Well, the game totally froze up this time. I had to hard reset.
when and could Bethesda figue out this problem? because this maybe XP problem, not a ordinary BUG.
so, how long should I wait?
maybe its time to buy a WIN7 copy.

Fix for people having the same issue as I have (note that I do not get any CTDs, only freezes):

I get some momentary pauses, the sound always continues, that sort of thing. Most of the time it resumes play, but I've had it freeze indefinitely (music and sound sometimes still going, I think maybe all of the time). Anyway, by random I found out last time it happened that the game is still going because I can bring up the console. I used to have to restart my entire computer and wait for everything to load again to resume playing (because I was unable to alt tab out of the game or even bring up the task manager to end the skyrim process), something that was annoying and took around 10 minutes each time. But now that I can bring up the console, I can type "qqq" in the console, quit the game, and bring the game up quickly again. This will save me a lot of headaches as the game has frozen like that at least a half-dozen times over the past two days.

http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Console_Commands_%28Skyrim%29

Come on, this is a DX9 game, I hated it when MS didn't bring DX10 to XP forcing users to update to Vista\Win7,it's immoral,don't encourage them.

thanks, that help a lot. I fogot this most valuable command of Oblivion



I'll wait for the fix for 3 day more maybe.

Same problem as everyone else, freezes for 5-10 seconds when wandering around outside. If I stay still, it won't freeze. If I walk slowly for a great distance, it won't freeze at all.


Win XP 32 bit
2GB RAM
8800GT 512mb
Realtek soundblaster

I disabled all power saving features back when I installed this OS, December '07 rofl, and Cool N Quiet was off by default, never turned that on. So neither of those can help me either. If it's narrowed down to XP, that should help them fix it sooner, I hope...


I use E as enter and it works most of the time, it acts like an "accept" button on a lot of things outside of selecting something in your Favorites. Speaking of Favorites, what a lame system. I wish you could bind stuff to the numbers on the keyboard like Oblivion/Fallouts. I't's been too long since I've played Morrowind to remember if you could do that with that game as well. What fun it is when everytime you craft something at any station, you lose your torch and have to re-equip it.

I believe it's a map loading bug on XP, it all adds up, when you are constantly running (mostly outside) the interval is 5 minutes or so, when you occasionally stop to do something else, it will take longer, if you stand still, it won't freeze because there is no need to load map. some folks even experiencing indoor freezing my guess is they have less Ram.

Well, I decided giving Win7 a try, so i threw a partition on my drive and loaded it up. No freezes at all (about 6 hours of play), It's definitely an XP problem.

My specs from the other page:

Athlon II X2 250 3.0Ghz
G.Skill 2GB DDR2 dual-channel ram
GTX 550 Ti FPB 1GB


Running it on Ultra with AAx8 and FXAA, 60fps.

Anybody with Windows 7 experiencing random freezes?

your e8400 is totally fine btw, i still use my e7300 and have 2xaa, ultra everything everything else and max all view distances etc, its perfeclty smooth apart from random pauses for anything upto 30 seconds when your outside in the world.
i am using xp and xfi extreme music, gtx 460.

It seems the thread starter was -- and several others since -- but the behaviour on Win 7 seems different (flickering/black screen, crashes, etc), which leads me to believe they're different issues entirely:

Also looks like it's time for a second thread...

Their problems are often followed by a CTD even with a popup window stating the display driver has failed, which is a clear indicator that it's a graphic card or driver problem.

I agree, looks like the file loading system is broken for XP

I tried messing with ExternalCellBuffer in the Skyrim.ini (same folder as the other ini file) but it didn't seem to have an impact. Also tried every gfx setting, verifying/defragmenting, etc. Guess we will have to wait for a patch

hey guys, after searching around for fixes for the past day trying various things i've come across, none of them have worked. so i came across the installing Win7 fix and decided to go ahead and install it as i've been meaning to dual boot my pc anyway. i can CONFIRM that installing Win7 will fix the 2-5 second freezing issue running around in the exterior world.

i was previously running WinXP and getting a 2-5 freeze constantly when running around outside.

after installing Win7 the game has yet to freeze on me. i ran from Riverwood up to Whiterun, and from there further towards the west. no freezes. normally the game would have frozen at least 5 to 6 times traveling through the same areas.

I CAN CONFIRM INSTALLING WINDOWS 7 WORKS

either way, Bethesda needs to FIX this asap. the problem is clearly XP related.

Windows XP freezing fix FOUND!

It's really bad fix some people might not consider it even a fix.So here is what:

Go to skyrim folder>TESV.exe and click properties then go compatibility and run in Windows 95!
What is the side effect?Twice lower performance (since it will run on one core) but you are freeze free

My systems:

Laptop
i7-2760QM processor 2.40 GHz
Nvidia GT 540M 2GB
8GB DDR3
Windows 7 and XP

Desktop
Athlon 64 X2 Dual core 2.80ghz
4 GB DDR3
Nvidia 9800 GTX+ 1GB
Windows xp and 7

I have been doing testing with this issue tonight on XP on the desktop first, I updated all my drivers, I turned off AA, tried 2 different sound cards, tried onboard sound and a USB headset. I fooled around with the shadows draw distance and quality. Nothing I did stopped the freezing even though the game ran fine otherwise. Installed Windows 7 on a second drive, and the freezing went away.

I already had xp and 7 on the laptop and repeated this process, even on the newer hardware XP still had the freezing issue.

I do not think this could be any clearer, this is an issue on XP. It seems to me each time the game loads a new cell it does the freezing. So as long as you stay in one area you will be fine, move to a new one and it is going to freeze. I will say trying AA off did help, the freezing happened less often. Is this maybe a conflict with xp and graphics drivers?

Err.. I use numbers on the keyboard all the time in Skyrim, you can bind things to them like in previous games.

Throwing my own 2 cents in here.

Let's start from the beginning;
I played for 19 hours without any sort of freezing, or crashing with all the settings on Ultra. Yesterday I started getting random CTDs that occurred at every 5 minutes or so if I was out and about in the wild. They're like clockwork, 5 minutes? Blam.
But, if I change my settings to high, the game will just freeze, audio will continue, the screen goes black and then returns back to normal. Rinse and repeat. Just now though after testing I had a black screen and the game crashed with the info-box popping up that my display driver stopped working and recovered.

I have tried, just about everything:

• Tinkering with sound quality
  
• Tweaking the .ini files
  
• Compatibility mode and running as admin
  
• Verifying the game's cache files, ad nauseam
  
• Poking at the settings with a stick in general
  
• Defaulting everything from ATI CCC so that the settings don't clash

I'm going to try a fresh driver install now but I doubt that helps anything. I don't even know if this is the same issue you're all having but I'm pissed off and I wanted somewhere to type. :c

Specs:

• AMD Radeon HD 6870 1Gb
  
• AMD Phenom II X4 940 @ 3,0GHz
  
• 4GB DDR2 RAM 800MHz
  
• Asus M4A78-E
  
• Windows 7 64-Bit

Now that is what I like to call the ATI bug. that seems to only happen to people with ATI cards. ATI cards on XP have it double. You are not having the same bug as the XP users, yours is much worse really, but I think a driver update from AMD is all that is going to fix it.

I hope all bugs get addressed soon:(

Just adding my voice to the calls for a developer fix for the loading of exterior areas when using Windows XP.

Athlon 4800
Nvidia 9800GT 512MB
3GB RAM
Audigy 4 soundcard.

All settings set to medium, except textures which are high. AA disabled. FXAA enabled.

No freezing in interior locations. But when exploring outside getting constant freezes lasting 10 seconds or more.

This is now a known issue - and I'd like the next patch to resolve it please.

Lets see if Bethesda still support XP as much as they claim then awaiting patch

We're getting close to a post limit, so I've started a http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1264003-2-7-second-freezes-outdoors/ specifically for the folks sharing the random outdoor freezes.

Your symptoms are different, sorry this changes nothing, try REINSTALLING EVERYTHING

Post limit.