I've been fighting with this game since it unlocked, both with the crash to desktop issue.... and with weird glitches and such.
Although i run in a Portrait mode solution with 3x 27" Asus VE278Q monitors (1920x1080) giving me a desktop resolution of 3240x1920. Which is between the 16:9 and 16:10 ratio which should mean the game shouldn't give a single hitch..... alas it apparently isn't at all true...
First off..... i found the crash to desktop was mostly caused by Fraps.... don't ask me why or how.. but attempting to take screenshots using fraps would frequently LEAD to an exit to desktop glitch every single time. Even just leaving fraps running in the background would rarely allow me to play for more than say 5-10 minutes before crashing...
Additionally, using anything above 48khz audio sample for default windows audio sampling would result in numerous skyrim effects, mostly dialogue to come across as a low volume squelching, but it's random, and very irritating..... this wasn't causing a crash to desktop for me though at least....
And if your wondering why i'm using fraps.. it's because skyrim doesn't appear to like high resolutions for screenshots, Asking how do i mean... here i'll kinda list things out a bit.
The one ANNOYING thing since i first started up the game was right around where the subtitles are located RIGHT from the moment you click "new game" i get this text that says "LEVEL UP"..... you can't click on it, and it never goes away and it makes reading subtites impossible as it's on almost the same line if the subtitles are long...
Additionally, Crossfire is a so-so thing...... using the alt+Ctrl+Del solution to trigger it to work (do the alt+crtl+del and then hit the escape key) solves it.. but it's a bit annoying to have to do it..
So to clarify the above things... let me post a few screenshots showing it all..
First off, I cannot select a resolution for skyrim at all, period.... if i clicked windowed mode i can select a "standard" resolution, below that of 1920x1080... but otherwise.... blank. Starting the game results in a crash due to no resolution being set... i fixed this with the manual resolution INI solution which i'm familare with well before anything... that was easy.
so here you can see my settings...... used.... and then after which i apply the 3240x1920 resolution to the ini...
NOW, here is what crossfire works like when i first run skyrim BEFORE the crossfire fix...
(Keep in mind that the drop in gpu activity is due to exiting out of skyrim)
As you can see.... one of the GPUs isn't doing a thing.. totally sleeping/shut down/idling
doing the fix produces this result.
IF you exit and startup skyrim after you've already ran it and done the crossfire fix.... both GPUS will remain active, but at about 50% power... producing the same performance results similare to a single GPU... so doing the crossfire fix again fixes it.
Here is what i run into when i try and use the ingame print screen feature..... as you can see below.... totally useless.....
Attempting to use fraps to take screenshots produced rather unpredictable and well always a crash to desktop.. but sometimes i could squeeze fraps to at least create one or 2 screenshots .....
HOWEVER this image clearly sows whati mean by the "LEVEL UP" issue i'm having... it just doesn't WANT to go away.. i can't get rid of it.... and it appears that it only effects me when i run anything over 1920x1080 or standard resolution. I tried deleting all the INI files and forcing a complete reset, as well as full intagrity checks... no dice... it's just really really strange.
heres a full resolution image that i was able to get before further tweaking skyrim... http://img43.imageshack.us/img43/9616/frapsedscreenshot2.jpg