So I updated Skyrim to 1.4 and installed the official HD textures. Immediately when I play, I get purple textures and CTDs after about 2-5 minutes of gameplay within towns (going into the main worldspace causes instant CTD). I pruned out some of my non-steam workshop mods (ones from nexus) in case they conflicted with 1.4, and tried again. This time, none of my saves will load at all without immediate CTD because of missing content. So I think ok, time to start over anyway, so I do a total reinstall. I update my drivers make sure everything's current, and start up a new game.
Problem? Now Skyrim CTDs right on the loading screen, before the menu options appear. Every time.
I don't know what else I can do. I have updated my ATI drivers. I have verified the game cache, must be, 20 times. I have no mods installed at present. I found something on google saying that having your sound card quality set too high can crash the game, but I'm using WinXP 32bit and all the tutorials I can find for cranking down your soundcard quality are for Win7, so I don't understand what to do. Here are my specs:
Windows XP 32 bit
Intel Quad Core 2.83ghz
Radeon HD 4870 graphics card
Realtek soundcard
I hope that's all the info that's needed. I really hope someone can help - I just want to play the game but nothing I do seems to work. I'm really tearing my hair out over this. Thanks very much in advance for any replies or help anyone can give.