I have the mods Higher Settlement Budget and Spring Clean installed because I LOVE building and furnishing my settlements, and can't stand the mess everywhere.

I understand why Bethesda put a cap on building, so as to avoid lag etc.. I am wondering if the stuff I have scrapped using Spring Clean is still somehow 'stored' somewhere, so still counts as 'present' memory-wise (sorry can't think of a better way of putting it - not very technical). Am I pushing my PC too hard? Sometimes it just freezes and I get a message saying my graphice driver has stopped working, or something like that.

I have had other issues which I have resolved but now I've been building up Sanctuary and started having randomly spaced CTDs whilst I am doing it.

I have been thinking about getting a higher spec PC, will it help with my CTD problems too?

My current PC invoice said I have:

CPU: AMD FX 6300 Black Edition

CPU Cooler: Zalman CNPS5X Performa

Operating System: Windows 7 Home

Motherboard: Gigabyte 970A-DS3P

RAM: 8GB Corsair 1600mhz Vengeance (2x4GB)

Hard Drive: 1TB S-ATAIII 6.0Gb/s

Graphics card: AMD Radeon R9 270X 2GB

Sound Card: Onboard 7.1 Audio

PSU: 650W Corsair VS

I have scrapped most of my newly built stuff (whimpers in utter desolation) and so far no more crashes (famous last words no doubt).

Driver crashing could be result of corrupted drivers. Try using DDU to completely uninstall your video drivers and install the most recent AMD drivers afterwards. What are your GPU temps reaching?

I have downloaded DDU and will use as suggested and reinstall Crimson drivers.

Lord knows how to find the GPU temps using AMD software - it has all changed - so I've also downloaded Speedfan for that.

Fingers crossed and thanks for the reply

Used DDU instead of just letting AMD do their thing (don't know why I stopped using it - smacked wrist).

Installed latest drivers - Hotfix - 16.3.1

Went build mad, and it took a while but it CTD again.

This message came up -

Radeon Settings has detected that one or more high-DPI panels are connected to your system. Enabling Virtual Super Resolution will increase your resolution and allow you to customise DPI settings.

No idea what that means . Found where to enable it and have done.

Could it be that I have my desktop set to 1600x900 (bad eyesight) and my game to 1920x1080?

Sometimes I yearn for the simplicity of a console.

P.S. GPU temperature immediately checked after crash was 40C

Is your native monitor resolution 1600x900 or have you made that choice?

If i understand correctly your current monitor resolutionis 1600x900 and you play at 1920x1080 with VSR enabled.

VSR automatically re-renders a game at higher resolution! Let's say it's equivalent to Nvidias DSR.

Why you not set your monitor to 1920x1080 and disable VSR?

You can do that through your Crimson control center. Right click on the Desktop and choose AMD Radeon Settings-> click Display -> Switch off Virtual Super Resolution

I use a TV as a monitor - which probably doesn't help. (A 22" LG 32LS5600 Full HD).

I did already reset my desktop resolution to 1920x1080 (can't see a damned thing now), and turned on VSR at that time.

Just had another CTD building in Sanctuary. I'll turn VSR off again.

I wish I understood more about all this stuff, and am very grateful for the help.

If your TV is set to be running at 1080P, if you turn on VSR it will give you three more options for the resolution:

2560 X 1440

3200 X 1800

3840 X 2160 (this one on faster Ati GPUs models)

but i don't thing it will help you with your problem in any way...

What VSR does is: it re-renders games at higher resolutions (up to 4K) and then displays the content at a lower resolution supported by the available monitor. (your monitor)

Then you have, let's say a pseudo 2K, 4K resolution output on a much lower resolution monitor. (the graphics looks cleaner and crisper, as if you had a much higher native resolution monitor)

So, actually you wanna disable that feature for sure.

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Most probably your saves got problematic - somehow, because your mods in first place.

That happens not at the beginning of your play-through, but after you have invested a lot of time on it. (unfortunately)

It's the same problem with all modded games out there.

Thank you Mark, much appreciated that you took time like this.

I will leave VSR off as advised.

I guess I made my bed by using mods, so will have to lie in it

I'm level 89 - second playthrough - no way I can face starting again with a fresh, un-modded install. Not yet anyway.

So my PC is okay for F4 then?

Awww, no excuse to splurge my savings and get a new PC - damn lol.

I don't thing you PC is incapable for running Fallout 4 at 1080p (medium preset) and getting near to 60 fps. (the most time)

Mods are a different story...

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You could just update your PC gradually, by starting with an stronger processor like the i5.

Actually if you do that - in the near future, you should be fine with that for a long long time.

As for the GPU, just keep it as long as you can, until something new comes out. (you can adjust the different games settings properly, to get the best results between visuals and performance)

Many thanks Mark.

I will restart a freshly installed, mod-free F4 and start a new character I think - I just need a break from it first

Just play the game vanilla once (it's an outstanding game if you ask me, and kudos to Beth for that), then you can mess up with your mods!

What's the memory usage on the GPU when it crashes? 2 gb VRAM is min spec, could be over extending that with a very built up settlement.