auroreb

btw, if you follow STEP, snow textures (snow01, snow02, snowrocks.dds) come from SRO. Does that still stand? With all the alternative snow mods out there, is SRO really the best for snow textures? I would be very happy to know what expert modders/players use.. Thanks in advance

Wheat Height Fix https://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/14427 Chicken Egg Fix https://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/12710 Whiterun Lightning Fix https://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/12357 sorry if some of these are already on the forum Also: Balance Ore Transmute https://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/7570

My 2 cent again. I have a SSD (Vertex 3 128gb) and a 7950 3gb and still encountered CTD before raising the Cell Buffer value. My install is clean as I installed STEP from scratch with MO. CTD used to happen right before big cities/landscape (Markath, Windhelm) so your theory about "a large amount of new data is suddenly demanded by the engine" seems correct but not drive related imho. I didn't mention that I also had CTD with Sounds of Skyrim (even with the patch installed), will try to reinstall it now that I have no more CTD.

I know the formula but I thought it only served as a recommanded way of calculating the Cell Buffer when tweaking the ini file. Are you sure it makes no difference for the game engine? I did encounter less CTD with a higher Cell Buffer...

Have you tried raising the "uExterior Cell Buffer" value in the ini file WITHOUT changing the "Ugridstoload" value? I had CTD/freezes outdoors with Ugridstoload=7, uExterior Cell Buffer=64, but everything seems fine with Ugridstoload=7, uExterior Cell Buffer=100 Maybe you could try Ugridstoload=5, uExterior Cell Buffer=64 On a side note: at first I reverted to the standard values of 5/36, and didn't suffer any CTD, but even with STEP the game looked pretty ugly imho, or at least non immersive at all with all the buildings, trees, textures, etc. popping out every 10 seconds or so :( I would advise anyone unable to run STEP with a Ugridstoload value of 7 or 9 to desinstall some of the biggest texture mods (or downgrade them to medium res version, or try Texture Optimizer) rather than returning to the standard value of Ugridstoload=5.