AFTER SO LONG, THE GAME FINALLY WORKS!

[hoshuha]

My Skyrim was crashing about every 15 minutes. I could play for an hour if I was REALLY lucky.
My textures kept turning purple.
The game would just lock up and I would have to do a hard boot.
It usually just crashed to desktop for no apparent reason.

I tried everything. Changing the sound and graphics to a low setting. Visited dozens of sites with suggestions that didn't work.

Last night, I played for about 8 hours. I was actually trying to get it to crash. Nothing turned purple, the game didn't lock up and it never crashed. 8 hours! It was like a miracle.

This is what I did.

1.) I already had Large Address Aware --- but it wasn't working
2.) I already had the 4GB Skyrim Launcher --- that too wasn't working

3) Last night, I found a game-pro site that toold me to do this....
a) Open command prompt with Adminitrator rights. To do this, go to Programs, Accessories, right-click on Command Prompt and select "Run as Administrator."
b) Type
bcdedit /set IncreaseUserVA 3072
and enter it at the MS-DOS prompt
c) restart the computer... and play Skyrim without crashing for the first time!

[Stania]

Yes, that's called "the 3GB switch" I make note to other users around here, that it only works on computers with 32-bit operative systems and 4gb of RAM (or more, though your OS will work only with 4gb). It's a bad idea to use a value greater than 3072.

[Stania]

I wrote some time ago an article regarding this beauty, explaining briefly how does it work and how use it properly, in case someone is bored enough interested here it is:

http://steamcommunity.com/app/72850/discussions/0/846957366787385447

[hoshuha]

That's right, Stania. I forgot to mention that it's for 32-bit OS's. Thank you for adding that.