Has anyone/everyone here with this "XP bug" tried to resolve the freezing issues by turning down/turning off shadows? (either via the launcher or via .ini?)

I wonder if XP just doesn't handle the high CPU usage of shadow rendering along with the NPC and other AI work - and can't keep up with the GPU as well as Vista/Win7.

See the info here: http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1260131-the-truth-behind-skyrim-performance/page__st__20

I've tried shadows on 'low' before and still had the issue though i've never removed them entirely. Will try tonight if i get the chance too

new PhysX drivers dont fix it

fixed link to page 1 of the thread

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1260131-the-truth-behind-skyrim-performance/

I really really hope it's soon, I really want to play this game and with all the random freezes at random intervals it's nearly unplayable

it's sooo frustrating. I've tried changing all sorts of settings mentioned in this thread and others, I've reinstalled from scratch and even uninstalled my video card drivers and reinstalled from scratch

still random freezes, but the hard drive activity light isn't on when it freezes and there is no churning.

Audio continues but the screen freezes then after 5 or so seconds it catches back up.

trying to run around open world is a nightmare.


Windows XP
AMD cpu
Nvidia video card

Shadows are set to Low on mine. In fact, because of the CPU drain, it's the only setting I've reduced. I have everything else set to Ultra and it runs very smoothly. When I raise the Shadow level, the result is persistent lag, totally different from the intermittent freezing. Since the shadows look as poor as they do on high settings, I consider it no big loss.

I think a few people have suggested that this could be a distant terrain rendering issue. On one occasion, I was approaching the lake west of Riverwood and noticed that an island in the lake looked very odd, like a flat 'V shaped' mass. As I approached, the game did its usual 5-second freeze act, then the moment it recovered the 'V' resolved into a regular-looking island. Coincidence maybe? Or maybe whatever it was doing to 'fix' the island caused the prolonged stutter.

Thankfully, I've now learned that I can alt-tab out of Skyrim as long as I have another window open, so I'm making it standard practice to open something before I start the game. Haven't run into another crash yet, so I don't know if the previously suggested alt-tab fix will correct those for me. But thanks for the tip regardless! If that gets me past the crashes, this will become a much more bearable problem. Still annoying when the freezes are going every 30-60 seconds, though.

I have just tried:

Turning off all shadows via the .ini
Forcing on Vsync and Triple Buffering in my nvidia options
Turned off vsync via the .ini

none of these have worked, hoping for some news from bethesda soon. I might try the file thingy in steam but that will take ages

and wow...it gets a hell of a lot worse as you get further into the game

i mean really bethesda, if it cant run on older systems don't say it can

This took me about 15mins :S are u sure u didnt game cache and not defragment?

@Bicceh - Please post your specs again?

Given how CPU dependent this game is, here are a couple things to try:

Turn off "SpeedStep" in your bios, which should force your CPU back to full speed. Then re-run the laucher and click "default" to detect your cpu speed properly.

Also try turning OFF AA and reduce or turn OFF shadows. (FXAA should be ok)

Please report back if any of this helps.

Windows XP SP3
3gb DDR2
Nvidia 275GTX (Latest Drivers)
AMD Athlon X2 6000+

In terms of what you've suggested:

I appear to have no option for SpeedStep in the BIOS, however i've smacked it back to default settings for now

AA has NEVER been on, i know it eats the system quite hard (especially in these types of games) and i've tried it with Shadows on Medium, Low and also Off completly by changing the .ini file. FXAA is also on

None of these have worked, i've just tried verifying the game cache and will boot it up again once im done eating

I have the same video freezing issue. The game doesn't stutter nor has it crashed yet but when walking around outside I get 3-5 second "pauses" then the game runs fine after until the next pause which can be seconds or minutes away. I noticed there is no hard drive activity during the freezes. Running the game on the default settings which are Medium for my rig.

Win XP, SP 3
AMD Athlon 64 x2 6000+(2x 3ghz)
2 gigs of ram
9800 gtx+ 512 ram 285.58 whql drivers
SBlive x-gamer soundcard

Hi everyone - looks like this is indeed an XP problem. User with the exact same HW installed Win7 and resolved his issues.

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1262166-crashes-freezes-xp-related-problem/

Maybe it's due to the way that XP handles CPU and GPU interactions, maybe due to NPC/AI scripting with XP, maybe Directx stuff on XP - who knows. Probably have to wait on Bethesda for this one... (if turning off AA/shadows don't help you.)

I think that I found a solution for freezing problem.
Disable SpeedStep / Cool'n'Quiet function like someone suggested before. Go to BIOS and depending on your CPU find and disable
- SpeedStep / EIST / C1E for Intel CPU
- Cool'n'Quiet for AMD CPU
- change your power scheme in control panel to 'always on'

Those options are reducing CPU power use. They acutally lower your core speed ONLY while CPU isnt under pressure. Skyrim is highly CPU dependent game but strangely, power-saving function reduce core speed during the game (it shouldn't). This may cause freezes.

After this I played for 1 hour and no freeze happened. Hope this gonna help. Cheers

just wanted to let all of you who encounter serious freezes, crashes and more symptoms like that that lead to an unplayable game: I had the same huge problems, couldnt play for more than 1 minute without a freezing monitor (while the game was still going on, sound and so on was there...). so I installed win7 and the newest drivers for nvidia and mainboard on a new harddisc with all my other equipment staying the same... not more. now I am playing since 1 hour without any problem at all. settings: evrything to highest quality! so I guess the problem is very much xp related and unfortunately most of you wont be able to do anything except wait until bethesda will suppy you with a new patch....(maybe this will help: its definetively NOT oblivion. its very much console ported and the inventory is simply annoying)

That could be a possible solution. I noticed that my CPU fan went (almost) silent whenever one of those freezes happened. Not going to change my BIOS settings for a game though. Bethesda needs to fix this asap. Weird bug.

EDIT: No, that doesn't work for me. I disabled EIST in the BIOS for testing and the freezes were still happening.

In addition to the above reports of reduced CPU load and drive activity during freezes: I noticed my GPU temp drops suddenly a few degrees during a freeze, presumably indicating a lack of system load at all (if CPU, HDDs and GPU all idle during freezes). I doubt that's useful information, but ya know...

Going to kill Intel SpeedStep in the BIOS and report back.

[Update] Ehhh... I watched CPU-Z as I ran around near Riverwood, froze for a few seconds, continued... CPU was stepped up to maximum (over)clock frequency throughout, including the freeze, so I'm now skeptical about SpeedStep (and AMD equivalents) making any difference here.

Yea this pretty much proves what was said earlier this is a Windows XP problem.

Unfortunately I don't have the money to run out and buy Windows 7 just to play this one game at the moment. I plan on purchasing a new PC just after Christmas which I'll have windows 7 then.

only windows 7 I have at the moment is a laptop which although it has ram and cpu the video card wouldn't play it. My laptop is 2.1ghz amd dual core, 4 gig ram windows 7 but vid card is ati 3200 hd



So it seems this is a Windows XP problem.


I really hope Bethesda has a patch soon and this doesn't go on and on and on, cause the store I bought this from does not refund pc games.

Shouldnt need to refund it - Bethesda clearly states that this game supports Windows XP - so they need to fix it, simple

I tried disabling Cool N Quiet and it didn't seem to help me either.

Going back on what I said a few pages ago, I can confirm that me raising my Shadows to above "MEDIUM" in the launcher settings caused my game to freeze up within about 20 minutes or so. After turning the shadows back down to "LOW", I haven't had a freeze yet and I'm currently playing at this very moment in windowed mode without almost any hitches.

Sorry if it didn't work for you, but I know that my problem lied in the shadowing of the game.

Also, I increased the shadow fade in the .ini file to about 3000 and it seems to be working even better.

Mine has times where its perfectly fine. For example the last time i booted it i went a lot longer without freezing than before. Hell, i could even use a horse with no problems. After a while though i'll have moments where it all goes to pot

The UI is not PC friendly! One thing should notice is that the Enter is far away from WASD.
BTW, why can not use keyboard and XBox console at the same time?

So finnaly one official reply. Tried everything, nothing work.

have to wait i guess hopefully we'll have some news Monday