're wrong though if you believe it's hard today to reach the limit... it would probably be hard to hit 750 immediatly, but only because it's 500 for creatures and 500 for humans. And those limits are quite easy to reach now.

 

Yeah, it's pretty easy to max out the limit nowadays. I have 152 animations suppressed by SexLab, and I'm still at 493/500 registered. I think the main cause for most people is the FunnyBizness' SLAL pack, which not only has an insane number of animations to begin with, but also tends to release tweaks/improvements as new animations instead of updating the existing ones. If you go through that pack to suppress all the similar or outdated animations, you can easily shave off 50-100 of them.

[callierose123]

so the animations aren't working for me at all every time I try to engage in any scene I'm just sanding there moaning like an idiot I don't know what to do

[Nazzzgul666]

so the animations aren't working for me at all every time I try to engage in any scene I'm just sanding there moaning like an idiot I don't know what to do

The first thing you should consider is that you're asking at the completly wrong place. This is the development thread, meant for reporting bugs, suggestions, and status updates.

I think i've answered this questions 20 times per week, could you just read any of those in the help section?

[callierose123]

i still need help fixing the problem with the animations

 

[anony_mouse]

If there are animations you don't like, I would strongly recommend going to the SexLab MCM toggle animations page, disable that specific animation, then go to the last MCM page and click "Suppress Disabled Animations" then clicking the option on that page to reset the animation registry.

 

Once an animation has been entered into the suppressed list this way, they will never show up again, and will not take up any animation slots so you have more room in the current 500 limit.

 

Yeah, I came to this realization as well, and purged all the animations I don't use, and got my game down to just a few dozen animations. I made custom SLAL packs with just the animations I want and suppressed all of SL's built-in animations (other than Leito's).

 

But, all those SL animations are still registered in FNIS and bloating up my game (contributes to game load times and the so called "FootIK Crash"), and the few Leito anims from SL I do want I could just put in my SLAL pack.

 

So I wonder, would there be any consideration to releasing a "lite" version of SexLab that doesn't have any built-in animations at all, for those of use that just want to handle that with SLAL and run a minimal amount of installed animations?

[Skullered]

 

If there are animations you don't like, I would strongly recommend going to the SexLab MCM toggle animations page, disable that specific animation, then go to the last MCM page and click "Suppress Disabled Animations" then clicking the option on that page to reset the animation registry.

 

Once an animation has been entered into the suppressed list this way, they will never show up again, and will not take up any animation slots so you have more room in the current 500 limit.

 

Yeah, I came to this realization as well, and purged all the animations I don't use, and got my game down to just a few dozen animations. I made custom SLAL packs with just the animations I want and suppressed all of SL's built-in animations (other than Leito's).

 

But, all those SL animations are still registered in FNIS and bloating up my game (contributes to game load times and the so called "FootIK Crash"), and the few Leito anims from SL I do want I could just put in my SLAL pack.

 

So I wonder, would there be any consideration to releasing a "lite" version of SexLab that doesn't have any built-in animations at all, for those of use that just want to handle that with SLAL and run a minimal amount of installed animations?

 

 

You could theoretically suppress every default animation and delete SexLab's default animation and behavior files.

[Guest]

 

You could theoretically suppress every default animation and delete SexLab's default animation and behavior files.

 

 

That is a little bit extreme, also because we should support basic users that have no clues how to install other animations.

Maybe a [clean everything] button to simplify the operation, but no more than that.

[Skullered]

 

 

You could theoretically suppress every default animation and delete SexLab's default animation and behavior files.

 

 

That is a little bit extreme, also because we should support basic users that have no clues how to install other animations.

Maybe a [clean everything] button to simplify the operation, but no more than that.

 

 

I meant more for personal use. This shouldn't be default behavior in SexLab, god forbid, I meant if @anony_mouse wanted to only use their own SLAL animations, and not the ones provided in SexLab, they could just suppress all animations as is, and register their own.

[Guest]

 

 

I meant more for personal use. This shouldn't be default behavior in SexLab, god forbid, I meant if @anony_mouse wanted to only use their own SLAL animations, and not the ones provided in SexLab, they could just suppress all animations as is, and register their own.

 

 

Ashal already told the way to do it.

Right now is 4 clicks and a waiting between the 3rd and 4th.

 

The only thing we can think of, that can be ignored by normal users, and not difficult to find for advanced users, is a single button to do it quickly in the admin options.

[anony_mouse]

I don't think you are understanding CPU, the animations are already suppressed like Ashal pointed out. That only speeds up SexLab's scripts and in-game performance, but suppressed animations are still installed to the game and registered via FNIS and SL includes a lot of animations, almost all of which most would probably consider very outdated and low quality compared to the newer stuff from users like Leito and Anub.

 

That's why the question was about a possible "lite" version of SL without any bundled animations (obviously not for the standard release).

 

Suppressing the bundled animations and then simply deleting the assets does seem very extreme, that doesn't really seem like the proper way to do things. I don't know how the mod is going to react if those files are missing, what if you start a new character? What is SL going to do when it initializes? Etc.

 

I don't remember if SL uses a FOMOD installer, but separating the bundled animations from the rest of the mod and letting the user choose which to install, if any, could be a way to do it that covers all bases. Installed by default for standard users but unchecked by more experienced users that don't need those old animations.

 

As we all know, large amounts of animations registered via FNIS increases load times and eventually causes the so called "FootIK crash" where the game crashes to desktop after loading, and you need to load a safe save first or use the "Continue Game No Crash" mod or things like that. Most of the knowledge about these crashes, as well as the fixes, have all been discovered and researched in the last year, after the last SL release (the latest fix, the Load Game CTD fix, was literally just released on the Nexus two days ago), so providing more options about which animations the mod installs seems like it would be a good idea now that people are aware that too many registered animations causes loading related problems in the vanilla game.

[Skullered]

Suppressing the bundled animations and then simply deleting the assets does seem very extreme, that doesn't really seem like the proper way to do things. I don't know how the mod is going to react if those files are missing, what if you start a new character? What is SL going to do when it initializes? Etc.

Ah, right, I forgot about the requirement checks in the MCM before you even install SL. SL does seem to use a few custom animations when starting and ending animations it seems, so I guess it isn't that simple besides editing the FNIS behaviors yourself.

[callierose123]

can anyone help me get the animations working please

[WaxenFigure]

I don't think you are understanding CPU, the animations are already suppressed like Ashal pointed out. That only speeds up SexLab's scripts and in-game performance, but suppressed animations are still installed to the game and registered via FNIS and SL includes a lot of animations, almost all of which most would probably consider very outdated and low quality compared to the newer stuff from users like Leito and Anub.

 

That's why the question was about a possible "lite" version of SL without any bundled animations (obviously not for the standard release).

 

Suppressing the bundled animations and then simply deleting the assets does seem very extreme, that doesn't really seem like the proper way to do things. I don't know how the mod is going to react if those files are missing, what if you start a new character? What is SL going to do when it initializes? Etc.

 

I don't remember if SL uses a FOMOD installer, but separating the bundled animations from the rest of the mod and letting the user choose which to install, if any, could be a way to do it that covers all bases. Installed by default for standard users but unchecked by more experienced users that don't need those old animations.

 

As we all know, large amounts of animations registered via FNIS increases load times and eventually causes the so called "FootIK crash" where the game crashes to desktop after loading, and you need to load a safe save first or use the "Continue Game No Crash" mod or things like that. Most of the knowledge about these crashes, as well as the fixes, have all been discovered and researched in the last year, after the last SL release (the latest fix, the Load Game CTD fix, was literally just released on the Nexus two days ago), so providing more options about which animations the mod installs seems like it would be a good idea now that people are aware that too many registered animations causes loading related problems in the vanilla game.

Perhaps a better solution would be a utility program that reads the file from the Sexlab Framework of the suppressed animations and then finds the SLAL and FNIS files for those animations and removes them (keeping a backup of course).

[MadMansGun]

Perhaps a better solution would be a utility program that reads the file from the Sexlab Framework of the suppressed animations and then finds the SLAL and FNIS files for those animations and removes them (keeping a backup of course).

for that to work it would need to update the FNIS_list files and autorun the generatefnisformodders.exe & GenerateFNISforUsers.exe, and then somehow remove the corresponding animation scripts in SexLab (or edit the json files if it's a SLAL animation)

 

Skyrim/SexLab's pex files and SLAL's json files are not the same thing, your asking for a hell of a lot out of one magical program.

[gmooh]

Hi guys,

 

Developed a problem I cant seem to pinpoint. 

 

Having out of memory crashes when Sexlab changes stages or poses or whatever. Rarely am I able to complete a full animation set before I get that damned *DING*. From what I can tell I still have over a gig of ram before hitting the cap but I keep getting out of memory crashes when the characters are trying to change positions.

 

Not sure if its related or not but another thing its doing on this version it didn't do as much on older versions is when changing positions the characters will often stand then warp into position. This might happen 1, 2, 3 times before settling down into whatever the animation actually is. 

 

Any suggestions?

[anony_mouse]

 

Perhaps a better solution would be a utility program that reads the file from the Sexlab Framework of the suppressed animations and then finds the SLAL and FNIS files for those animations and removes them (keeping a backup of course).

for that to work it would need to update the FNIS_list files and autorun the generatefnisformodders.exe & GenerateFNISforUsers.exe, and then somehow remove the corresponding animation scripts in SexLab (or edit the json files if it's a SLAL animation)

 

Skyrim/SexLab's pex files and SLAL's json files are not the same thing, your asking for a hell of a lot out of one magical program.

 

Yeah, since you need to run FNIS to deal with animations, this is really more of an install question then a mod configuration or tool question.

 

Hi guys,

 

Developed a problem I cant seem to pinpoint. 

 

Having out of memory crashes when Sexlab changes stages or poses or whatever. Rarely am I able to complete a full animation set before I get that damned *DING*. From what I can tell I still have over a gig of ram before hitting the cap but I keep getting out of memory crashes when the characters are trying to change positions.

 

Not sure if its related or not but another thing its doing on this version it didn't do as much on older versions is when changing positions the characters will often stand then warp into position. This might happen 1, 2, 3 times before settling down into whatever the animation actually is. 

 

Any suggestions?

The standing and then resetting the animation only happens when you start an animation on stage 1, or switch to another animation on stage 1, or go back to stage 1. It was put in intentionally in the last version to solve alignment problems where the actors would sometimes float in the air or things like that.

 

Actually, I think that could be implemented better. Doing it every time you activate stage 1 of any anim is really annoying for those of us using manual control of stages and animation switching, and I was already thinking about changing that part of the script because it's so annoying. It seems like something that only needs to be done when a scene is first started, not every time you activate stage 1 (by going back or switching anims).

 

About your out of memory windows errors... actually that's a poorly worded Windows OS error prompt. When Windows gives you that out of memory prompt, it's actually talking about the page file/virtual memory, not RAM. Windows will generally not fill up RAM all the way, if you are low on RAM it will start relying on the page file more, and when that fills up, it gives you the out of memory error. You could try increasing the size of your page file more, but using the page file results in poor performance. The best thing to do, if possible, would be to increase your RAM.

[gmooh]

 

 

Hi guys,

 

Developed a problem I cant seem to pinpoint. 

 

Having out of memory crashes when Sexlab changes stages or poses or whatever. Rarely am I able to complete a full animation set before I get that damned *DING*. From what I can tell I still have over a gig of ram before hitting the cap but I keep getting out of memory crashes when the characters are trying to change positions.

 

Not sure if its related or not but another thing its doing on this version it didn't do as much on older versions is when changing positions the characters will often stand then warp into position. This might happen 1, 2, 3 times before settling down into whatever the animation actually is. 

 

Any suggestions?

The standing and then resetting the animation only happens when you start an animation on stage 1, or switch to another animation on stage 1, or go back to stage 1. It was put in intentionally in the last version to solve alignment problems where the actors would sometimes float in the air or things like that.

 

Actually, I think that could be implemented better. Doing it every time you activate stage 1 of any anim is really annoying for those of us using manual control of stages and animation switching, and I was already thinking about changing that part of the script because it's so annoying. It seems like something that only needs to be done when a scene is first started, not every time you activate stage 1 (by going back or switching anims).

 

About your out of memory windows errors... actually that's a poorly worded Windows OS error prompt. When Windows gives you that out of memory prompt, it's actually talking about the page file/virtual memory, not RAM. Windows will generally not fill up RAM all the way, if you are low on RAM it will start relying on the page file more, and when that fills up, it gives you the out of memory error. You could try increasing the size of your page file more, but using the page file results in poor performance. The best thing to do, if possible, would be to increase your RAM.

 

It's not my machine that's running out of ram, it has 16gig, it's my machine is cursed with Win 10 and its 4gig DX9 limit.

 

The mod CrashFixes is what's throwing the out of memory message at me. Without it I just go *poof* to desktop. 

 

My old much much crappier computer could handle this game much better than this one with a lot more memory hogging mods than I'm using now, and the more I read up on this the more confused I get.

 

Win 10 has a 4.066gig ram hard cap on DX9 apps. I've just read something about Skyrim actually has a 3.1gig ram limit, but if that's the case even with Win 7 we couldn't mod this game much at all, but I see everywhere and have done it myself much heavier modded games than my current setup. Currently I'm using from 2.5 - 3gig of ram which should be OK with the 4gig limit I would think, but if it's actually 3.1gig then yeah I can see it spiking a bit while changing animations. But again, that 3.1 thing applies to any version of Windows so how in Oblivion did I ever run it on my old Win 7 machine?

[031599450]

Hello!!!

My computer have virus WNCry and must reinstall windows but after i reinstall SexLab Framework v162 FULL i see i lost file "AnimationProfile_1.json". And animation wont work. Some one can share for me your "AnimationProfile_1.json"??

Thank you.

 

[WaxenFigure]

 

Perhaps a better solution would be a utility program that reads the file from the Sexlab Framework of the suppressed animations and then finds the SLAL and FNIS files for those animations and removes them (keeping a backup of course).

for that to work it would need to update the FNIS_list files and autorun the generatefnisformodders.exe & GenerateFNISforUsers.exe, and then somehow remove the corresponding animation scripts in SexLab (or edit the json files if it's a SLAL animation)

 

Skyrim/SexLab's pex files and SLAL's json files are not the same thing, your asking for a hell of a lot out of one magical program.

 

Nope, you are overcomplicating it. You need only remove the animation from the text files FNIS uses and from the corresponding text files SLAL uses. There's no need to be screwing around in the scripts for Sexlab (it will NOT try to do anything with animations that are excluded already) and there's no need to run the modders utility (I checked this by hand editing one of the files).

 

You only need to remove them from the SLAL files just to keep the people who forgot they disabled a particular animation from trying to register it again.

[anony_mouse]

 

 

Perhaps a better solution would be a utility program that reads the file from the Sexlab Framework of the suppressed animations and then finds the SLAL and FNIS files for those animations and removes them (keeping a backup of course).

for that to work it would need to update the FNIS_list files and autorun the generatefnisformodders.exe & GenerateFNISforUsers.exe, and then somehow remove the corresponding animation scripts in SexLab (or edit the json files if it's a SLAL animation)

 

Skyrim/SexLab's pex files and SLAL's json files are not the same thing, your asking for a hell of a lot out of one magical program.

 

Nope, you are overcomplicating it. You need only remove the animation from the text files FNIS uses and from the corresponding text files SLAL uses. There's no need to be screwing around in the scripts for Sexlab (it will NOT try to do anything with animations that are excluded already) and there's no need to run the modders utility (I checked this by hand editing one of the files).

 

You only need to remove them from the SLAL files just to keep the people who forgot they disabled a particular animation from trying to register it again.

 

 

I don't know, I think think installing a full version of SL with a ton of anims and then manually get rid of the anims afterwards seems like the overcomplicated solution. It seems far better to simply not install those animations in the first place, never registering them via FNIS, and having all this done in a way that SL expects. Also, I don't know what SLAL has to do with SL's built-in animations, removing what from SLAL exactly?

 

 

 

 

Hi guys,

 

Developed a problem I cant seem to pinpoint. 

 

Having out of memory crashes when Sexlab changes stages or poses or whatever. Rarely am I able to complete a full animation set before I get that damned *DING*. From what I can tell I still have over a gig of ram before hitting the cap but I keep getting out of memory crashes when the characters are trying to change positions.

 

Not sure if its related or not but another thing its doing on this version it didn't do as much on older versions is when changing positions the characters will often stand then warp into position. This might happen 1, 2, 3 times before settling down into whatever the animation actually is. 

 

Any suggestions?

The standing and then resetting the animation only happens when you start an animation on stage 1, or switch to another animation on stage 1, or go back to stage 1. It was put in intentionally in the last version to solve alignment problems where the actors would sometimes float in the air or things like that.

 

Actually, I think that could be implemented better. Doing it every time you activate stage 1 of any anim is really annoying for those of us using manual control of stages and animation switching, and I was already thinking about changing that part of the script because it's so annoying. It seems like something that only needs to be done when a scene is first started, not every time you activate stage 1 (by going back or switching anims).

 

About your out of memory windows errors... actually that's a poorly worded Windows OS error prompt. When Windows gives you that out of memory prompt, it's actually talking about the page file/virtual memory, not RAM. Windows will generally not fill up RAM all the way, if you are low on RAM it will start relying on the page file more, and when that fills up, it gives you the out of memory error. You could try increasing the size of your page file more, but using the page file results in poor performance. The best thing to do, if possible, would be to increase your RAM.

 

It's not my machine that's running out of ram, it has 16gig, it's my machine is cursed with Win 10 and its 4gig DX9 limit.

 

The mod CrashFixes is what's throwing the out of memory message at me. Without it I just go *poof* to desktop. 

 

My old much much crappier computer could handle this game much better than this one with a lot more memory hogging mods than I'm using now, and the more I read up on this the more confused I get.

 

Win 10 has a 4.066gig ram hard cap on DX9 apps. I've just read something about Skyrim actually has a 3.1gig ram limit, but if that's the case even with Win 7 we couldn't mod this game much at all, but I see everywhere and have done it myself much heavier modded games than my current setup. Currently I'm using from 2.5 - 3gig of ram which should be OK with the 4gig limit I would think, but if it's actually 3.1gig then yeah I can see it spiking a bit while changing animations. But again, that 3.1 thing applies to any version of Windows so how in Oblivion did I ever run it on my old Win 7 machine?

 

 

I see what you are saying now, your problem is not about system RAM specifically (it's about VRAM mapping) but there are ways to fix it. You can either switch to the Windows 10 insider build (not really recommended but you can do it) which will fix the issue immediately, but may cause other problems (especially if you use Mod Organizer) or you can wait until the Fall Creator's Update for Windows 10 which will fix your issue. (or you could dual boot Windows 7)

 

Let me explain everything that is happening since you are mixing different things up.

 

Skyrim is a 32-bit program, which means it can't address more than 4GB of RAM (actually about 3.1GB in practice for technical reasons). This is only a limit for system RAM, NOT VRAM which most people don't understand. VRAM is not addressed by the game directly, the game simply asks for a buffer and the graphics API (in this case Direct3D 9) manages the VRAM. So with vanilla Skyrim, out of the box on Windows 7 or earlier, Skyrim can use 3.1GB of RAM and theoretically unlimited amounts of VRAM. However, in practice, this can't happen because of how Direct3D 9 (part of DirectX 9) works - all assets like textures that are loaded into VRAM are also kept in RAM. Everything gets loaded into RAM first and then copied into VRAM, and the copy is also kept in RAM. So, unlike Skyrim Special Edition (which uses DX11), you can't have a situation where the game is using 2GB of RAM but 5GB of VRAM, in order for the game to use 5GB of VRAM, the RAM usage must also be at least 5GB (and actually it will be higher, because the game uses system RAM for more than textures to copy into VRAM). So in effect, because it's a 32-bit game that's limited to 3.1 GB of RAM, and because it uses DX9 which mirrors VRAM assets in RAM as well, the RAM limitations are holding VRAM back - which gives a lot of people the false idea that the 32-bit memory limit applies to both RAM and VRAM. It doesn't. There actually is a way to actually get vanilla Skyrim (without ENBoost) to use more than 3.1GB of VRAM while still being constrained by the 3.1GB system RAM limit, because VRAM is used for more than just storing texture assets. It's also used for things like antialiasing, so if you use something like Nvidia Inspector to force vanilla Skyrim to use ordered grid supersampling antialiasing (a secret feature for DirectX games only that Nvidia hides in its official Control Panel because of how resource-hungry this feature is - not compatible with ENB though), you can force really high VRAM usage that has nothing to do with actually loading assets into VRAM.

 

So... next, there's ENBoost, which circumvents Skyrim's 3.1 GB RAM limit by using helper processes to hold assets for TESV.exe. WIth ENBoost, the game can use as much system RAM as it needs, which then allows the game to finally be able to use over 4GB of VRAM (on Windows 7) which it had the ability to do all along. With ENBoost on Windows 7, you'll be able to use your 16GB of RAM and however much VRAM you have without those memory errors (like me, I have Skyrim installed on Windows 7 and never get those errors, and my heavily modded game uses over 7GB of both VRAM and system RAM during peak usage, though generally more in the 4 to 5 GB range).

 

And finally, there's the Windows 8 and Windows 10 problem, which has nothing to do with system RAM or 32-bit. Like I said before, Skyrim does not manage or address VRAM - that's handled by DirectX. And DirectX 9 was always designed to be able to provide any game, including 32-bit, with as much VRAM as available (I don't know the exact limit if it exists, maybe 128 GB? It's probably in MS documentation somewhere). Then, with Windows 8, Microsoft intentionally put a 4GB VRAM limit on DX9 (or rather, intentionally undid the mechanism which allowed more than 4GB of VRAM usage - DirectX would report a certain amount of VRAM to the game and whenever that filled up it would just provide another 4GB and keep repeating) because they thought no DX9 app would need more than 4GB of VRAM anyway and they thought it would be safer to just limit it. This problem persisted into Windows 10.

 

Finally, a MS engineer on the DirectX team was made aware of this issue recently, that some DX9 games do need more than 4GB of VRAM, and he quickly fixed the 4GB VRAM limit "bug" (actually someone's intentional design choice). The fix has already been rolled out on the Windows 10 Insider Builds, which anyone can activate, though this means you're basically using a beta version of Windows 10. People that have used the insider builds have already reported it works fine, but the Insider Builds have unrelated issues with Mod Organizer. For everyone else, the fix will be rolled out in the Fall Creator's Update.

 

Wheeew... that was a long explanation. But, since I see so much confusion and misinformation about this matter, I felt like I should post what I know. 

 

In short, if you want to get rid of all memory related issues (as much as possible) with 32-bit Skyrim, you need the following 3 key things:

1) Properly configured ENBoost (so the game can use as much system RAM as it needs, which in turns doesn't hold back VRAM usage)

2) Crash Fixes with UseOSAllocators enabled (so the game can load large amounts of assets into memory without crashing)

3) An OS with a properly implemented version of DirectX 9 (Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 10 with the fix - Windows 8 will never work).

 

 

Finally, and don't hold me to this, but I heard some people saying that if you switch to the Windows 10 insider build and then switch back to the regular version, the DirectX 9 fix stays. If that's true, that could be a way to get the fix now without dealing with a beta version of WIndows for several months... but don't get mad at me if it doesn't work, and make a backup of your drive if you decide to try it.

[gmooh]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hi guys,

 

 

 

 

I see what you are saying now, your problem is not about system RAM specifically (it's about VRAM mapping) but there are ways to fix it. You can either switch to the Windows 10 insider build (not really recommended but you can do it) which will fix the issue immediately, but may cause other problems (especially if you use Mod Organizer) or you can wait until the Fall Creator's Update for Windows 10 which will fix your issue. (or you could dual boot Windows 7)

 

Let me explain everything that is happening since you are mixing different things up.

 

Skyrim is a 32-bit program, which means it can't address more than 4GB of RAM (actually about 3.1GB in practice for technical reasons). This is only a limit for system RAM, NOT VRAM which most people don't understand. VRAM is not addressed by the game directly, the game simply asks for a buffer and the graphics API (in this case Direct3D 9) manages the VRAM. So with vanilla Skyrim, out of the box on Windows 7 or earlier, Skyrim can use 3.1GB of RAM and theoretically unlimited amounts of VRAM. However, in practice, this can't happen because of how Direct3D 9 (part of DirectX 9) works - all assets like textures that are loaded into VRAM are also kept in RAM. Everything gets loaded into RAM first and then copied into VRAM, and the copy is also kept in RAM. So, unlike Skyrim Special Edition (which uses DX11), you can't have a situation where the game is using 2GB of RAM but 5GB of VRAM, in order for the game to use 5GB of VRAM, the RAM usage must also be at least 5GB (and actually it will be higher, because the game uses system RAM for more than textures to copy into VRAM). So in effect, because it's a 32-bit game that's limited to 3.1 GB of RAM, and because it uses DX9 which mirrors VRAM assets in RAM as well, the RAM limitations are holding VRAM back - which gives a lot of people the false idea that the 32-bit memory limit applies to both RAM and VRAM. It doesn't. There actually is a way to actually get vanilla Skyrim (without ENBoost) to use more than 3.1GB of VRAM while still being constrained by the 3.1GB system RAM limit, because VRAM is used for more than just storing texture assets. It's also used for things like antialiasing, so if you use something like Nvidia Inspector to force vanilla Skyrim to use ordered grid supersampling antialiasing (a secret feature for DirectX games only that Nvidia hides in its official Control Panel because of how resource-hungry this feature is - not compatible with ENB though), you can force really high VRAM usage that has nothing to do with actually loading assets into VRAM.

 

So... next, there's ENBoost, which circumvents Skyrim's 3.1 GB RAM limit by using helper processes to hold assets for TESV.exe. WIth ENBoost, the game can use as much system RAM as it needs, which then allows the game to finally be able to use over 4GB of VRAM (on Windows 7) which it had the ability to do all along. With ENBoost on Windows 7, you'll be able to use your 16GB of RAM and however much VRAM you have without those memory errors (like me, I have Skyrim installed on Windows 7 and never get those errors, and my heavily modded game uses over 7GB of both VRAM and system RAM during peak usage, though generally more in the 4 to 5 GB range).

 

And finally, there's the Windows 8 and Windows 10 problem, which has nothing to do with system RAM or 32-bit. Like I said before, Skyrim does not manage or address VRAM - that's handled by DirectX. And DirectX 9 was always designed to be able to provide any game, including 32-bit, with as much VRAM as available (I don't know the exact limit if it exists, maybe 128 GB? It's probably in MS documentation somewhere). Then, with Windows 8, Microsoft intentionally put a 4GB VRAM limit on DX9 (or rather, intentionally undid the mechanism which allowed more than 4GB of VRAM usage - DirectX would report a certain amount of VRAM to the game and whenever that filled up it would just provide another 4GB and keep repeating) because they thought no DX9 app would need more than 4GB of VRAM anyway and they thought it would be safer to just limit it. This problem persisted into Windows 10.

 

Finally, a MS engineer on the DirectX team was made aware of this issue recently, that some DX9 games do need more than 4GB of VRAM, and he quickly fixed the 4GB VRAM limit "bug" (actually someone's intentional design choice). The fix has already been rolled out on the Windows 10 Insider Builds, which anyone can activate, though this means you're basically using a beta version of Windows 10. People that have used the insider builds have already reported it works fine, but the Insider Builds have unrelated issues with Mod Organizer. For everyone else, the fix will be rolled out in the Fall Creator's Update.

 

Wheeew... that was a long explanation. But, since I see so much confusion and misinformation about this matter, I felt like I should post what I know. 

 

In short, if you want to get rid of all memory related issues (as much as possible) with 32-bit Skyrim, you need the following 3 key things:

1) Properly configured ENBoost (so the game can use as much system RAM as it needs, which in turns doesn't hold back VRAM usage)

2) Crash Fixes with UseOSAllocators enabled (so the game can load large amounts of assets into memory without crashing)

3) An OS with a properly implemented version of DirectX 9 (Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 10 with the fix - Windows 8 will never work).

 

 

Finally, and don't hold me to this, but I heard some people saying that if you switch to the Windows 10 insider build and then switch back to the regular version, the DirectX 9 fix stays. If that's true, that could be a way to get the fix now without dealing with a beta version of WIndows for several months... but don't get mad at me if it doesn't work, and make a backup of your drive if you decide to try it.

 

WHOA!

 

Believe it or not but I understand what your talking about, I just haven't seen anything on this insiders build or an update in the Fall. What I have seen is people yelling, no screaming at Microsoft from day one about DX9 and WIn8 - 10. Just where has this engineer been?!?! He's certainly no gamer, GEEZ!

 

I've tried dual boot and I've been so very very frustrated with all things Win 10 I even tried just completely removing it with a fresh copy of Win 7 but the SOB'es got me there too. Apparently my hardware is so new that they have totally locked it out from supporting Win 7. Nothing wrong with my hardware, Microsoft has intentionally blocked my mother board from supporting WIn 7.  Just don't understand why Microsoft insist on killing themselves with the attitude of they know what we want and need more than we do so eat it an like it. My next machine will be a Mac, whatever it takes to make it work, as long as its not windows, I'm done! If they (whoever) finally figure out the quantum computers, please, please, don't go to Windows for an OS....PLEASE!

 

Anyways, I am using ENBOOST and Crash Fixes and any other any thing they suggested, It's just apparently still not enough to over come my "working as intended" limitations.

 

Thank you very much for the info. I'll start looking up the insiders build and fall update. I was just hoping I was missing something since I had more working on a much less machine.