Spock

I had a PM discussion with Smile about this. I just like many of the STEP:Extended mods, they add little things that bring more life and detail to Skyrim and I have problems parting from them (no I'm not a messy in my private life :p). Unless the stability proves to be an issue with add-on mods (those Azirok created patches for) I don't see myself removing them.There are even some I'd highly recommend to use with Requiem like Even Better Quest Objectives! Is there any specific mod in STEP:Extended that you think doesn't fit Requiem? A little break down on the STEP:Extended mods after removing incompatible ones. 56 Extended mods are graphical improvements. About half of them are .esp-less misc texture replacers (mostly interior) or enhance some kind of menu element. The other half adds little things to the game like more birds, ants, roadsigns, rainbows, shooting stars etc. Then there are 9 game play changing mods which can be safely removed if you don't like them. I'd need to have a more detailed look into them but I think all of the STEP:Extended mods are safe to remove from your load order as long as they are not forwarded by one of the patches. Which ones those are is documented for the Requiem Patch, documentation for the chopped extended patch will follow. I will, still didn't find the time to finish the wiki. There are also a few mods that the compatibility section misses. I wouldn't recommend installing Convenient Horses, Uncapper and Lock Overhaul.The chopped extended patch needs an update to reflect that some Lanterns mods are no longer part of STEP:Extended (torminater will like this :) ) but I'd rather wait what happens to the STEP sound solution.

Thank you for sharing this, but honestly I think this would be of more use in the Requiem thread at the Nexus.

Ogerboss probably would like to know about your find :)

As far as I know dungeon ambience is WIP for AOS, so SoS should be usable here. The other modules mess with the AOS composition though. If I remember right LordKorn said in his commends section that it's technically possible to make them compatible but both mods try to achieve a different experience. But don't quote me on that. For the Wiki: Would you like me to name it Audio Overhaul and save the rest for the long name description or Audio Overhaul for Skyrim?

The problem with comparing on a sample by sample basis is that the composition is really important. The sum of the best samples won't make the best sound mod. You are bound to find samples you like better in one mod or the other, what makes this mod outstanding is the overall composition and the changes to the way sounds behave in Skyrim. On the downside this also means it's really easy to break the composition of adding in other sounds that are not designed with the composition in mind.Some advantages of this mod that I noticed: - Low repitiveness of samples (in vanilla if you really listen closely you will notice the loop in some sounds) - The changes to reverb and distance behavior (this is just amazing, most of the comparison videos show this. It makes the sounds much more believable for me. It does have the downside of sometimes hearing things through solid objects though because of engine limitations) - "Crispness" of the samples (the frequency balance of the sounds is outstanding. This is very improtant for the overall experience) - Realism (many sounds just sound the way thing should sound in real life. The archery sounds are that of real life, I tried it. A friend of mine built a small tesla coil a while back and AOS' electical sounds reminded me of that. Apart from high voltage discharge though but he is changing the sounds for high level shock spells in the upcoming version. The smith probably was the loudest thing you could hear in a small medival city.) This is highly subjective but personally I think AOS reflects the actual things you see in game very well. For me it perfectly fits the atmosphere of the game (better then SoS). Like EssArrBee pointed out the amount of reverb is somewhat depending on your sound setup. It's also personal taste. But that's what the reduced reverb patch is made for.

As far as I know the shadow quality of Skyrim will degrade with larger draw distance. That is because the Skyrim engine renders one big shadow for the whole scene. If it is larger with the same resolution the quality will be lower. Another point is that some .ini settings regarding shadows look odd with certain ENB configs. Opethfeldt's ENB for example looks best at iBlurDeferredShadowMask=3 while a setting of 4 helped with my vanilla shadows. I'm sorry that I cannot make comparison shots to back up my claims atm because I sold my GPU and am still waiting for a new one.

This mod seems to be missing a wiki page, I tried to add it to a mod list in my pack but that didn't work. I'd fix this myself but I don't know how.

Well I think the carried lanterns emit relatively little light, not enough to see far enough in a dark dungeon. If you add in ENB adaptation it becomes even more realistic. I like the ability to carry around a little Lantern as an inconvenient but feasible way for "mundanes" to light up their way.

I'm sorry, I don't really understand what you want to hear. Both the 770 and 780 are quality graphics cards and EVGA is known for their very good aftermarked coolers. The only question really is how much you want to spend. Maybe this chart will help you: https://techreport.com/review/25611/nvidia-geforce-gtx-780-ti-graphics-card-reviewed/12 (this is actually from the ti review, but it displays all the recent cards on their price/performance scale) Also be aware that not all 780 have the same performance: https://techreport.com/review/24832/nvidia-geforce-gtx-780-graphics-card-reviewed

That totally depends on what image property you refer to by quality. MSAA cannot do transparency AA and costs more performance for the same effect then SMAA. SSAA costs even more performance but can do transparency AA. SMAA like all generally available post processing AA methods slightly "smudges" the image though (Boris' TAA was a little different, there seem to be post processing AA methods using z-buffer that nearly nullify this problem but none that I know of work for Skyrim, using the z-buffer is game specific).That's why I don't see the point in combining AA methods, especially SSAA and SMAA. You will just pay more performance and still get the "smudging" effect of SMAA.

I've used WB to install all my mods because I was used to it from older TES titles. But MO seems to be the even more powerful tool. I would also like to switch my install dir. Is it possible to transfer the install order of my archives from WB into MO? That would be very convenient, otherwise I'd have to sort 400 archives. Thanks in advance, Spock

Ok, new patch is up. I didn't take a look into the updated wearable lanterns yet though. The Wiki is still missing too as I have to learn how to do it :) I double checked the patch now. That doesn't mean that there are no errors, but it should be safe as it's mostly just forwarding BOYD scripts, some keywords and visuals. Updated to Hard Times 1.31 as well. If you can find the time I would be grateful if someone could test explosive bolts for me (just visuals). And also if the Faendal & Sven quest works if "The Choice is Yours" is installed before Requiem (in files and load order). Thanks in advance! Enjoy!

Well, I think both cards are on the usual price/performance scale. You won't get the same performance per dollar if you go for a high end card, but it doesn't seem unreasonalbe (if not considering AMD cards). On those occasions my consciousness tells me to buy the cheaper card and use the money for an earlier upgrade. But in my GPU purchase I want the performance for Skyrim now so I personally go for the more expensive card, the 290 in my case. Hope that helped :)

On a quick note: I have to step back from hyping the DirectCU II cooler from Asus. It definitely is very good on many cards but not all. The 290x DirectCU II seems to have some problems because of the chips size (Sapphire seems to have done a better job on their tri-x cooler but there are not enough reviews for a definite conclusion). Hopefully the 290 will be better because I like a custom cooler that still vents some heat out of the case.

Like I already stated in the ENB suggestions I'm using Opethfeldt 7 beta 3. What's really great about Opethfeldt's are the weathers. The ENB has an overall natural look while still preserving the fantasy feel. The weathers are really believable e.g. far away objects are slightly blurred on rainy days, visibility is really bad in snowy weathers etc. On the downside I personally think the nights and interiors are slightly too dark, it produces some odd visuals with some magic effects and it pronounces the Skylighting bug. And the weather settings do not consider the cloudshadow feature of ENB yet since that's fairly new. But the current version is still in beta. Gopher made a video about it that sums up it's strengths really well.

In a sense that it's safe to uninstall in case you do not like it or your rig cannot handle it: yes. But be wary, you might enable more and more features until come to a point where you cannot live without it ;)

Exactly that :)The philosophies of core/extended inclusion differ a little, short version: extended is allowed do differ a little more from vanilla while core mostly contains only essentials that feel like they should have been in the game in the first place. @Deathneko: Thanks! @Smile44: This is definitely for high end systems. I will add a note to the OP! I got a new patch version including Guard Dialogue Overhaul on my PC. Azirok said it would only needing simple T5E keyword forwarding. When I get time (probably the week after christmas) I will go over the patch again to double check everything, build a wiki, start a version number with changelog and update a few things in the OP, then it's probably time for beta. Since I sold my GPU a few days ago and still waiting for my new one which will arrive on 15.1. due to the shortage on the marked I cannot test anything atm (I'm currently on geforce 9). But again, the kinds of mods in the setup are either well tested (e.g. wet and cold, wearable lanterns) or script free, so the T5E patch should work.

I'm considering using this mod, my vram would allow it but I'm not sure about other factors (I'm getting close to the 30 fps for vsync). I'd like to understand what I'd have to expect. Is there anything else I should take into account?

If you are planning on spending that amount of money I'd consider the Asus r9 290x directcu II TOP.

I did ;) TerraTec Aureon 7.1 PCIe is probably the best bang for your buck card out there. It was some time ago but I once found a review showing that the actual circuitry shielding of the TerraTec PCI when built into a case was miles ahead of the Audigy at that time. There currently is no professional review of the Aureon 7.1 PCIe but you probably have to buy a professional sound card to get better sound. For the RAM thing, this speaks for itself: https://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?286121-The-Official-Memory-Frequency-WR-List The top ones are all G.Skill, especially at lower latencies. And usually G.Skill is cheaper then Corsair.

Even with a lot of money I probably wouldn't go water cooling, I'm just not comfortable with having water in my case. I don't know your exact setup but usually those side outtakes are far enough to the back to not hurt your airflow with a good cooler on the CPU. I mean that Noctua cooler is large, it should take the air of the front intake. It might block the height of the cooler though. You could also swap the case fans for Noctua fans, they make quite a difference. But it can be fiddly depending on your case setup and you should check for the implications first. It might take some tinkering.

Is there any more stress this puts on the engine in excess of 6 mb extra vram (if using 1kx1k textures and normals) for each variant?

Afaik the motherboards are laid out for such weights. I wouldn't consider it when choosing a cooler. Height shouldn't make that much of a difference either, I got a midi tower with one of those (little older model but same dimensions) and there is plenty of room left. My CPU cooler is about the height of my GPU, from the pictures the NH-U14S seems ~1cm higher. If you cannot fit that you bought the wrong case, not the wrong cooler (airflow will be bad in such a crammed case). @Aiyen: I'd consider an upgrade, those Noctua coolers don't only cool much better, they are also close to unhearable :) All the fans in my system except for GPU are Noctua, they are ridiculously quiet.

@Aiyen: Yes, that is very true. I just thought the "have a better ENB experience" sounded a little to general while there are very good arguments to buy an AMD card atm. I'd also always rather buy a card for ~250€ and another for 250€ in 2-3 years then buy a 500€ card now. That card will be totally sufficient. The reviews for the Noctua NH-U14S I saw actually suggest it's (pretty much - depending on the reviewer) on par with the corsair h110. I'm not that much into water cooling but the h110 seems to be the way to go. But those heatpipes can probably be described as passive water cooling without a pump :) @deathneko: 35° under load is incredibly chilly! My I7 920 @ 3.7 GHz hits 73° under a Noctua NH-U12P (Prime Blend) and 34° in idle.