Every time, a few seconds after you see the first dragon, the game creashes instantly to desktop.

The same thing happens when I click save as "New Save", as well as some other random crashes when browsing the in game menu.

It is not solved the same way the crash-at-game-launch bug was fixed, with the audio settings changed to 44,1k.

I am having this same issue, tried everything I can think of.

Same here but I did experience the crashes even while in the cart before the character selection (don't get me wrong I did crash twice while the first dragon encounter too!) Straight back to windows without any notifications or anything.

I tried with the beta drivers, and it is still crashing at the exact same point. During the start of the game when the dragon lands on the tower, he starts to roar and I crash.

I couldn't edit my post but I fixed this by disabling vsync.

I tried disabling vsync, I still crash at the exact same point as the dragon roars.

I'm assuming it's something to do with the dragon breathing fire that causes it to crash?

I made a new post about this earlier and I have the exact same issue, I think some of us have problems loading or rendering whatever the dragon is about to breathe on us. Which is entirely possible because some people seem to have problems with fire effects in the game.

I haven't had a crash or any performance issues but the game did freeze for a few seconds once when a dragon breathed fire at me...

Alright good news guys I managed to fix it for myself and got through the crash.

Seriously we get no help these days and this is the 5th game I had to find my own solution for (and it was not my computer's fault either, all of them were also PC ports for console games; funny that).

Basically from what I read of the problem as well as anolysing youtube videos of how the scene was supposed to play out, I was thinking that somehow the game was crashing because of all the particles and renders it caused a sudden shock to the system or that perhaps somehow there were settings in the game which restricted your computer from properly rendering/drawing all the lightning and effects that went on with that scene.

So the first thing I did was went down to my SkyrimPrefs.ini file (Under 'My Games' in 'Documents'), opened it with Notepad where I doubled certain values which I thought would be relevant.

And so my SkyrimPrefs.ini would read:

[Display]
fShadowBiasScale=0.2500
fInteriorShadowDistance=3000.0000
fShadowDistance=4000.0000
iBlurDeferredShadowMask=3
bFloatPointRenderTarget=1
iShadowMaskQuarter=4
iShadowMapResolution=2048
bFXAAEnabled=1
iMaxAnisotropy=8
fGamma=1.0000
iShadowFilter=3
fDecalLOD2=1500.0000
fDecalLOD1=1000.0000
fSpecularLODStartFade=1000.0000
fShadowLODStartFade=200.0000
fLightLODStartFade=2500.0000
iTexMipMapMinimum=0
iTexMipMapSkip=0
bTransparencyMultisampling=0
iWaterMultiSamples=0
iMultiSample=8
iShadowMode=3
bTreesReceiveShadows=0
bDrawLandShadows=0
bDrawShadows=1
bFull Screen=1
iSize H=1050
iSize W=1680
fLeafAnimDampenDistEnd=4600.0000
fLeafAnimDampenDistStart=3600.0000
fTreesMidLODSwitchDist=5000.0000
fMeshLODFadePercentDefault=1.2000
fMeshLODFadeBoundDefault=256.0000
fMeshLODLevel2FadeTreeDistance=2048.0000
fMeshLODLevel1FadeTreeDistance=2844.0000
fMeshLODLevel2FadeDist=10000000.0000
fMeshLODLevel1FadeDist=10000000.0000
iScreenShotIndex=0
bShadowMaskZPrepass=0
bMainZPrepass=0
iMaxSkinDecalsPerFrame=20
iMaxDecalsPerFrame=100
sD3DDevice="ENB"
iAdapter=1
iPresentInterval=1
[Imagespace]
bDoDepthOfField=1
iRadialBlurLevel=2
[Grass]
b30GrassVS=1
fGrassStartFadeDistance=5000.0000
fGrassMaxStartFadeDistance=7000.0000
fGrassMinStartFadeDistance=400.0000
[Water]
iWaterReflectHeight=512
iWaterReflectWidth=512
bUseWaterDisplacements=1
bUseWaterRefractions=1
bUseWaterReflections=1
bUseWaterDepth=1
[MAIN]
fSkyCellRefFadeDistance=150000.0000
bGamepadEnable=1
bCrosshairEnabled=1
fHUDOpacity=1.0000
bSaveOnPause=1
bSaveOnTravel=1
bSaveOnWait=1
bSaveOnRest=1
[GamePlay]
bShowFloatingQuestMarkers=1
bShowQuestMarkers=1
iDifficulty=2
[Interface]
bDialogueSubtitles=0
bGeneralSubtitles=0
bShowCompass=1
[Controls]
fMouseHeadingSensitivity=0.0125
fGamepadHeadingSensitivity=1.9000
bAlwaysRunByDefault=1
bInvertYValues=0
bGamePadRumble=1
[Particles]
iMaxDesired=2000
[SaveGame]
fAutosaveEveryXMins=15.0000
[AudioMenu]
fAudioMasterVolume=1.0000
fVal7=1.0000
uID7=0
fVal6=1.0000
uID6=0
fVal5=1.0000
uID5=0
fVal4=1.0000
uID4=0
fVal3=0.5000
uID3=466532
fVal2=0.8000
uID2=554685
fVal1=0.8000
uID1=1007612
fVal0=1.0000
uID0=94881
[Clouds]
fCloudLevel2Distance=262144.0000
fCloudLevel1Distance=32768.0000
fCloudLevel0Distance=16384.0000
fCloudNearFadeDistance=9000.0000
[General]
iStoryManagerLoggingEvent=-1
bEnableStoryManagerLogging=0
[TerrainManager]
fTreeLoadDistance=75000.0000
fBlockMaximumDistance=250000.0000
fBlockLevel1Distance=70000.0000
fBlockLevel0Distance=35000.0000
fSplitDistanceMult=1.5000
bShowLODInEditor=0
[Trees]
bRenderSkinnedTrees=1
uiMaxSkinnedTreesToRender=40
[Decals]
uMaxDecals=250
bDecals=1
bSkinnedDecals=1
uMaxSkinDecals=100
uMaxSkinDecalsPerActor=80
[LOD]
fLODFadeOutMultSkyCell=1.0000
fLODFadeOutMultObjects=7.5000
fLODFadeOutMultItems=4.5000
fLODFadeOutMultActors=6.0000
[BlurShaderHDR]
bDoHighDynamicRange=1
[BlurShader]
bUseBlurShader=0
[Launcher]
bShowAllResolutions=1
uLastAspectRatio=4


At this stage I recalled somewhere that the 'Skyrim.ini' file auto regenerates when deleted, and recalling from my previous experiences with buggy games sometimes deleting these settings can help (though you backup of course).

So I deleted 'Skyrim.ini'

Imagine the magnitude of the heart attack I had when my game got past the blasted scene.

I hope this helps at least several people.

PS: I took a VERY hack and slash approach to this 'fix' with probably lots of unnecessary value changes to the .ini file, please don't blame me too much for that and hopefully someone can post a more complete 'refined' fix to the game.

Edit: I tried another new game to test this, which was also working so it was not a fluke.

im kind of lost by this. Are you saying we should delete Skyrim.ini and load the game, or replace skyrim.ini with what you posted here?

Go into:

Documents -> My Games

Open 'SkyrimPref.ini' with Notepad and replace the contents with those values (though I guess you can tweak the resolution to your taste).

Backup (ie copy and store elsewhere) 'Skyrim.ini'.

Delete 'Skyrim.ini' (the file should auto-regenerate once you start the game again)

Start game.

Cross your fingers and pray to the Machine God.

okay, should be easy enough. Im currently reinstalling the game. im hoping that the 1.1 update will install as well (if it wasnt before) and then ill give your idea a shot.

BUMP

I tried this, and i still cannot get past the scene. Im on vista 32 bit.

Superskyray you are my new hero, it worked!!!