Aeradom

I notice Cleaner Concrete Structures - Wasteland Workshop was removed but didn't see it in the update section. Did you intend to do this? I approve of the move as I don't like the clean look, but wanted to make sure it wasn't inadvertent.

https://wiki.step-project.com/index.php?title=User:Gernash/MODWiki&action=edit&section=145 I've got no clear where or what that five is! If you remove the second and/or third lines then it goes away.

That's why despite WET being an archive now and higher in the install order, it still will overwrite True Storm textures as it is lower in the load order.

@BoSox Technically yes, but @Gernash hasn't had an opportunity to go through the texture section and pick out textures. However, what I'm going is installing the big overhauls first as ba2s (as they are really the only ones that need the archived) and then leave the smaller ones loose as the performance gains with those will be negligible. That is unless you wanted to package multiple mods together in one big archive after sorting which textures you like. Be warned though that if there's an update you'll have to redo it all. And just to be clear, regardless of where the two mods are in the load order, loose files will always overwrite archives.

@BoSoxBry I can give a definitive answer, as I was looking into this after mine and @Gernash conversation. There are three types of "filing systems" that Bethesda games (at least since midway through Skyrim) will read; Registered archives that start with the game, (these are the primary ones and you'll find these listed in the ini file), Plugin-based archives that start AFTER a new game or save game is started. The Plugin-based ba2/archives always win when in conflict with the registered ba2 and is the essence of how mods work. Last in the order, and what overwrites both archives are loose files. So the way it would work is if you have a texture mod that's based on an archive, it'll load it's textures first and then if you have loose files that overwrite some of those textures, then the overwrite wins. It's for this reason why you are supposed to do Texture Optimization (if you choose to of course) before everything else because then the mods come in afterwards and take over for those "optimized textures". And the way ba2 vs ba2 works is that it's based on load order NOT install order. So if you want a mod's textures to have priority, you need to put it lower on the list.

Fine.

You misunderstand my purpose. What I'm wanting to do is get in touch with the mod authors and work with them to put up archived versions of their mod onto their websites. Then all you'd have to do is like what we did with FAR and that is update the instructions to download the archived versions. Easy peasy. There will be no additional work done on the end userr part.

A tool to do what? You can do it right now with the Archiver2 and CK. I know because I did that a couple of days ago. My only issue right now is that for some reason it isn't working with the mod author himself. But it does work on my end so I need a third person to run it and see if it works. If it does, then I can work with the mod author to figure out what's different between his setup and mine.

Pretty much every major texture mod out there actually. After the Fallout, the Vivid Series, Langley's Workshop. The only ones that I saw that were packaged into archives were Sparrow's mods. So what I'd like to do is package them into the ba2 format.

But even STEP doesn't try to put everything into that Core list, that's what Extended is for. If you really want it to be there, then it should be in there. I just don't want you feeling like you have to put it all in at once, especially if it's one mod that require more patching and might be risky from dirty edits. ^ That is what I'm trying to do. Making these older mods that run off of loose files into archives.

@Gernash You were the one that said it was better to run off of archives instead of loose files

You ever think that some things are just too much work for too little reward? I feel like if all this is done just to get a few mods to work together it isn't worth it OR to contact the author if it's one mod in particular that's troublesome.

@Gernash So remember how I was telling you that I was working on optimizing texture mods that had loose files? Well, I picked one to start out of and got in touch with the mod author. He was eager to offer and archived version. I accomplished it, tested and restested to make sure it was working here and sent it off to him. But it's not working on his end for some reason. I want to make doubly sure that it is working for someone else before trying to troubleshoot things with him (especially since he's more experienced than I with these matters). So with your approval, I'll send you a link in drop box to the packaged texture mod and like you to confirm whether it's working or not in game. @GSDFan Or you, either or it doesn't matter.

Can either of you assist me with a little test? I've got a texture pack that I packaged into an archive but while it works fine for me, it's not with the mod author himself. What I'd like to do now if the problem is just with him, or the mod isn't really working on my end. I know the last one sounds weird but humor me if you would. If your interested, send me a message and I'll provide the link there.

For the record, when I spoke of mods, I meant mods that relied on SKSE like Frostfall. And I'm definitely not playing Skyrim without it (I know there are more but Frostfall is the one that comes to mind first).

Even if it is, I don't think many people are going to use it because they'd have to give up their mods. I know in one of Gopher's videos that he was speaking with the SKSE team and it could take months if at all to get the same level of functionality. And without mods, Skyrim just isn't that interesting (to me).

I'm willing to do both. I mean this by no offense, but your guide was a bit confusing at the bottom. That though has more to do with me since when you were referencing archives, I got confused if you were talking about zips or the ba2. here's the instructions that I found that helped me: 1. Extract the .zip from the download into a temporary folder. 2. Navigate to "Tools\Archive2" inside the fallout 4 folder. And open Archive2.exe 3. Drag the extracted folder named "Textures", from where you extracted the downloaded .zip, onto the Archive2 interface. Can take a while, the program may be unresponsive, just wait. 4. In Archive2 press "Archive -> Settings", in format choose "DS". Press OK. 5. Then "File -> Save" or "CTRL + S", and choose the Data folder and the name "TextureOptimizationProject - Textures.ba2". Wait til done. 6. Open up the Creation kit and load up the fallout4.esm. 7. When loaded, simply save a new plugin by pressing the "floppy disk icon" or "File -> Save". Name it TextureOptimizationProject.esp 8. Activate it for loading in NMM or through the mods menu ingame. Then you're done.'' If possible, I'd also appreciate instructions of how to verify that the pack is working. It's sometimes hard for me with textures to tell the difference.

Look if this was coming from people like me who really don't have a background in this stuff then it is one thing. But there's way too many smart and experienced people like Boris, the creator of enb, that are arguing this to just be dismissed. Why do you think they all believe this is the case if it's not? I'm not even implying that the problems you referenced is related to it by the way. Like I said, I don't know anything, just repeating what I've heard from others that presumable would know.

From the STEP enblocal.ini/memory guide VideoMemorySizeMb This sets the total memory that will be used for the ENBoost dynamic memory allocation. All available VRAM, except for the amount set with ReservedMemorySizeMb, will be used first, and if VideoMemorySizeMb is set to a value higher than total VRAM of the user's videocard, then ENBoost will use system RAM, if necessary, by running instances of enbhost.exe. Download Boris's VRamSizeTest tool, run VRamSizeDX9.exe, and note the number it shows after "Video memory available." Then, if you are running Windows 7, subtract 170 from that number; if you are running Windows 8 or newer, use the number provided by the tool. Use the result as the variable here. (Example 1: If VRamSizeDX9.exe shows 10240, and you're running Windows 7, you should subtract 170 to get 10070. Example 2: If VRamSizeDX9.exe shows 4064, and you're running Windows 10, you should use 4064.) For more information, please refer to this post. VideoMemorySizeMb=(see above instructions) Notice:Windows 8/10 users: Microsoft has, unintentionally, introduced a memory limit for DirectX 9 games/software. This limit is 4GBs (4096) and there is nothing which can be done to circumvent this limit. For users seeing the VRamSizeTest tool reporting 4064 or similar, this is not a mistake. This is actually the limit for the OS in use and the maximum value you can set the VideoMemorySizeMb to.

I could be wrong on this, but from all my research, I don't think for a texture mod, you need a main.ba2. My understanding is that archive is for storing meshes, materials, scripts and the like. Like if you go to the FAR mod, you'll see there's no main.ba2 there.

@GSDFan Oh wow, didn't expect there to be that many scrap mods. I was just thinking of Scrap Everything but I can certainly see the benefit of that stuff. So those four mods and then the patch? I'm assuming that since I've been gone they fixed the cell reset issue? I know there an issue on working outside of the boundaries with Place Everywhere at one point...

Ah! Thanks for that. I looked for an update on the issue but couldn't find one. The one thing I was sure about is that a solution at this point is doubtful.

Ah okay, just wanted to make sure because with the issue I've mentioned there's been quite a bit of contention as to if the issue was a RAM or VRAM problem. The Geforce forum thread shows a bunch of fanboys arguing with Boris about the thing.

Read carefully on my previous post:

@rhodsey Not sure about the first sentence, @Gernash probably be the person to answer that. But as to the second paragraph, I can help. Autosaves have been a notorious problem in ever Bethesda game dating back Oblivion. And as Bethesda is loathed to create a new engine, I'm sure that it's the same here. And as to the second question with memory allocation issue, that's actually two different problems at play. See with Skyrim the issue is that the program was 32 bit which there was a 4 GB RAM limit. I put that in bold because the issue now (assuming you are using Windows 10 like I am) has to do with a 4 gb limit on VRAM (as an aside, this is another reason I won't use 4K or 8K textures).The previous one, the Skyrim one, was fixed by things like ENB Boost. This though isn't something modders, or even Bethesda can do. The only ones who can fix the problem at this point are Nvidia and AMD which it's doubtful they ever will. If you'd like to know more (and see just how awful Nvidia fanboys can be) I'd recommend checking out here and here. TL;DR Boris (creator of ENB) says if you are running Fallout 4 on Windows 10 (and maybe Windows 8/8.1), you are capped at the 4GB VRAM limit because Nvidia and AMD certainly aren't going to fix the problem. Oh and don't forget that if your using a GTX 970 like me, you don't actually have 4 full gb or VRAM. Long story.