Game tends to freeze when using 4 or more followers

[Mud]

So I wanted to travel around Skyrim in a five-man band, and used Extensible Follower Framework to recruit mod-added followers. Trouble is, my game seems to freeze, and on occasion crash, after some time of playing if I go through a door to another area while I have four followers, making me have to use the Task Manager to force Skyrim to end. I'm pretty sure the game isn't exceeding my available memory, as I have around 2.5GB free for Skyrim and it just happens randomly while the game is using anywhere from 1.5GB to 1.9GB, but I can't be certain. I can also load the save and continue just fine afterward.

 

The game also exhibits similar freezing habits if I encounter a large group of NPCs duking it out in my travels, due to Occupy Skyrim or ASIS and Monster Wars creating huge battles, but those I'm thinking are more due to memory limitations.

 

 

Does anyone know what could be causing this, or what I can do to get around it?

 

 

 

Hmm... looking a little closer, it seems as if it happens as my followers attempt to use a custom idle... they'll come out the door, shift a little, and then the game locks up just before they start idling. What could be causing freezes at random moments when they try to idle after changing locations?

[Kashiwaba Tomoe]

Far as I know, having more people in a fight, or following you, causes a massive slowdown due to poor optimization of the AI, dunno if thats true in skyrim, but considering bethesdas tendency to NOT improve massive bugs game after game, I bet it is.

 

Basically, bethesda are faggots.

[Mud]

So this happens even with three followers. I'm inclined to believe something in the scripts is causing this hangup now. It never happens right away, it's always a couple of seconds after changing areas.

[Spyder Arachnid]

Could also be caused by using custom outfits. Especially when there is a bunch of you walking into a new area together.

 

The game has to load all those custom armors whenever you load a new area. So if every single one of your followers is wearing a custom outfit and custom weapons, the game might hangup a bit trying to load everyone's outfit.

 

I get a small bit of freezing when I walk into Proudspire Manor cause I have my Housecarl, Wife, and two Followers there. Plus all the mannequins downstairs, everyone is wearing a custom outfit. So the game hangs a bit when I zone into my house as it has to load all those armors, clothes, weapons, etc each time I enter.

 

Or it could be something else entirely. Just an idea of what it might be.

[Mud]

Hmm.. could it simply be a memory issue after all? It seems to be unrelated to followers after all, as a new game I started froze a few seconds after entering Whiterun, which is now rather busy because of all the extra plants and trees and crap added by a mod, plus female NPC makeovers, clothing replacers, and such. But if so, that's still odd, because my memory use never comes close to my limit, and most of the time I can run around the area with no issues, until a random kerplop happens and my game hits the fan.

[sbire]

pls show us your system specs like RAM and CPU

 

because it sounds like a ram issue.

i have 8GB ram, so skyrim have 4GB to use, garanteed.

if i have up to 4 or more followers, my client crashes during entering some high populated cells, like markarth, rifton, rift, reach, etc...

 

[spoiler=my unstable amount of followers]

 

 

for now i changed back to a max of 3 followers.

[Mud]

4GB memory and an AMD Phenom II X4 955 CPU. According to the Resource Monitor I have 2.1 to 2.5GB free when I start up the game, depending on if I'm using my internet browser at the time (usually not), and freezes occur even if my game is only using 1.5GB. Freezes do seem to tend to occur in populated areas but they even occur in dungeons sometimes, when memory use is fairly low, and my memory use rarely goes to 2GB anyway.

[CrimsonOmegaLance]

Yeah, I get this problem as well. I'll load into a new area, and then before my four companions TP in, the game crashes. Thankfully, the autosave triggers when I enter the new area most of the time so when I load Skyrim back up, I'll be in the new area and my companions will load in without crashing.

[sbire]

4GB memory and an AMD Phenom II X4 955 CPU. According to the Resource Monitor I have 2.1 to 2.5GB free when I start up the game' date=' depending on if I'm using my internet browser at the time (usually not), and freezes occur even if my game is only using 1.5GB. Freezes do seem to tend to occur in populated areas but they even occur in dungeons sometimes, when memory use is fairly low, and my memory use rarely goes to 2GB anyway.

[/quote']

 

how did you get these informations about ram usage during the game?

 

windows task manager (forget it, doesn't show the real thing) or a extern tool like aida64 or a desktop widget?

[Mud]

Using this thing, Skyrim -Elys- MemInfo

[Mud]

Well, it definitely isn't a memory problem, I upgraded to 8GB and it still happens.

 

Alt-tabbing to recover from the freezes is a lot faster now, though.

[gregathit]

Skyrim isn't optimized for multiple followers. It has trouble with just one! Adding more the mix just makes things worse. This has been a problem with every single bethesda release to date. Clearly they have not figured out how to successfully work followers into the game so that they are seamless. It is a case of either living with 1 or suffering through the havoc with more than one. Perhaps one of the many talented mod makers will figure out how to fix things.

[Mud]

Yeah, I figured adding more followers would cause instability, but there's been cases where it happens without any followers as well. As if it's trying to load the cell and for some reason just randomly conks out every once in a while. It must be a mod that's doing it. I had hoped otherwise, but it looks like I'll have to slowly deactivate things until it stops.

[Mud]

Curious... deactivating Enhanced Blood Textures seems to have made my game much more stable. I still freeze or crash on occasion, but not quite as much. Looking at the kind of mod it is, it doesn't seem like a conflict... does it just cause problems for some people?

[gregathit]

Curious... deactivating Enhanced Blood Textures seems to have made my game much more stable. I still freeze or crash on occasion' date=' but not quite as much. Looking at the kind of mod it is, it doesn't seem like a conflict... does it just cause problems for some people?

[/quote']

 

Anything that adds or enhances meshes\textures to the game can potentially slow it down. There is another blood mod out there called crimson tide blood (it is over at the nexus) and it does not seem to cause me any problems. You could try it to see if that works.