I was a victim of the black screen. Would start game. Would see the Bethesda logo. Then the black screen. The problem for me was my firewall, Zonealarm. Set it to game mode, automatic deny. Good to go.

Hope that helps someone.

I experience this black screen issue from time to time. For me at least it seems to be related to the video card driver as I get this error - 'Display driver nvlddmkm stopped responding and has successfully recovered', in my system eventlog when the black screen happens. My system (and game) recover after about 5-10 secs though. I'm wondering if the same thing is happening with the AMD video cards but the drivers just aren't able to recover gracefully, thus necessitating a hard power off(?)

Can someone with an AMD (ATI) video card verify whether they are getting a Display driver crash in their system log when this occurs? I hope this is the case since then the finger points more toward Skyrim than either Nvidia or AMD.

Yeap

...so there we have it.
It's not related specifically to Nvidia or AMD. The only difference is that sometimes the Nvidia driver is able to recover the game. It may help Beth to list the models and drivers we are using. I'm using a GTX 460 with the latest 290 drivers.


"You there, Skyrim bug squire! We have another one! Put it...ON THE LIST!"

Well, I figured out my problem is hardware related. My Twin Frozr heatsink on my GTS 250 isn't properly working. My card overheats and shuts itself down. Guess Skyrim was what broke my heatsink.

No, it most certainly was not.

I have had a very similar issue...


the thing is: I am running a PS3. The game will go completely black, sound will continue. unlike you, after a second, my display returns.

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1329670-skryim-display-glitch/page__p__19994999#entry19994999

Very annoying. i would much rather have the infamous low framerate.

Because you have my PC and know that. It was. It was the game that pushed my graphics card's heatsink over the edge. Three hours into playing the game for the first time, I got the black screen because of a card overheat. Had been running fine for hours earlier before that point. Good observation.

Pretending to "blame" software for the failures of poor hardware cooling design is ridiculous.

A game will never push a GPU over the edge in the way you describe, because it can never force the GPU to operate at higher than full load. GPUs are rated to be capable of running at full load for extended periods of time. The game did not cause this, because your drivers were stopping the card from going over that specific limit. That this limit turned out to be too much for your card (if you kept the clocks at stock) means the card was faulty and this particular overheat was inevitable.

Unless you overclocked. Then you have no place accusing the game of cooking your card whatsoever.

Hey, what happened to the title of this thread?! I guess one of the mods didn't get the joke. Or they did get the joke but thought others might not get the joke, or... eh. ;o

I'm still experiencing these crashes and I'm still left wondering if it's something to do with the game's implementation of Flash. Flash has been frequently known to trigger video driver crashes (though in my experience, they were able to recover then - not the case with Skyrim), and I'm almost always getting them when viewing my quest log. The map follows second as most often, and the game itself a distant third when it's not in some kind of tizzy. It's only occasionally that I get them when viewing the map now, but viewing the pause menu is almost a guarantee for the crash.

Following that I'm curious to see if one of the inevitable fan mods to modify the quest/pause/stats menu may resolve/reduce the issue. Or hoping against hope the patch may even fix/workaround/whatever the issue. If not, I'm feeling inclined at this point to just give up.

NB: If anyone's got any info that they think should be in the opening post on this thread, PM me! I haven't been keeping very close tabs on this thread anymore as my interest and hope of seeing a solution has been steadily waning.

It wasn't OCed. And if it was just so inevitable, why did it happen three hours into playing Skyrim on Medium settings, when it had been playing Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 on Ultra settings for hours and days before that? Oh, is that just coincidence?

To the OP: I take it you already found this http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=107831&st=0&p=594648&#entry594648? It contains some information which applies to both ATI and nVidia. As far as I can see this is a complicated BCCode that has little to do with something a game can cause. That does not mean it is impossible, though.

Here is another (more recent) one: http://mikemstech.blogspot.com/2011/12/troubleshooting-0x116-videotdrerror.html.

Very enlightening post, thanks! In particular the author's parting words should probably be taken to heart:
Is anyone bringing this up with ATI and Nvidia as well as here?

Going to quote my lazy self here.

It turns out that my card was the cause of my black screens. I've been playing crash free for over 10 hours now. At first I thought the black screens turned into CTDs, but I've only had two of those.

My retailer (Mindfactory from Germany) sent me a replacement immediately, it was a known issue for them. I don't know if the serial numbers I quoted apply for all countries, but if you have one of the mentioned cards, check the number and maybe get in touch with your retailer (and maybe HIS?).