Skyrim Stability Guide - A stable Skyrim is NO myth!

[Comrade Isbariya]

All right guys, as it seemed to help a few people now, I decided to write a short guide on how to make your game run stable and get rid of random CTDs and/or freezes or some other stuff like scriptlags.

I hope this will become a sticky, but I'll add it to my signature anyway.

It's not much, but as long as it helps anyone I'm happy to provide it.

 

- LINKS TO ALL MENTIONED PROGRAMS / PLUGINS ARE PROVIDED IN THE CREDITS SECTION! -

 

If you're still with me, then here ya go!

 

 

 

1. CTDs and random freezes

 

They happen, they are annoying and hard to track sometimes, and the solution is pretty simple.

Go to Nexus page (www.skyrimnexus.com in case you don't know) and enter "crash fix" in the search menu.

Chose the Crash Fixes entry by meh321 and don't forget to endorse, the guy is a genius!

 

Download the fix he provides, and read the description page CAREFULLY! I recommend using "UseOSAllocators=1" in crashplugin.ini and don't fiddle around with anything else experimental. You will have to download and install the preloader for this setting to work, but it is explained on the description page.

 

You may or may not touch your papyrus settings as explained further down on the page, that's up to you, especially if you're having issues with scripts lagging (see part 2. of this guide.)

 

Once you followed installed and tweaked the fix to your likings you should be good to go and all those random CTDs and freezes should be history.

 

There's another file by meh321 called "Bug Fixes" you may be interested in too, although it is not necessary for the crash fix to work.

 

 

 

2. Scriptlags, slow reacting scripts or animations not in sync

 

You may be using a lot of script heavy mods, like frostfall for example, and there are a bunch of other mods that add loads of scripts to you game, that need to be handled at a time. I think I've read somewhere, that Skyrim can't do that anyway and has to line them up one after another. Anyway - if you notice that your scripts take too long to kick in or to stop if they should, if animations aren't in sync anymore, or it takes ages for your characters to undress (especially for your playercharacter) you may have run into papyrus limitations.

 

But before you go ahead and uninstall mods that add scripts to your game, here's somethin you might want to try first:

 

Open your Skyrim.ini, and if they don't exist, add the following lines under the [Papyrus] entry:

 

[Papyrus]

fUpdateBudgetMS=1.2

fExtraTaskletBudgetMS=1.2

fPostLoadUpdateTimeMS=500.0

iMinMemoryPageSize=128

iMaxMemoryPageSize=512

iMaxAllocatedMemoryBytes=76800

 

Save, start your game and enjoy. If that doesn't help, then you really went crazy with scripts. If you know what you're doing you can try to adjust these settings further. If not, I'd advice you to reduce your scriptload by disabling some of your mods.

 

 

 

3. Savegames, the infinite loading screen of doom and instant crashes upon loading a saved game

 

First of all, if you happen to run into the infinite loading screen of doom, go to Nexus page again and search for "SafetyLoad". Follow the instructions and troubleshooting on the description page.

From my personal experience, it shouldn't be necessary anymore if you followed step 1 of this guide - or you may have to set it to 'load only' in the included ini file. I am NOT using this fix, so you will have to find out for yourself. I'm only providing the info that it exists on here!

 

Second, if you use to crash instantly upon loading a saved game, and if you are absolutely sure that it is clean, and that there are no remains of scripts coming from mods you already uninstalled - don't worry, that happens to everyone who has their game highly modded.

 

The bad news is, there's no actual fix for it out there.

The good news is, there's a workaround for it that works like a charm.

 

What you have to do is the following:

Find an older savegame as near to the beginning of the game as you can get, and check if it loads fine.

Alternatively, open the console, type in: coc qasmoke and save there.

Alternative2: Start a new game and quit it after character creation. It should provide an autosave that loads just fine.

 

Once you found a savegame that will load when you just run the game for the first time the day, keep it, and get used to using it as a 'start up' game, before you load your current savegame from here. You'll see, your current game will just load fine and without CTD.

 

As mentioned before, that's the only solution found by the community as of now. The instant crashes upon loading your actual savegame seem to be related to all the stuff the game has to load in one single attempt. If it is too much it will simply crash. Loading a 'clean' or almost 'naked' save file prior to your current file might split the load that Skyrim has to load at once. Thus, if the 'basics' are loaded, the stuff your current savegame adds doesn't seem that heavy anymore and it will load just fine.

 

Lastly, and this is just a note - it should be covered in almost every installation guide already: Old remains of mods already disabled, especially scripts MIGHT harm your savegame. Not only its ability to load at all, they may even prevent some things later into the game from working as intended!

 

It is highly recommended that you do NOT mess around with mods that add more than a simple scriptless armor or weapon in the middle of a playthrough! If you do so anyway, I recommend to actually listen to what hundreds of modders tell you: Make clean installs, and clean your savegames with Savegame Cleaner or whatever tool suits you! Afaik there are 2 or more of them out there.

 

 

 

4. Final note on stability:

It has been said a thousand times before: If your game crashes on startup, before you can even load a savegame or doesn't start at all, or if you experience other oddities you can not track down, use tools like LOOT or BOSS to check your load order! I'm not going to explain how to use them here, as this guide was meant to be just about basic stability, but I didn't want to leave it unsaid.

 

 

 

5. Credits:

 

meh321 for providing his crash fix and the information included.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/72725

Bug Fixes by meh321 if you're interested (optional, see point 1.):

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/76747

 

cretin for posting the papyrus entries somewhere on the forums here.

 

kapaer for crating safety load

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/46465

 

Hadoram for creating the savegame script cleaner:

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/52363/

 

LOOT team for creating LOOT:

https://loot.github.io

 

BOSS team for creating BOSS:

https://boss-developers.github.io

 

Further credits go to all modders that provide proper info until their fingers bleed while too many people seem to ignore them.

 

[vpoteryaev]

Nice.
But for me...
1. I never used any crash fix stuff. Except old ENB v0.153 with UseEffect set to false, so all ENB graphics is turned off. I have ancient GTX 670 and i7-3770K, RAM 8Gb, Win 8.1 Pro 64-bit. All mods (DLCs too), managed by MO, are unpacked from bsa's to loose. All graphics on ultimate and I use HiRes-heavy textures as for environment meshes as for NPCs too. Muli-slot (with HDT jewels, skirts) armor on female-PC and on one female follower without using slot32, both (COS-body) have attached full HDT bounced futa-cocks from my mod - so HDT runs with full load. I extremely rare fall to desctop.
Almost all CTD's that happens with my game (this happens very-very-very-very rare) are related to respawn (seems caused by SkyTEST, SIC, Rebtin Monster etc.). It's sort of CTDs where player with entering in certain cell (or while run into, or jump with map fast travel) that was visited before crashes to desctop.
I think (maybe wrong) that ANY crash-fix mod WILL NOT help you with this issue. If this happens, just do not enter in this cell till next respawn.
2. SexLab Defeat. If NPC-NPC action happened, I'd been constantly catching CTD on save. So I turned off this Defeat actions. Created by Ashal very useful and powerful PackageOverride MUST be used with care and on short time limit.
3. I never used LOOT or BOSS - they are for lazy. And results of using this tools will be in accordance. If you want to have OWN right looking for YOU Skyrim, will be better to use own head and control overwriting with TESVEdit. With using MO you can control file overwites with left and FormID ones with right panel. Just with adding new mod do control about FormID overwites and decide by own which mod have priority FOR YOU. Load order has no matter if there are no overwrites.

Kind Regards.
 

[Comrade Isbariya]

You know, Skyrim can be a true bitch sometimes - modded or unmodded, there are several bugs that seem to apply to some people, while they don't for others,. Even on the exact same setup, one savegame (with the same contents as the other one) can be bugged, while the other one isn't. I had to start a new games five times in a row to be able to buy Vanilla player homes AND be able to marry - for NO specific reason. I didn't change anything between these five tries.

 

For some people, skyrim just works like a charm, for some people it doesn't. Often it's related to some mods causing instability, sometimes it's even related to hardware, wrong drivers, and sometimes it even feels like it's related to the stuff you ate yesterday.

 

Either you're lucky, or you aren't. This is just one way to check out IF you have problems with stability. Either it works for you, or it doesn't, but it doesn't hurt to try if you can't find ANY cause for your CTDs or freezes. I'm not saying that this solves everything.

 

Off course you have to be sensible while installing mods and messing around with them. Off course you have to use your brain (or MO if you prefer so.) I, for example do not use any mod manager for a reason, and I've never run into problems, that I didn't cause by myself, other than these random crashes / freezes I couldn't track down anymore - and the fix mentioned here DID solve it for me.

 

I've not seen any CTD or freeze after that anymore. It helped out a few more people other than me, so I think it's not useless after all.

[jackfrost0987]

kudos on showing people how to make skyrim slightly more stable. I did your load a start save to load the actual save file I wanted to load, which I'm actually surprised it worked since I find its faster to exit skyrim and reopen it when I die. anyways what I'm wondering is how long does that work around work for? are we talking the whole game or just a few more saves

[Halleaon]

for the section on the crash on load save, there was a mod recently that came out on nexus that bypasses this and allows you to just hit continue and have it load your last save without the crash, (it loads a safe-cell then your game on the back end where you can't see it happening)skipping the need to load a safe save first. saves a ton of time. http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/78557/? super useful. it works like a charm for me and made my life 100% easier.

[MataHari]

3. I never used LOOT or BOSS - they are for lazy. And results of using this tools will be in accordance. If you want to have OWN right looking for YOU Skyrim, will be better to use own head and control overwriting with TESVEdit. With using MO you can control file overwites with left and FormID ones with right panel. Just with adding new mod do control about FormID overwites and decide by own which mod have priority FOR YOU. Load order has no matter if there are no overwrites.

 

Kind Regards.

Both BOSS and LOOT are essential tools that provides a stable modded game regardless what kind of mods one are using.

 

Also, a loadorder does matter even there are no files being overwritten.

[jackfrost0987]

for the section on the crash on load save, there was a mod recently that came out on nexus that bypasses this and allows you to just hit continue and have it load your last save without the crash, (it loads a safe-cell then your game on the back end where you can't see it happening)skipping the need to load a safe save first. saves a ton of time. http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/78557/? super useful. it works like a charm for me and made my life 100% easier.

 

Thanks for telling me about the continue game no crash mod it works until skyrim just decides to crash anyways. I have a feeling I need to trim the mod lists down again since I'm only level 3 and already having save problems

[vpoteryaev]

 

3. I never used LOOT or BOSS - they are for lazy. And results of using this tools will be in accordance. If you want to have OWN right looking for YOU Skyrim, will be better to use own head and control overwriting with TESVEdit. With using MO you can control file overwites with left and FormID ones with right panel. Just with adding new mod do control about FormID overwites and decide by own which mod have priority FOR YOU. Load order has no matter if there are no overwrites.

 

Kind Regards.

Both BOSS and LOOT are essential tools that provides a stable modded game regardless what kind of mods one are using.

 

Also, a loadorder does matter even there are no files being overwritten.

 

Anyway, I won't bite for words was said. YOUR OWN BRAIN act BETTER then SOMEBODY'S