I tried starting a new game today and the dialog on the cart would not start. I let the cart get to the city but I'm unable to leave the cart and the cart just hits the wall and appears to stop, with the "cart rolling" sound still playing. At this point I am stuck and cannot do anything.

I have tried using K/M, then changed the settings to 360 controlled and tried that as well but neither worked. I also tried using TCL and EnablePlayerControls which also failed.

Ralof just stares at me saying nothing.... I tried restarting several times and tried using a save from the nexus that skips the intro and dumps you at character creation but that does not work either. The crazy thing is every prior version of Skyrim worked fine, even fully modded.

Thinking that it might be an incompatible mod I decided to perform a clean install and start from scratch. I deleted all content via Steam, removed all mods and the Skyrim folder then performed a clean install from the original game DVD. I then updated the game to 1.4.21.0.4 and started a new game.

Much to my surprise and increasing frustration, the same thing happens! Nothing!

At this point I am at a loss... Any ideas? As I said it worked perfectly with 50+ esp's and even more textures, etc. Now it's completely busted with zero mods and a clean install.

Also, my rig is an i5 Quad core/8GB RAM/1TB HD/Radeon 6870 with all drivers fully updated for video/sound/etc running WIn7 fully updated as well.

bump

Wow. Nobody?

I tried tossing the .ini files and resetting the resolution from Ultra to high and changed sound from 24bit to 16bit and it magically started working. Not sure why this is the case is all prior versions of Sktrim ran on Ultra with .ini tweaks and 24bit audio at 40-60fps. I'm baffled but at least it works.

Try to veryfing the local cache integrity that fix a lot of problems, also try to delet your settings files in my documents/my games/skyrim skyrim.ini and skyrimprefers.ini

The latest patch has introduced some audio changes.
My spider-sense is tingling and I suspect unusual audio config might be messing you up...
How do you "change sound from 16-bit to 24-bit"
I've not seen such an adjustment from within the game...?

The original Skyrim install has impacted your computer's registry.
That's why uninstalling and reinstalling haven't gone completely smooth for you.
As mentioned, your personal configuration .ini will be with your savegames (in My Documents).
Make sure everything "stock" in order to first get the game functioning - no tweaks/mods.

As I mention to everyone, your ATI or nVidia vidcard control panel will have a tremendous impact on how the game functions.
If these settings are unfortunate you're doomed before you even install the game...
Set everything to either maximum high-performance, or game-controlled.
Once the game is up and solid, you could return here and push the quality settings if you wish (if you have crazy high FPS with lots to spare).
But never push the vidcard control panel settings with any new game. Set all conservative!

Anyway, re: audio
Problems here could easily CTD or introduce bizarre phenomina...
Especially if using onboard (motherboard) audio like most.
Regards