Skyrim CTD Sound fix - what Control Panel?

[PW]

The Bethesda website and something I found at PC Gamer says to try
this fix if you are getting crashes to the desktop. Which I do on
occasion.

What are they talking about? I've looked of it in the game settings,
game startup menu, and in Windows 7:

If you're crashing to the desktop, try this workaround
1. Go to Start -> Control Panel -> Sound 2. In the Playback tab, right
click on Speakers (or whatever has a green tick next to it), then
click Properties 3. In the advanced tab on this new window, select 24
bit, 44100Hz (Studio Quality) in the drop down menu

-pw

[Mr. Stabby]

Here is an article with a screenshot:

http://solidlystated.com/software/skyrim-pc-crash-to-desktop-at-startup/


I've had 2 CTD in about 17 hours(!) of gameplay.

[KCB]

"PW" <emailad...@ifIremember.com> wrote in message
news:gap2c7hbg0mqtsocb...@4ax.com...

They are describing, first, how to open up your 'Sound' control panel
applet. Then they are telling you how to adjust the playback quality on
your default output device, which is located on the 'Advanced' tab there.
Do you not have a 'Sound' control panel applet?

[PW]

On Mon, 14 Nov 2011 15:48:45 -0500, "KCB" <bcg...@hootmail.com>
wrote:

Yes. Instructions were not very clear.

[PW]

Thanks! Screenshot helped a lot. I was set at 48,000 (Creative SB
X-FI) so I will see if 44,100 will help.

I've had two CTDs in about three hours (I don't keep track!) of
gameplay compared to your 17. 17 hours already? Geesh, I get to get
to work!

-pw

[PW]

On Mon, 14 Nov 2011 12:46:40 -0800 (PST), "Mr. Stabby"
<dbat...@gmail.com> wrote:

Any idea how this affects listening to music, other games, ...? I
wonder if I should switch it to a higher setting. hmmmm...

[Benedict]

"PW" <emailad...@ifIremember.com> wrote in message
news:gap2c7hbg0mqtsocb...@4ax.com...

instructions for windows 7
right click the speaker icon in the systray and select 'playback devices'
select 'speakers' then the 'properties' button
under the 'advanced' tab you can change the default format to whatever
bitrate and sampling rate you want - I run my Audigy at 16bit 48000Hz
I've not had any crashes in 10 hours.

I suspect crashing with many people will be the result of them ignoring the
default High settings (or whatever the game selects) and going for Maximum
settings.

[PW]

On Mon, 14 Nov 2011 12:46:40 -0800 (PST), "Mr. Stabby"
<dbat...@gmail.com> wrote:

I am still getting CTDs mostly during important parts. It's not the
sound thing as far as I can tell.

You know what it is??? It is friggin' STEAM with their darn
announcements (sales, etc...) that is causing their own dam* crashes!

I guess I need to just keep Steam in the Win7 hidden icons and not
keep it also minimized?

[PW]

Not it! CTDs are still happening regularly. Good thing I keep saving
the game.

Hmmm....

[Jim]

"PW" <emailad...@ifIremember.com> wrote in message

news:d0r3c79i1bnb8ui7r...@4ax.com...

> Any idea how this affects listening to music, other games, ...? I
> wonder if I should switch it to a higher setting. hmmmm...

Audio better than 16bit 48KHZ is rare so you won't be gaining much. Game
audio is usually how low can we go before its noticeable so it can fit a
single DVD for the Xbox. Even if Windows resamples everything to chosen
format its unlikely you'd notice. But if you like placebo go ahead and set
it to 24bit 192K. :)

[Rin Stowleigh]

On Tue, 15 Nov 2011 01:39:12 -0700, PW
<emailad...@ifIremember.com> wrote:

That's one of the most retarded things I've seen posted to this NG in
a while. Click something other than the "store" tab at the top, and
what you perceive as your "crash to desktop problems" can magically be
eliminated... of course you'll still get CTD, and it will not explain
why millions of other users have no problems with the Steam client.

LOL

[Rin Stowleigh]

On Tue, 15 Nov 2011 01:59:42 -0700, PW

<emailad...@ifIremember.com> wrote:

>On Tue, 15 Nov 2011 01:39:12 -0700, PW
><emailad...@ifIremember.com> wrote:
>
>>On Mon, 14 Nov 2011 12:46:40 -0800 (PST), "Mr. Stabby"
>><dbat...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>Here is an article with a screenshot:
>>>
>>>http://solidlystated.com/software/skyrim-pc-crash-to-desktop-at-startup/
>>>
>>>
>>>I've had 2 CTD in about 17 hours(!) of gameplay.
>>
>>I am still getting CTDs mostly during important parts. It's not the
>>sound thing as far as I can tell.
>>
>>You know what it is??? It is friggin' STEAM with their darn
>>announcements (sales, etc...) that is causing their own dam* crashes!
>>
>>I guess I need to just keep Steam in the Win7 hidden icons and not
>>keep it also minimized?
>
>Not it!

You think?

>CTDs are still happening regularly. Good thing I keep saving
>the game.
>Hmmm....

LOL.. anyway I read this after my prior post. Glad you've purged your
Steam client consipiracies in favor of better judgement.

[PW]

Thanks Jim :-)

[PW]

That WAS the culprit one time last night. I don't think it was a
coincidence. I heard a sound, game crashed to the desktop, Steam
window was open with a sale notification.

I still don't know why I keep getting CTDs. It's a PITA having to lose
progress and having to save the game so often.

[Rin Stowleigh]

On Tue, 15 Nov 2011 11:35:00 -0700, PW

The fact that the CTDs occur often regardless of isolated Steam events
should tell you that it is absolutely a coincidence.

The problem is with the game, not Steam.

>I still don't know why I keep getting CTDs. It's a PITA having to lose
>progress and having to save the game so often.

I am getting them too but this is typical of Bethsoft games in the
first week. I've also not noticed them since I updated my sound
drivers, although I have not played as much since that time. It was
crashing every 20-30 mins before.

-- MINOR SPOILER --

There was one place in the game (college of winterhold quest
specifically) where in order to escape from a room, I needed to use a
destruction spell to blast through a wall. I found that if I used a
spark/electricity spell from straight ahead, it would CTD on me every
single time at the exact same place in the animation. If I switch to
flame spell and hit it from a 45 degree angle, no crash.

Deus Ex HR exhibited this same behavior. When it would CTD, it was
specific events in the game, usually when the animation was complex or
it invoked some cutscene. I could reproduce it every time.

Fallout New Vegas was also CTD prone upon release. Bethesda is no
great shakes at out-the-door QA but they are good about fixing things
later.

[Mr. Stabby]

I was getting crashes last night in a cave with snowy floors and a
tree in it, forget the name. It's near Whiterun.

I usually have to replay more from something unexpectedly killing me
than CTD at least. I have all the autosaves turned off.

[PW]

On Tue, 15 Nov 2011 13:47:30 -0500, Rin Stowleigh

That is what I've heard/read.

>I've also not noticed them since I updated my sound
>drivers, although I have not played as much since that time. It was
>crashing every 20-30 mins before.

Good! I feel your pain! :-)

I have the latest SB X-FI Titanium drivers installed.

>
>-- MINOR SPOILER --

No problem. I will totally forget about this by the time I get there!
:-)

>
>There was one place in the game (college of winterhold quest
>specifically) where in order to escape from a room, I needed to use a
>destruction spell to blast through a wall. I found that if I used a
>spark/electricity spell from straight ahead, it would CTD on me every
>single time at the exact same place in the animation. If I switch to
>flame spell and hit it from a 45 degree angle, no crash.
>

Are you keeping a tab and reporting these problems to Bethesda?

OT: I remember a football game from Bethesda (back when they were in
Maryland I think - Bethesda, MD of course) on my Atair ST. Just Xs
and Os. It may be the best football game I've ever played!

>Deus Ex HR exhibited this same behavior. When it would CTD, it was
>specific events in the game, usually when the animation was complex or
>it invoked some cutscene. I could reproduce it every time.
>
>Fallout New Vegas was also CTD prone upon release. Bethesda is no
>great shakes at out-the-door QA but they are good about fixing things
>later.

Thanks Rin.

[PW]

I don't know if I could play a game like Skyrim with autosaves turned
off (I did not know that was possible).

[Rin Stowleigh]

On Tue, 15 Nov 2011 13:58:45 -0700, PW

You might never decide to even go there, it is not even in the main
quest path... I did it because I thought it would be a good way to
skill up in magic. It is a longer quest than I thought, just that
quest feels almost as long as a campaign in some other games. But I
started it, so I thought I would try to take it all the way to the
end.

>>
>>There was one place in the game (college of winterhold quest
>>specifically) where in order to escape from a room, I needed to use a
>>destruction spell to blast through a wall. I found that if I used a
>>spark/electricity spell from straight ahead, it would CTD on me every
>>single time at the exact same place in the animation. If I switch to
>>flame spell and hit it from a 45 degree angle, no crash.
>>
>
>Are you keeping a tab and reporting these problems to Bethesda?

No, I do not do uncompensated beta testing. After all the games
they've released with CTD issues, they no doubt know the drill by now.
Its just a matter of where they put their QA priorities. With 59% of
sales taking place on Xbox 360, 27% on PS3, and only 14% on PC, they
probably put their testing resources where the money was and neglected
the PC version.

http://www.vgchartz.com/article/88459/skyrim-sales-exceed-34-million-units-in-two-days/

Not much anyone can do about that except not buy console games and
educate their console owning noobile friends on the benefits of PC
gaming.

>OT: I remember a football game from Bethesda (back when they were in
>Maryland I think - Bethesda, MD of course) on my Atair ST. Just Xs
>and Os. It may be the best football game I've ever played!

Gridiron. Yep, I had it and enjoyed it too.
http://members.chello.at/theodor.lauppert/games/gridiron.htm

[Benedict]

> instructions for windows 7
> right click the speaker icon in the systray and select 'playback devices'
> select 'speakers' then the 'properties' button
> under the 'advanced' tab you can change the default format to whatever
> bitrate and sampling rate you want - I run my Audigy at 16bit 48000Hz
> I've not had any crashes in 10 hours.

make that - no crashes in 33 hours

[PW]

On Tue, 15 Nov 2011 16:36:59 -0500, Rin Stowleigh

Yes, that's it! Thanks for finding that! What a memory. So much so
I want to kick your ***! :-) I'm jealous.

[Rin Stowleigh]

On Tue, 15 Nov 2011 18:54:44 -0700, PW

You've gotta go easy on whatever you're smoking up there in the sticks
of Montana, and in the meantime hook me up with your source!

[PW]

On Tue, 15 Nov 2011 21:05:16 -0500, Rin Stowleigh

Nah, none of that here. Not for me! But this "medical" marijuana SCAM
is causing lots and lots of trouble and crimes in my state. So
smoking the weed doesn't lead to harder drugs eh?

We have a bad Meth problem in my state too.

I say get rid of all the trailer parks and 90% of crime will go away!

Sticks! Hah! Maybe some would say so :-)
http://www.paradise-valley-flyfishers.com/pvffslideshow.html

I really need to update my gallery and redo my website this winter.
Heck, winter is already here. It's been snowing since last night. We
had snow in the mountains every month this year, even some spots in
August!

Sticks? Nah, BozeAngelas is only 45 minutes away. Like the saying
here goes: The best thing about Bozeman is that it's only about
twenty miles away from Montana ;-)

Well, time for some Skyrim. Darn game kept me up until 2AM this
morning. I was glad I work for myself today!

-pw

[PW]

On Tue, 15 Nov 2011 07:46:19 -0000, "Benedict" <nos...@here.com>
wrote:

That was it! I restored the graphic settings to default and restored
the original .ini file. I just played it for three hours without a
crash.

Thanks!

-pw

[Mr. Stabby]

On Nov 15, 4:00 pm, PW <emailaddyin...@ifIremember.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 15 Nov 2011 10:54:12 -0800 (PST), "Mr. Stabby"
>

> <dbate...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >I was getting crashes last night in a cave with snowy floors and a
> >tree in it, forget the name.  It's near Whiterun.
>
> >I usually have to replay more from something unexpectedly killing me
> >than CTD at least.  I have all the autosaves turned off.
>
> I don't know if I could play a game like Skyrim with autosaves turned
> off (I did not know that was possible).

I don't mean that I don't autosave, just that I turned off all the
automatic autosaves.

[PW]

>
>The fact that the CTDs occur often regardless of isolated Steam events
>should tell you that it is absolutely a coincidence.
>
>The problem is with the game, not Steam.

Just got my first CTD in 6 hours. After a manual save, thankfully, in
Whiterun before exiting back to Skyrim.

And guess whatty was on my desktop Rin?? Yep! A Steam window for a
sale on a Steel Storm DLC! And your theory is???? ;-) Debunked now,
of course!

[Rin Stowleigh]

My theory is that your PC is fucked up and you should probably fix it,
noob :)

[PW]

HeHe

Nah, like you said, it's the norm for Bethesda early on. I just got
another CTD since my previous post but no popup from Steam ;-)

I've got everything on the default settings, and the .ini too.

Cripes, I think it's going to be another late night. Wife gets home
Friday and is home who knows how long so this temporary batchelor is
going to enjoy his last two nights where I feel I don't have to go to
bed at 11PM! :-)

-pw

[Rin Stowleigh]

I've seen the Skyrim CTD attributed to everything from video drivers
to sound drivers to BIOS versions out of date, etc.

In my case, sound driver updates seemed to solve the problem. I had
to do them manually through the Creative updater, do not rely on
Windows update to be a single source update. Video and sound drivers
have been culprits as long as they've been around, and things have
gotten a lot better but they are still the first places to look in a
relatively open environment like the PC (as opposed to Mac where you
cannot play Skyrim at all due to the shitty outdated hardware, or
consoles that let you play it with much less risk of crashes, but
still on shitty outdated hardware).

All hat said, the fact it CTD's at all is purely on Bethesda
Softworks. They should be displaying error messages with clues on
what's going on, but instead they've opted to simply terminate
process. They may be sending logs of CTD back home via Steam for
those playing with active internet connection so they can diagnose and
fix proactively, or maybe not. Purely a decision of the game vendor.
Historically they've done a good job of patching and keeping customers
happy, so most folks would say one crash in 6 hours is not a bad
record at all. Especially since you can hit F5 every 60 seconds if
you want, almost habitually and without notice, and the game does
autosaves for you at most important events.

[Xocyll]

"Mr. Stabby" <dbat...@gmail.com> looked up from reading the entrails of
the porn spammer to utter "The Augury is good, the signs say:

Er doesn't "Autosave" in the context of games, mean the game is saving
itself with no input from the player at all?

Players do regular saves and quicksaves, not autosaves.

Xocyll