EDIT: Fixed the issue by reinstalling my drivers from the provided DC. I'm not on the newest version, though. I'm on 11.8, but I dont think thats the issue. They got corrupt somehow or something.

The game runs smooth as butter except for some mild framerate issues here and there (I have it maxed out, so thats my poor processors fault. ) until I do certain things. Mainly, going into the skill menu. Then my display drivers crash, and recover about 10 seconds later. However, from there on out, they crash like every 3 minutes and I cant enter the skill menu, or the pause menu without them crashing constantly. They even do it occasionally randomly throughout the game, and I get weird artifacts like purple and teal dots all over my screen. Sometimes they don't recover without crashing the game to the desktop and I have to reopen it.

I have an ATI Radeon HD 6850, and I have made sure the drivers are up to date.

Anyone else having these issues or am I in my own boat? I'm 107 minutes into Skyrim, and it's been the most epic 107 minutes of my life, but it's harder to enjoy with the constant freezes and crashed.

Thanks,

AJV

UPDATE: It happens if I go into the pause menu (including system, quest, and stats), or skills menu at all. It also sometimes happens when in the loading screen, so never the crashing, just sometimes it freezes for a second or two, and I get weird artifacts. (Like those explained above)

Someone please help me! The game experience is being severely broken up by this...

I even tried on lowest video settings and it still does it.

Does anyone have an possible solutions?

I don't know, it could be heat related or just a buggy graphics driver. If its the later then you'll have to wait for AMD to release a hotfix. You can try downgrading your driver. I would start with Catalyst 11.8 (as its the driver I'm using)

It was only with Skyrim though.

However, I think I fixed it. I ran in Compatability mode for Vista SP2, and went through the menus for like 4 minutes straight without a single crash so I think we're good.

Well crap. Now the skills menu and pause/quest menu work fine. But the loading screens still have driver crashing issues, and now I'm getting it randomly during gameplay. Do I seriously have to pick between the menu's or the gameplay? T.T

EDIT: Fixed the issue! See OP.