Skyrim crashes. Any advice

[Joseph Harrison]

So I've had the urge to play Skyrim recently but I've been having problems. Basically the game will play fine for a few minutes then it will start to stop randomly just for like a second or two then resume. The audio will continue to play but the screen won't change for like two seconds. After doing this like five or so times the game will suddenly crash to desktop. No error message or anything just crashes.
The weird thing is that this happened with one of my characters at lvl 25 so after the game became virtually unplayable I decided to start a new game and see if that did anything. And oddly enough that worked and the game stopped crashing until that new character reached lvl 25 then his file started crashing. I started a new file and that one won't crash but I don't want to just get this guy to 25 for him to start crashing.
Anyone else experience this problem and know what to do, I checked the Steam forums but no one else seems to be experiencing the same thing.

TL;DR
PC Skyrim game continues to crash once characters reach lvl 25 no matter the graphics settings

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

Got any mods? If so go check the comments sections for the mods you have and see if theres a lot of people there sqwarking about crashes. Some mods cause crashes, some of them do it a lot.

edit: Or maybe just turn them all off and see if the game keeps crashing, reactivating one at a time, duh Fieldy!

 

[museofdoom]

I'm not a PC expert or anything so this is probably really useless advice, but my game on the Ps3 would bug and freeze up terribly and my brother suggested turning auto-save off since all the save files can weigh things down. I turned off auto-save and everything worked perfectly. But yeah, not the same thing as PC so this was probably really dumb advice but I tried. :3

 

[Joseph Harrison]

snip

snip

So I turned off every single mod I had installed and I turned off autosaves and the game still crashes. Its starting to tick me off a bit because Dawngaurd is on sale and I just want to play the freaking game for longer than five minutes.

 

[DrunkenMonkey]

Uninstall-reinstall the game.
Update all your drivers.
As a very last resort reformat your system, although I don't recommend it for a game

 

[MiracleOfSound]

I have this problem with New Vegas. Never found a solution, tried everything

 

[CrazyJew]

1. Remove Skyrim
2. Install Oblivion
3. Play the much superior game

 

[Folksoul]

Quit. Play different game. Boycott Bethesda. It's what I did.

 

[Disturbed-Hell]

Well, seeing as you didn't get any relief from disabling mods, try completely deleteing the skyrim folder, re-install it and try a clean playthrugh as the problem might be a dodgy save or a mod that hasn't uninstalled properly. If you still get problems, make sure that all your drivers are up to date and if that doesn't help, then its most likely a hardware fault/incompatability.

Or skyrim hates you for some reason.

Spoiler

1. Remove Skyrim
2. Install Oblivion
3. Play the much superior game

Quit. Play different game. Boycott Bethesda. It's what I did.

That doesn't actually help, you know.

 

[barbzilla]

Usually an uninstall and checking the drivers helps quite a bit. Make sure you restart your PC after your uninstall, but before you re-install. Try to put a little effort into your mods and their launch order. It can wreck havoc with your ability to start the game sometimes. Other than that, I'm not 100% sure. Those tips usually get me up and running without issues shortly after I have an issue. The other thing is, if you got your game from "alternative" means you may need to check your update version and the launcher version. Not that I advocate borrowing games from friends, this could just be an issue. Also if you are borrowing the game from a friend, shame on you, it is on sale right now for 29.99.

 

[Disturbed-Hell]

Try to put a little effort into your mods and their launch order. It can wreck havoc with your ability to start the game sometimes..

While true, that wont have any effect if there are no mods being loaded. Also 29.99? It's £16 on amazon.

 

[Joseph Harrison]

snip

I've updated my drivers but I'll try uninstalling and reinstalling the game and see what happens. Not looking forward to reformating my system if it comes to that.

snip

nVidia Geoforce GT 620
Intel Core i5-3450 3.10 GHz processor
8 GB Ram
Windows 7 64-bit OS

snip

Yeah, my older brother had a similar problem with New Vegas and I remember how pissed he was, I think he eventually got it resolved so I might ask him what he did.

 

[thesilentman]

So I've had the urge to play Skyrim recently but I've been having problems. Basically the game will play fine for a few minutes then it will start to stop randomly just for like a second or two then resume. The audio will continue to play but the screen won't change for like two seconds. After doing this like five or so times the game will suddenly crash to desktop. No error message or anything just crashes.
The weird thing is that this happened with one of my characters at lvl 25 so after the game became virtually unplayable I decided to start a new game and see if that did anything. And oddly enough that worked and the game stopped crashing until that new character reached lvl 25 then his file started crashing. I started a new file and that one won't crash but I don't want to just get this guy to 25 for him to start crashing.
Anyone else experience this problem and know what to do, I checked the Steam forums but no one else seems to be experiencing the same thing.

TL;DR
PC Skyrim game continues to crash once characters reach lvl 25 no matter the graphics settings

Have you tried verifying the game integrity? And did you install all the redists, updates and patches? Those are the only things that may cause issue with vanilla Skyrim.

If you're playing modded Skyrim, I'm sorry; I never got a chance to play Skyrim modded.

 

[barbzilla]

Try to put a little effort into your mods and their launch order. It can wreck havoc with your ability to start the game sometimes..

While true, that wont have any effect if there are no mods being loaded. Also 29.99? It's £16 on amazon.

It depends, if you are running with texture overrides it can, even if you turn your mods off. That is the number one reason for complete re-installs (though the other 99.9% of the time, you are quite correct). I was only going by the steam sale, I already have it, so I can't be arsed looking about to see if it is cheaper anywhere else. Still though, extra shame if he is boosting his copy.

 

[Frezzato]

I'm not a PC expert or anything so this is probably really useless advice, but my game on the Ps3 would bug and freeze up terribly and my brother suggested turning auto-save off since all the save files can weigh things down. I turned off auto-save and everything worked perfectly. But yeah, not the same thing as PC so this was probably really dumb advice but I tried. :3

I can't believe that after giving up on Skyrim on PS3 three months ago I'm actually playing it again. Thanks to you that is.

Of course, when I started playing it just now I totally forgot the controls. And then an ancient dragon fell on top of me. Luckily I've been using the enchant/armor exploit. I won this round, Bethesda!

 

[Joseph Harrison]

Try to put a little effort into your mods and their launch order. It can wreck havoc with your ability to start the game sometimes..

While true, that wont have any effect if there are no mods being loaded. Also 29.99? It's £16 on amazon.

It depends, if you are running with texture overrides it can, even if you turn your mods off. That is the number one reason for complete re-installs (though the other 99.9% of the time, you are quite correct). I was only going by the steam sale, I already have it, so I can't be arsed looking about to see if it is cheaper anywhere else. Still though, extra shame if he is boosting his copy.

No I bought it through Steam and I'm pretty sure my load orders are fine (although to be completely honest I'm kind of a noob to modding and my only knowledge of load orders is through a GophersVids video).

snip

Have you tried verifying the game integrity? And did you install all the redists, updates and patches? Those are the only things that may cause issue with vanilla Skyrim.

If you're playing modded Skyrim, I'm sorry; I never got a chance to play Skyrim modded.

Sorry if this sounds stupid but I bought it through Steam and I thought Steam updated the game automatically

 

[sanquin]

1. Remove Skyrim
2. Install Oblivion
3. Play the much superior game

Oblivion isn't 'superior' in every way. Combat is better in Skyrim. So are the graphics, even if they used more bland colors. Not to mention the main plot, and the random dungeons. Npc's too have a bit more personality than in Oblivion, if only a little.

Yes Oblivion has a better skill system, better magic, and better models. But it's not 100% superior.

 

[Folksoul]

Well, seeing as you didn't get any relief from disabling mods, try completely deleteing the skyrim folder, re-install it and try a clean playthrugh as the problem might be a dodgy save or a mod that hasn't uninstalled properly. If you still get problems, make sure that all your drivers are up to date and if that doesn't help, then its most likely a hardware fault/incompatability.

Or skyrim hates you for some reason.

Spoiler

1. Remove Skyrim
2. Install Oblivion
3. Play the much superior game

Quit. Play different game. Boycott Bethesda. It's what I did.

That doesn't actually help, you know.

I had a similar problem with the game at launch. Just replace "crashed to desktop" with game completely froze after the character creation was finished. Fully updated software. No mods to be added. Uninstalled and re-installed everything. No change. No damage to the disk. Bethesda shipped a broken product. This was the PS3 version though. The base product didn't work for me. That is quite honestly the best advice I can give. Do not buy from Bethesda. They are thieves.

 

[vun]

Go into Documents > My Games > Skyrim and delete the .ini files there, when you start it again it will generate new ones.
If that doesn't help I would suggest uninstalling it and deleting every trace of it from your system, apart from the savegames, and then reinstalling.