Greetings dear modding-community, I'm posting this in the Mods-section because obviously, Vanilla Skyrim doesn't use that much RAM, and I wanted to know, which mods eat up most of RAM? And I'm talking about memory (RAM), NOT VRAM. So, as you guys know, Skyrim crashes everytime your RAM-usage exceeds 3,2 GB. I wanted to know which mods eat up most of RAM so I could do my best to remove mods without sacrificing too much mods in the process. Also, just to make this clear, is it true that RAM has mostly to do with scripts, NOT graphics? I'm under the notion that the VRAM of your Graphics Card handles all textures etc. Am I right here? One more thing, does RAM handle the music? Those files surely are massive.

So, about the mods, I'm thinking SkyRe is definitely one massive culprit, I mean it's almost entirely scripted, but from that I'm not willing to part. Other mods I could think of are the Unofficial Patches? Of that I'm not willing to part either. Actually, I'll just post a few of the mods here that I think could be eating alot of RAM:

Solstheim Climate Overhaul

Frostfall

Trade and Barter

Economics of Skyrim

Immersive Patrols

Real Shelter

SkyTEST

Skyrim Immersive Creatures (this one is massive)

Convenient Horses

SkyTweak?

iHud

Less Intrusive HUD

Sounds of Skyrim (if my premise is true that RAM handles music this one is surely massive - can someone confirm?)

Climates of Tamriel

Realistic Needs and Diseases

ACE Balance Your Own Game

Better Enemy AI

Automatic Variants (I'm confused, does Java or Skyrim do this?)

So, if anyone, with any experience of this, could help me, and help the community at the same time, it would be really nice!

I'll just post my whole load-order down here for those who are interested

False, and the RAM limit is for RAM+VRAM combined I believe. The music files are XWM-compressed with the highest compression level, thus they are small and is also is why they sound bad. Techincally the game should be able to address up to 4GB of RAM, but I've never seen it manage more than 3~3.2 without crashing.

Bite the bullet and disable the official HD texture pack (HighResTexturePack01.esp, HighResTexturePack02.esp, HighResTexturePack03.esp, Unofficial High Resolution Patch.esp) and the game's memory usage should go down substantially, even if you're still using tons of fan-made HD texture replacers. Texture packs are going to be the things with the biggest impact on memory usage, but the official pack is probably the worst offender of those in my experience.

No. That wouldn't make any sense at all.

Would be nice if people knew what they were talking about, wouldn't it?

The RAM "limit" is for system RAM. The RAM on your motherboard. Skyrim can never use more than 4 gigs of it, and for various reasons is more like 3.2 gigs of it.

It can use as much VRAM as you have. What precisely gets loaded into what type of RAM isn't very important, and its not like you can change that anyway.

Scripts do not use RAM to any appreciable degree, what scripts use are CPU cycles.

You could look into http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/32363/?, especially the Cleanmem section. It's an interesting set of guides and advice. As always, make sure you understand what you're doing if you decide to take any of the advice. Read up on what you're doing, etc.

When you run out of VRAM your will use system RAM next.

I second "cleanmem"...and to do a keyword search for "cleanmem" here in the mod forum. Not long ago, there were some discussions about this freeware can help with the memory ceiling issue (from the author of the mod "Skyrim Project Stability"). Btw, I am assuming you already ran optimizer tools against your BSAs and texture folder...correct?Good luck.

Sure. But the 3.2 gigs of RAM limit the op is talking about does not include VRAM.

And I think that 3.2 gb "cap" is because you need the remaining to run the OS.

Only if you have precisely 4 gigs of RAM.

So guys, you guys seem to be quite unanimous about the fact that textures also impact RAM-usage.

I'll try optimizing, removing, cleanmem etc. and report back to you

Textures are mostly handled by VRAM, but there will be some impact on system RAM as well.