Firstly let me say I'm not a PC gaming genius so I apologise if I'm being very thick but I need some help with getting Skyrim to work. This morning I figured I'd download a new version of my favourite game, having played it death on the XBox I wanted to get into some the amazing looking mods I've seen.

So I downloaded a version from Steam which included all the DLC, went to Nexus and downloaded some great looking mods and started up a new game. Got into it ok, had to turn one mod off as it started with the horses behind the carts, my character, Ulfrich et al standing about and not going to Helgen. Restarted and it was fine til the character creation screen, sometimes it would allow me to finish, sometimes not, someties I'd actually get inside the keep but no matter what after around 5 minutes the game crashed so badly I couldn't even cntl, alt delete out.

I have tried so many suggestions over the last 12 hours or so, removing all mods, using BOSS (although I will admit I did not know entirely what I was doing) trying to use the Alternative Life mod, unticking the DLC data in the start up so it was only the vanilla game, downloading unofficial patches, uninstalling and resinstalling the game. All to no avail.

I'm pretty sure my PC is capable of running the game, it runs Fallout New Vegas fine, but here are the specs for it that I know: Intel Core i7 CPU, 2.93GHz, 8GB RAM, plenty of hard disk space, NVIDIA GeForce GTS 240. When the game starts up it sets it for 'Very High' settings which suggests the PC isn't the problem

Has anyone got any suggestions, links or walkthroughs that even an idiot like I could understand?

Post a Dxdiag in spoiler tags on this thread - instructions on how to do this are given http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1122570-how-to-dxdiag/. Also, if you could copy/paste your last mod load order from BOSS, it could be helpful.

Thanks, I shall get on with that now, need to reinstall Steam and Skyrim, as I read somewhere that might solve it.

The thing is though I figured it was just the mods that were screwing things up but when I took everything off and just tried the basic game it was still having the same issues, so I can't help but think its not the mods? When I download it from Steam I'm assuming it's the latest version, but might I be missing a patch? From memory I think it said something like v1.9 something when it loaded earlier

Version 1.9 is the latest version, and it comes with the Legendary edition (which is what you bought if you got the version with all of the DLC). There are some mods that are known to interfere with the cart ride/Helgen tutorial sequence.

If you're going to reinstall, don't bother with posting the load order; just install the game and see if you can get it working right with no mods at all installed. Do still please post the Dxdiag though, so we can look at your system specs and driver version info.

Another suggestion - do not reinstall Steam in its default location within the Program Files folder. It's best to create a folder such as C:\Games and install it there, to avoid UAC issues.

Sorry, one more thing. Before you launch the game for the first time after reinstalling, go to your My Documents\My Games\Skyrim folder and check to see if there are two .ini files there - Skyrim.ini and SkyrimPrefs.ini. If these files are there, delete them. This will force the game to generate new default .ini files when you launch it the first time.

Welcome to the club,

maybe you thought you could run it on ultra? you probably can't.

I would rather try it at high and 1280x720 first, with that GT 240 !!!!!

Very important, if you are new with this game, first try to play vanilla, like Gator Country say, without mod's and fancy stuff !!!!

Fix your load order with BOSS, after that fire up Tes5edit and see if you have any dirty edits....

Play for a while without mod's, on a reasonable resolution, without AA and AF, and manage to get first viable frame-rates !!!!!

If you install mods, is advisable to read some stuff how NMM manager works. (A very convenient mod manager).

After that you should read carefully the author's page for every mod you are using, for any kind of incompatibilities. !!!!!

Install one mod every time, and test it (in-game) for a while....

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Not to forget, installing all unofficial patches too. (Main Game and DLC's)

To continue on what Mark said and Gator

Since you stated that you are not that PC Savy.

You might want to take a look at these videos for using mods in Skyrim

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxQ1JN_X-_Y&feature=c4-overview-vl&list=PLE7DlYarj-DdhDG41roBVJfNCqvO5MmKP

Nice guides...!!!!! (certainly i will take a look.)

His lets plays are also good and entertaining and watch them when I am at the coffee shop.