Skyrim - Memory Patch

Couchpotato

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A modder by the name of sheson has released a new memory patch that allows Skyrim to fix infinite loading screens, and other memory related CTD freezes.

Time for Skyrim Memory Patch 3.0

It has been a while since the first memory patch that fixed 4GB LAA that made it into the official game. Thanks to Boris we have the second memory patch ENBoost taking care of textures not wasting main memory anymore. In this naming tradition this third memory patch will allow Skyrim to use that available space right from the start to fix ILS (infinite loading screen) without side effects and other memory related CTD (crashes to desktop) or freezes. After many hours of peeking and poking it turns out there is a simple fix and one has to wonder why this is not something that is implemented as an option or parameter for the PC version of the game.​

How it works

When tesv.exe is started it allocates two 256MB blocks of memory. When the first block gets full, the engine will allocate more blocks. This can cause the known troubles. Thankfully, by telling the engine to request a bigger block from the start it magically makes use of it without any further ado. This isn't the case with the second block. Thankfully again, the second block does not fill up as quickly and once it is full the engine does not trip over itself when allocating more blocks.

To make the engine allocate a larger block of memory it needs to be patched. This needs to happen very early in the process. This can not be done by a SKSE plugin because they are executed much later. However, SKSE loader already patches tesv.exe before the game starts and since SKSE sources are provided adding the patch is straight forward.
More information.
 
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Hum, hope this one helps with my Skyrim. After I purchased Dragonborn, the game keeps crashing after I entered the DLC area (especially in that temple area...) and I have lots of mods
 
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gandalf, Skyrim with official DLC never crashed on me. But I used only two mods (norespawn and SkyUI). Are you certain crashes were caused by not enough memory available or memory leak?

This history repeating MS-DOS HIMEM thing… I really don't see the point of it. Why "fixing" something that is not broken? DOS was broken because a certain multimillionaire CEO had a dream it's enough to use max 640K of available RAM. Why ppl think Skyrim's memory usage (that was patched officially) is left broken and needs modding?
 
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gandalf, Skyrim with official DLC never crashed on me. But I used only two mods (norespawn and SkyUI). Are you certain crashes were caused by not enough memory available or memory leak?

This history repeating MS-DOS HIMEM thing… I really don't see the point of it. Why "fixing" something that is not broken? DOS was broken because a certain multimillionaire CEO had a dream it's enough to use max 640K of available RAM. Why ppl think Skyrim's memory usage (that was patched officially) is left broken and needs modding?
Don't know, I was using a lot of mods and until Hearthfire the game was relatively stable, then I stopped playing some months, buyed Dragonborn in a promo, updated some mods in the meantime and when I entered the isle from the DLC the game keeps crashing a lot, especially in the area of that big temple (ex: that first quest when you need to enter inside it with a NPC, when I tried to leave in the opposite side, the game always crashed, I only managed to leave using the console command to go to some external area and every time I go near the temple the game crashes and other parts too). Don't now if the problem is being caused by excess of mods or one of them is causing instability
 
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Hum, hope this one helps with my Skyrim. After I purchased Dragonborn, the game keeps crashing after I entered the DLC area (especially in that temple area…) and I have lots of mods

If you are using a lot of mods and really want to experience Dragonborn you're stuck with the task of figuring out which mods are breaking Dragonborn. I played Skyrim with very few mods and never had any memory issues and I'm using 4GB Windows 7 PC built in 2008 - so it's not exactly new or powerful by today's standards. But Dragonborn was a fun DLC I recommend taking the time to figure out which mod(s) is causing you problems so you can play it.

DOS was broken because a certain multimillionaire CEO had a dream it's enough to use max 640K of available RAM.

This is a completely off-topic response, but wow that comment lacks perspective. I say this without prejudice and in the spirit of fair debate AND as someone who really loathed the DOS era.
 
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I haven't looked in to this too much as I haven't ever had memory problems but I don't think this is for people running vanilla skyrim or just a few mods.

I got the impression that it's for people that want to run 100+ mods with a fully tweaked .ini, ugrids 9,11,13 etc and an enb. As I said I haven't looked into it extensively but that's the impression I got.

Maybe Wolfgrim could shed some light on this as he mods even more than I and I believe has even made some mods.
 
I created the DLL the other day and it is working very nicely - it isn't meant to give more memory but in stead to allocate more memory in the first block for starting and loading the game from what I have read. In general it prevents skyrim from stumbling over itself due to lack of initial memory. Consequently less (or no) CTD,s and ILS's and I have seen slightly faster load up times.

I don't mess with ugrids, just asking for trouble, so mine is at default of 5. But yes this can certainly help with that. I also don't use a lot of script heavy mods (just a couple very solid ones) so I seldom get CTD's anyhow. But it can help if you have those issues and can be a nice safety net. People are hoping the SKSE team will just add the patch to their code as that is all Sheson did - so at the moment you either get someone to make you the patched skse_steam_loader.dll or make it yourself … plenty of them coming online now anyhow. But best option is to have it built into SKSE.

I have been following it and so far seems to be a very nice fix.

PS - I just know the basics as the actual fix is complex and well beyond my old C++ skills let alone the code they are using. What I know of it is from extensive reading on the threads on various sites, some chatting with folks who do know the details a bit better, and using it myself while playing.
 
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I've modded the living hell out of Fallout New Vegas (FOOK, Project Nevada, WMX, WME, Mission Mojave, etc - 130+ plugins in all) and I have yet to experience a tenth of the problems people post about.

I've personally experienced the infinite loading bug maybe twice in 1,000+ hours of FNV and multiple installations… so I'm pretty skeptical when it comes to fixes like this. Knowledgable/thoughtful modding of a Bethesda title is always going to be your best protection against instability, not bandaids. Bandaids tend to lead to bandaids for the bandaids…

Installing SKSE would be the only exe/dll modification I would personally use. And, for god's sake, don't "clean" your official ESM's if your game is running fine to begin with… I'm so sick of "THIS GAME IS A BUGGY MESS" posts from people who blindly do so after watching the latest Gopher video.
 
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I created the DLL the other day and it is working very nicely - it isn't meant to give more memory but in stead to allocate more memory in the first block for starting and loading the game from what I have read. In general it prevents skyrim from stumbling over itself due to lack of initial memory. Consequently less (or no) CTD,s and ILS's and I have seen slightly faster load up times.

I don't mess with ugrids, just asking for trouble, so mine is at default of 5. But yes this can certainly help with that. I also don't use a lot of script heavy mods (just a couple very solid ones) so I seldom get CTD's anyhow. But it can help if you have those issues and can be a nice safety net. People are hoping the SKSE team will just add the patch to their code as that is all Sheson did - so at the moment you either get someone to make you the patched skse_steam_loader.dll or make it yourself … plenty of them coming online now anyhow. But best option is to have it built into SKSE.

I have been following it and so far seems to be a very nice fix.

PS - I just know the basics as the actual fix is complex and well beyond my old C++ skills let alone the code they are using. What I know of it is from extensive reading on the threads on various sites, some chatting with folks who do know the details a bit better, and using it myself while playing.

Thanks Wolf.:)
 
I've been able to get Skyrim relatively stable, even with a good amount of mods.

But last time I played, I experienced the infamous "lip sync" bug, and I've yet to find a way to get rid of it.

Unfortunately, I'm pretty picky when it comes to polish issues - so I can't enjoy a game like that.

Anyone know of a fix for this?
 
You may have to re-install the game. The bug you have was introduced in the latest patch, and I don't think it was ever fixed.

Seems typical with every patch something else was broken.^^

At least you don't have the courier bug. It was hilarious when I had mail to see him in his underwear. I ran away when this first happened.:biggrin:
 
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You may have to re-install the game. At least you don't have the courier bug. It was hilarious when I had mail to see him in his underwear.:biggrin:

I've tried reinstalling and a crapload of other ways - but nothing seems to fix it. Problem is that it's not always there - and seems to come and go.

AFAIK, it's a bug they introduced with the last patch and from what I can tell, it's a very common issue.

I've searched several forums for a solution, but nothing so far :(
 
I've tried reinstalling and a crapload of other ways - but nothing seems to fix it. Problem is that it's not always there - and seems to come and go.

AFAIK, it's a bug they introduced with the last patch and from what I can tell, it's a very common issue.

I've searched several forums for a solution, but nothing so far :(

I added more information to my post above. It was a little to late it seems.:biggrin:

Your right it happens because of the latest patch. It seems to affect random players, and goes away on it's own. I don't think it will ever be fixed.
 
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I added more information to my post above. It was a little to late it seems.:biggrin:

Your right it happens because of the latest patch. It seems to affect random players, and goes away on it's own. I don't think it will ever be fixed.

No, I get that feeling as well :(
 
I've modded the living hell out of Fallout New Vegas (FOOK, Project Nevada, WMX, WME, Mission Mojave, etc - 130+ plugins in all) and I have yet to experience a tenth of the problems people post about.

I've personally experienced the infinite loading bug maybe twice in 1,000+ hours of FNV and multiple installations… so I'm pretty skeptical when it comes to fixes like this. Knowledgable/thoughtful modding of a Bethesda title is always going to be your best protection against instability, not bandaids. Bandaids tend to lead to bandaids for the bandaids…

Installing SKSE would be the only exe/dll modification I would personally use. And, for god's sake, don't "clean" your official ESM's if your game is running fine to begin with… I'm so sick of "THIS GAME IS A BUGGY MESS" posts from people who blindly do so after watching the latest Gopher video.

The most important thing is to use a batched patch (wrye bash), if using lots of mods.. a lot of people seems to ignore that part.

Anyways the patch does seem to increase stability, you can test how unstable your game is (without spending 30 mins - 2h to see if it eventually crashes, by using these console commands:

TCL
player.setav speedmult 2000

and then fly around the landscape (fly low so that NPC's, monsters etc will spawn), usually the game crashes within 1-5 minutes, at least if you have messed with ugridstoload. I noticed with this .dll it takes much longer time before the crash happens, with ugridstoload=5 it didnt crash, even after 5 mins, with ugridstoload=11 it did crash, but it didnt take the usual 10-30 seconds, it took around 3 minutes which is very good and it would probably take many hours before a crash would occur if playing without the fast flying cheat.
 
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I've modded the living hell out of Fallout New Vegas…

…I'm so sick of "THIS GAME IS A BUGGY MESS" posts from people who blindly do so after watching the latest Gopher video.

That game is not a buggy mess. Was maybe when released, but it's patching wasn't abandoned.

Yes it has a few bugs left unpatched, but I can't remember any that would be a really annoying ones. Yes it's odd to see some dialogue from Cassidy that's not supposed to happen yet and it's crazy when you can't finish a certain pretty useless doctor-vault sidequest because you've played the quest in one of a few different possible ways, but cmon.
In F:NV there are no things like being stuck in front of the door, unable to enter till the doomsday during the main quest.
 
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Bash patches are over-rated, really. And they can do more harm than good if the user is clueless and simply checks off any option they see. I mainly use Bash patch for two things: merging plugins and creating compatibility patches for modded NPC faces. For everything else, I take a few hours to look through and check for conlicts within FNVEdit (or TES5Edit in the case of the OP).

There's always going to be the oddball bug in Bethesda games because of the company's insistence on tweaking and retweaking a decade-old game engine, but the primary cause of most problems will continue to be clueless users who install 10,20,50,100 mods all at once and expect things to run perfectly immediately thereafter with no subsequent work on their part.
 
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It's really easy to use nowadays though, seems to come with the right things ticked from the very start, always has for the mods that i have been using. Wrye Bash + BOSS and you'll have far less problems with mods..

Its both good and bad that they're still using pretty much the same things since Morrowind, modders will feel at home straight from the start, for example.. 3D models export/import tools can take years to create too, didnt take too long now because its same old (kind of).
 
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