Indeed, it gets worse as you progress through as well. I want to ride my bad-ass horse and hit innocent citizens down to the ground but i'm freezing too much :<

So.. I'm pretty sure I fixed MY problem with freeze/lock-ups while running around in the open world. I seemed to be having the issues that were mostly described in this thread; interior was fine but exterior (open world) would freeze up or crash. After messing around with a lot of settings I had gone back into the game and noticed only a few hitches here and there but more over, no more freezing! I ended up running up the 7000 steps, fighting any mobs on the way, completed a quests or two up there, fast traveled about 3 or 4 times and rode horseback for about 30 minutes then went exploring for another 40 or so and no freeze ups! Also, I'm running AMD/ATI gear with XP32bit.

All of the settings I changed were;

skyrimprefs.ini

iShadowMapResolutionSecondary=512
iShadowMapResolutionPrimary=1024
(these we're the same value, maybe?)

bTreesReceiveShadows=0
bDrawLandShadows=0
bDrawShadows=0
(these we're all set to 1)

b30GrassVS=0
fGrassStartFadeDistance=0.0
(this was a random number, cant remember)

bRenderSkinnedTrees=0
uiMaxSkinnedTreesToRender=5
(this was set to 1 and i think 50, don't really see a difference in snowy regions, but I probably will later on, seems fine for "now")

uMaxDecals=0
bDecals=0
bSkinnedDecals=0

For Skyrim.ini

fShadowLODMaxStartFade=1000.0
iShadowMapResolutionPrimary=2048
(these were low, and shadowLOD was 0)

For my ATI Tray Tools;

Set all the settings to "Application Preference"
Turned on Adaptive Anti-Aliasing and set to "Smooth"

For the launcher settings;

Both Anti-Aliasing and Anistophic Filtering set to "OFF"
Set Shadowing to "LOW" (going to try and turn it on higher)

These are just for the time being, if I had to sacrifice graphics for playability, I'll glady do it. I don't seem MUCH of a difference at all, but in turn at least I'm not freezing anymore.

EDIT - I forgot to mention that I'm also using the ENB series unofficial patch for Skyrim.

Thats a hell of a lot of settings to change to stop a game from doing what it was never meant to be doing in the first place

i'll have a fiddle when i'm home to see what happens

Let me know if you get luck with raising shadows

Have ge force vga dont work for me, i tried to turn off the nvidia control and dont work.

tried the other options above?

Maybe not a fix, BUT it did work for me.

I believe there's a problem between Steam and the user's communication via Skyrim's download software.

Step one: Open Steam to Library.

Step two: Right click on Skyrim(in upper left-hand corner). Go to Properties.

Step three: Select the third tab titled "LOCAL FILES".

Step four: Select "VERIFY INTEGRITY OF GAME CACHE..."

This may not work for everyone, but it did solve all of my issues. I hope this helps a few at least. Really is a beautiful game once it works properly. Of note though, I had to select this option at least twice (maybe three, I forget now). It takes roughly an hour each time, +/-. Goodluck!

Just like every other post here, I'm also experiencing this problem, but I have been reading through the thread and noticed something peculiar

99% of the people here have xp. sure there are a few people here that have win 7, but their problems seem to slightly vary from ours.
Just an observation, and although its MOST LIKELY not the os, anything can happen, and just scroll through the ten pages of people, only like two have win 7

you're having the outdoor freezing issue, right?

Yes, and what I posted solved my issues. Sorry, I guess I could've fill everyone in on my issues first. =)

looks like ive got a busy evening planned then

Same problem, running on XP, high settings no problem what so ever. Just random freezes for 2-3 seconds, afterwards I can continue as before. It happens from time to time in interior area's too, sound goes on, but combat didn't (used companion while pumping up archery).
No heavy crashes or so, just small freezes. They never happen twice on the same spot though (well, atleast not when I was going across a bridge 10 times to check if it froze every time, but it didn't.).

I was just noticing this myself. In fact, the problems for the Win 7 users are sometimes very different, so that I'm wondering if they're encountering different issues altogether. Absolutely every Win 7 user's crash issue varies in some way from the issue I'm experiencing, including:

- The screen flickering or changing color to white/black (mine just remains frozen)
- The freeze causing a CTD or requiring a reboot every time or almost every time (mine usually recovers)
- The problem becoming more pronounced during certain gameplay, like combat or spell-casting (mine is restricted to moving around the game world)
- One user can't get past the intro and seems to be having a mountain of problems
- The OP encountered no problems until reaching Dragonreach (mine started as soon as I got outdoors, with a few freezes during the opening escape)

Everyone whose problems sound identical to mine (and who reported their OS) is using XP. Sometimes problems reported by others that seem very similar can be different problems altogether. So maybe there is more to the XP thing ...

I can also report that this is happening semi-randomly to me as well. Sometimes I can go stretches of traveling overland without any freezes, sometimes they occur every 30 seconds. Sometimes this can make a change to the game's or Windows' settings seem like an answer to the problem. So when you announce a fix, make sure you've determined that it sticks after several hours of playing and multiple sessions.

Just chiming in to report that I also have the freezing issues, exactly as just described by Kosh Vader. I'm also running XP.

For what it's worth, I tried most of the fixes suggested in this topic to no avail (including the .ini changes on page 8).

i have a feeling most users won't be able to fix the problem via changing settings. To me there will have to be a patch of some kind to remove it.

Then again i have a few thing to try once i get home

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1257349-disabling-aa-enabling-fxaa-awesome/

Don't know if it works, can't test right now cause I'm at work. Putting down AA, but putting FXAA up.

already running with AA off and FXAA on, nothing different

I have the same problem as discribed, it freezes for a few seconds in random intervalls mostly when outside and moving, sometimes inside usually right after entering the cell.

WinXP 32bit
AMD Athlon X2 7750BE - 2,7GHz
AMD Radeon HD4870
Realtek HD Audio
3,25GB RAM

I tried all the fixes I found.
Hope there will be a patch for that soon!

Hello

First of all I would like to congratulate Bethesda for making a wonderful game. The game is working fine apart from the random freezing. My specs are Intel core duo 2 6850 3ghz, Gigabyte 1gb 460gtx with a 27% overclock, 2gb 800mhz ram, Asus DG 5.1 sound card and windows Xp SP3. I am running the game on High settings with a 32 inch monitor running on full hd 1920 x 1080.
I also expirience the random freezing in game, It happens most of the time when I approach new sceenery. It is like a little loading time without a |LOADING| bar. The music continues to play and the screen freezes. Theese freezes also lock in place for a longer time, but I can solve this by alt tabbing to another window and back.


What another guy said "I can also report that this is happening semi-randomly to me as well. Sometimes I can go stretches of traveling overland without any freezes, sometimes they occur every 30 seconds. "

How Bethesda can keep up with this forum, I don't know. It would be great to have some kind of official list posted by Bethesda and stickied so that we know which issues they have acknowledged, are following and investigating. Such as this one, the keybinding one, and specific quest problems especially.

We have folks scouring the forums investigating issues like these. Once we have information on what the next title update covers, we'll let folks know.

A reply? yaaaaaaaay!

Cheers for letting us know - but can you also tell us if you are aware that this is a current problem with the game itself?

Well, as it just so happens to turn out, I have a win 7 laying around somewhere, but I just never bothered to use it. I will update the os and see if there is a difference...

thats the best description yet of the problem

yea thats bang on, now all we need is the openworld idea added back into the openworld game

Thanks Gstaff! Eagerly awaiting some more official news on this (but patiently, because this masterpiece is seriously worth it).

I'm running Skyrim on Win XP as well, just to add something constructive - issue as described by Woodo Child et al.