Spock

Hm.. I'd be very reluctant to do something remotely important over the web, this just raises a lot of security concerns for me. I will stick to VMware. But technically interesting! The link works for me too btw, maybe you have some kind of redirect? A friend of mine showed me an Unreal 3 demo on his notebook some weeks ago. The clue: It ran in firefox and totally fluent! It uses a general c/c++ to Java port method if I remember right. Link: https://www.unrealengine.com/html5/ (requires a little load time)

Well "better experience" sounds a little subjective to me tbh. So far I didn't have a single ENB problem that NVidia users didn't have that wasn't fixed within a few days. While I do like NVidia and their inventiveness in the gaming sector I currently wouldn't advice anyone to buy an NVidia card. The 99th percentile frame performance of r9 280x vs gtx 780 is very slim but the price difference is huge. Some of that price difference might show up on your electricity bill though. The AMD cards currently eat more power and produce more heat though so choosing the right custom cooler can be difficult. Asus' DirectCU II seems to be the best custom cooler for AMD cards atm (I so much hope the 290 won't be too expensive). If you go for air cooling make sure to get the Noctua NH-U14S. It's currently the best out there, so good in fact it becomes difficult to justify water cooling. What's also missing in the setup is a SSD drive. I'd advice the Samsung evo 840 if you can get it (choose the data amount you want). The 850 seems to have a cheaper controller with shorter lifespan.

You should never advocate piracy in an open forum. You wouldn't steal a car! ... Well if that car is a cheap car owned by a multi millionaire (who earned his money tax free, sold his own grandma and is now trying to rip you off) and there was no way you could get caught - I think I could understand you :)

I just recently found this, it seems really interesting! This mod seems to have undergone quite some development since it was suggested for STEP inclusion as well as the GPU market (dunno if there has been an internal discussion though). With default spawns the amount of extra VRAM needed doesn't seem too big, probably smaller then Better Male Feet. So I thought this might be worth bringing up again :)

Moon Phase Affects Brightness at Night by qqqbbb does pretty much what the title says. Nice little piece of immersion with a lightweight script.

Just in case you're interested: Some 290 cards can be bios flashed into 290x cards. Only try this with a card featuring dual bios though as this surely terminates your warranty.I'd wait for a directcu II though as those are the coolers with the best cooling/noise ratio atm.

Something I found: Make sure to test how much displacement quality your system can effort (displacement is required for RWT ENB textures). I had to set mine to low and still sometimes drop below 30 fps in water heavy areas. The rest of the settings had almost no effect on my fps.

Since I did some T5E work over the past days I noticed another pro for AOS: It seems to require less patching with the STEP setup then SoS, at least concerning cell/worldspace edits. If not using patches this might be another (small) argument for AOS.

Hey EssArrBee, I did go over your extended patch to chop it for my requiem extended pack. There seem to be some uskp waterheight values not forwarded by the patch: Cell -> Block 3 -> Sub-block 1 -> Robbersgorge01 Cell -> Block 6 -> Sub-block 2 -> windhelmbloodworks Cell -> Block 6 -> Sub-block 7 -> pinepeakcavern Cell -> Block 7 -> Sub-block 1 -> skuldafn05 Cell -> Block 7 -> Sub-block 1 -> skuldafn01 Cell -> Block 8 -> Sub-block 2 -> rebels cairn01 Cell -> Block 9 -> Sub-block 5 -> FellglowKeep01 Cell -> Block 9 -> Sub-block 7 -> RiftenJail01

Dang, I'll look into it. Another thing I have a wonky feeling about are explosive bolts visualized. If someone comes around them and could do a quick test it would be really nice. [edit] Should be fixed now. Those Guard Helmets will be missing some keywords Requiem introduced to them though, this may break something else. Maybe Improved Closefaced Helmets needs to be patched using the CS :( [edit2]Doublechecked with Ogerboss, the patch doesn't break anything and seems to work with Improved Closefaced Helmets. Checking on Explosive Bolts still required. I'm currently working on a chopped STEP Extended patch to forward all the non Requiem related stuff as EssArrBee's patch includes some mods no longer included in this pack. [edit3]I updated EssArrBee's patch for this setup. I didn't remove the guard dialogue overhaul parts as of yet because I'm still planning for a patch. Consider this a nightly release, it's not tested or double checked but I thought maybe someone is interested in trying it out this weekend. I've also decided on the Consistent Older People esp to use, will be included in the patch soonish. Note: I changed some parts of the patch to fit Realistic Water Two as that's probably going to be the water mod for the next STEP version. [edit4]Consistent older people is now included, download the BOYD compatible version! I took a second look at all the patches, there shouldn't be major pitfalls anymore. At this point I need feedback and help to further improve the pack and it's patches. OP forgot to state that Enhanced Blood and Burn Freeze & Shock Effects are currently not included in the patches (reasons in the OP).

Does "work better" mean less wonky or better fps? Because technically the AMD cards have way more shader power and ENB's performance drop is mostly due to shaders. But if they are heavily NVidia optimized those could still be faster. I'd be interested in a comparison.

You can also try enabling SMAA through RadeonPro. Maybe that helps. I would stick to one AA method though. At what resolution are you playing? As that has a big impact on the amount of aliasing you get.

It's not only that, the batch sometimes also cuts off names. Like Falskaar V1_1_2-37994-1-1-2 (folder name) -> Falskaar V1_1_opt.7z. This is just an example, it did it with several more mods. I just hope all the files are there, but they probably are. The quotes didn't change anything. This doesn't seem to be a random error because I get the same file names each time. I'm on Win7 x64, with a OCZ Vertex 3 Max Iops in raid if that helps. I'm not actually using it as raid partition but my bios is in raid mode to backup my storage hdd (I don't work there though).

There is only a single entry for Lantern Caretakers. If I remember right it's the only worldspace record in the patch (you can just delete it using T5E, then rightclick on the mod and use the update masters function). If I broke the patch down it would mean I'd need almost 20 different patches since you can produce so many combinations with Bring out your dead, Diverse Priests and Consistent Older People. They all have overlapping edits and I want to keep a USKP Requiem and a Hard Times version. [edit] I just noticed it's not that easy (while trying to chop EssArrBee's STEP Extended patch), T5E won't load if the master isn't there. Did the edit for you, see attachments :) Requiem Extended Patch Chopped.7z

Strange, I redid the whole progress and got misnamed files again. The folders in the mod optimized folder are named correctly. Dunno why this happens. I did rename a large bunch of mods at the same time maybe that's too much for the batch?

Important: This pack's development is currently on hold in favor for a new, unified Requiem pack bundling all ranges of desired Requiem setups in one go. This also reflects that a lot of former extended mods went into core, making an extra extended pack redundant. I am currently working with Smilie44 on this, he is the author of the base Requiem pack. If you are interested in helping you are welcome to join. Requiem Extended Pack (wiki page is still under construction) Currently for STEP 2.2.7 by this community, Requiem 1.7.3 by Ogreboss and Xarrian and either version of Requiem Hard Times 1.32 by Azirok (requiring his resources 1.11). You also need the DLCs and their Requiem Patches by Azirok (Dawnguard is supported by base Requiem). The goal of this pack is to include as many STEP extended mods as feasible using compatibility patches. This is a work in progress. Requiem is such an extended overhaul that using it with a large set of mods will probably always be a little experimental. But T5E conflicts should be solved and testing should be done. Also note that this is probably requiring high end hardware. This is what I got so far using Requiem, Requiem Hard times (the USKP only version should be fine too) and the Requiem DLC patches. Other non STEP mods will be added as optional add-ons later, things like Falskaar, Wyrmstooth, OBIS, Frostfall, CWO, DCO, SkyTest, Immersive Creatures, Immersive Patrols and lighting overhauls. There are still lots of comments on the different mods since this is beta and I'm trying to present as much information/thoughts as possible to help development. You should first install all STEP mods referring to the 2.2.7 guide doing the changes described here. Unless you want to test something specific do not install mods under the "Changes to the extended install category" except for AOS+Patches and Smart Souls. The wiki page is still under construction. Please refer to the wiki about what changes to make for the STEP:Extended install. Load order and patch instructions still have to be done, use the ones provided here. Please notify me of any errors you can find or improvement suggestions. The information in this post will be cleared up when the wiki is done. Some development notes on mod compatibility: There are some mods that I left out for now, but maybe compatibility is desirable. My last modding attempts where for Morrowind in 2005, I can't do much more then compatibility patching with T5E. Mods in this list are beyond my skills to make compatible: - Run for your Lives (Requiem gives dragons an aura of fear making NPCs run, but maybe Run for your Lives has a bigger scope here and is a desirable replacement) - Skyrim Coin Replacer (from my T5E observations this mod seems to only be partially covered by Requiem. If you load it before Requiem and bash patch it's leveled lists, it shouldn't seriously break anything. There might be some loot inconsistencies though. This should take less effort to fix then the above two examples) - Weapon and Armor Fixes (like Skyrim Coin Replacer it messes with the big picture of Requiem, someone who is more into the Requiem balance might want to take a look at this and see if it's desirable to integrate some changes. Update: Maybe Azirok is willing to include it in his Hard Times, I think it would fit the scope of his mods) The following mod needs testing (see end of this post): - The Choice is Yours (load before Requiem if testing) One mod still conflicts, load before Requiem: - More Salt Please (I didn't make it compatible because Requiem actually removes the Salt from the vendor More Salt Please touches. I decided to go with Requiem's inventory) Mods forwarded by the patch (see attachment): - Radiant and Unique Potions (v.2) - Animated Weapon Enchants (v 1.14) - Improved Close Faced Helmets (v 0.9 complete) - Explosive Bolts Visualized (v 1.0.2) - Elemental Staffs (v 1.1) - Bring out your dead (v 1.2.2) - Diverse Priests (v 2) - Dawnguard Rewritten Arvak (v 1.1.1) - Lantern Caretakers (v 1.0) - Consistent Older People (v 1.8 BOYD compatible loose assets) - Guard Dialogue Overhaul (v 1.301) Load order: Let Boss handle the load order. Use the user list manager to place the patches in the following order: STEP+Extended+Patch Chopped.esp Requiem Extended Patch.esp Requiem Hard Times Addon Patch.esp (if using Hard Times) Bashed Patch, 0.esp I also recommend Safety Load by Kapaer. You will probably need it. Update: There are some known issues with Safety Load, like crashing menus. I'd advise to use the new Skyrim Memory Patch 3.0 instead. There are compiled versions floating around and we will probably see a new SKSE alpha incorporating the patch in a few days. Please note that I did only very sporadic testing in game. What I did was a T5E check and a WB installer check for file conflicts, not much more. But by the nature of STEP mods I think this is good practice and shouldn't miss anything serious (please let me know if you find anything, especially script conflicts). The patch mostly forwards BOYD scripts, some keywords and visuals. So nothing complex or fancy. Unless I missed something all the STEP 2.2.7 mods not listed here showed no esp or file conflict. I consider them compatible until a conflict is reported. Thanks in advance for any contribution! Since I'm still waiting for my GPU, I cannot test things in game at the moment. If you are willing to help there are 2 things that needed testing. It would really help if you were willing to see into this: 1. Does "The Choice is Yours" break the Faendal & Sven quest if installed before Requiem? (if the answer is no, it should be fully compatible!) 2. Are there visual oddities with Explosive Bolts Visualized? Requiem adds a new explosive bolt, it might look off compared to the others. I will probably make it look like the visualized explosive bolt that fits best, suggestions are welcome (and ID's too). Requiem Extended Patches Beta 0.2.7z

One thing that occurred to me while creating a patch for an upcoming pack: Consistent older people seems to have gotten an update, Bring out your dead too. The Diverse Priests patches seem outdated, there are some references in the patch that no longer overwrite anything from the original file. It would be great if you could tell me with what Consistent Older People esp I should work. The one from the Consistent Older People 18 All NPCs BOYD Compatible Loose Assets archive?

If you really want to know what to buy and you are not on budget look at Xtremesystems.org (be ware: If you really want the best hardware plan on spending some weeks there). I don't know much about the current CPUs and Mainboards around (google "[motherboard name] northbridge heat issue" though, it's really an issue with qpi chips), only that you should go intel if you want high end hardware. For ram go G.Skill. Recent reviews showed that clocks and latencies are really not that important. On my rig I got a huge boost by overclocking my memory controler (I7 920, 6gb tripple channel ram), I'd advise a custom north bridge cooler if you did that though. Get a good PSU. Seriously modern CPUs can demand quite a lot of power ad hock. Silverstone has been a good brand over the past few years but I'd do some more research on that topic (see Xtremesystems). If you are going for air cooling get a case with 2 120x120 fans (Noctua is the best brand afaik, don't believe manufacturer db when choosing fans) blowing in at the front and at least one 120x120 fan blowing out at the back and at the top. You will probably pumping 500 or more watts of heat into that thing, that will have to go somewhere, especially on hot days. I've made extremely good experiences with LianLi. Make sure it has a good dust filter that is easy to clean (do it regulary) at the intakes, dust is the no1 hardware killer! If you are audiophile get the Terratec 7.1 PCI-E, it's the best sound card you can get if you don't wanna go professional. About AMD vs NVidia: I'm no fanboy, I owned as many Radeon GPUs as NVidia GPUs (most of NVidia vs AMD threads n the net are derailed by fanboys). But currently I'd advise everyone to get a r9, here's why: 1. The two main consoles run on AMD only and AMD just released a tool to optimize graphics for AMD GPUs near machine level. You will see a lot of AMD optimized games in the coming years. 2. Currently AMDs architecture is better suited for the future of gaming because it has much more shader and compute power (the r9 cards manage as much as a Titan). Carmack sais this will be of growing importance for games. 3. More bang for your buck. The best reviews are currently on techreport, they measure 99th percentile frames instead of avarage fps. You won't notice a few average fps in your games, but you will notice when your game stutters. One good point for NVidia is GSync though, but you would have to get a compatible monitor (and spend extra to upgrade it for GSync). And if you build soley for Skyrim, get an NVidia card since Skyrim is NVidia optimized. In my humble oppinion the ASUS R9 280x with 1070 boost clock (310$) is currently the best buy out there if you are willing to spend the money. Make sure you have good case ventilation though since all the 280x don't have blower coolers meaning over 300 watts of heat will go into your case! There is a little down throttling reported with the 290 and the reference cooler but the card is also good bang for your buck if you want to spend more (I'd rather get a new GPU in a few years for that money though). About your FPS goal: That will pretty much be resolution dependant. I get 60 FPS but only at 1280x800. At native 2560x1200 I get about 33, only dropping below 30 in very gpu intensive areas. But I'm not sure 2 SLI Titans can do that... Sorry for typos, I don't have a typo checker on this PC.

Hm... that is strange. Many of my optimized archives have weird file naming. Both the incidents make me think there was some kind of bug going on on my system. Maybe I have to go through the process again.

Hmm... strange. I executed the batch file again with the exact same mods and this time no error at all. I did delete the old log though, is the logging with the batch cumulative? Maybe that explains it. The compress mods batch hat some problems naming the mods, for example: Serious HD Retexture RIFTEN 1024px-2146.7z_opt.7z It seems like some files with "_" or "-" symbols have problems with naming.

Hmm... no matter what files I process with the new bat (2.6), I always get these two errors: 2013/11/26 03:52:27 ERROR 5 (0x00000005) Accessing Source Directory C:\TES V\DDSopt\Working\Mod DDS\ Access is denied. 2013/11/26 03:52:27 ERROR 5 (0x00000005) Accessing Source Directory C:\TES V\DDSopt\Working\Mod DDS\ Access is denied. There is no Mod DDS folder, can I ignore this? Another quick question: Better Bones and Better Shadowmarks both have note 4 in the list. Does this mean I should process them separately choosing only lossless options in the constrains tab?

A small question about permission concerning the patch files: If a pack has to cut one or more STEP mods that are included in the patch. Would it be ok if the pack author cut those mods from the patch (and maybe add new required entries) and re-release it for the pack if he credits you?

The filter option is a very powerful tool to look for mod conflict in your load order, you can tick what kinds of entries you want to see in the middle left box. This is very useful to find esp conflicts in your load order (I used this to scan step extended for requiem conflicts). Note that T5E has it's limits though: if a subrecord is vanilla and gets overwritten, T5E won't show a conflict. If the mod with the overwritten record requires the vanilla record though, this might still cause a conflict even though T5E shows none (GDO is a good example as it has some intended unclean entries). Due to the nature of STEP mods I think it is unlikely to break things this way (from earlier TES titles there are 3 instances I know of where this could happen: quests, scripts and landmass/pathgrid) but my modding knowledge is too limited to give a definite assessment tbh.

Actually more view distance does not equal better quality. If you turn your view distances way up, all the items will pop in when a new grid is loaded. Imho the optimal setting is where the items fade in near the edge of the loaded grids. This cannot always be achieved perfectly because grids are squares and the distances in the ini are circular. Sometimes I found the Skyrim engine loading grids relatively late for no apparent reason (this happens more often when moving fast). But it can be achieved most of the time for most of the angles approaching a cell. To give you an example: I just tried to max fTreesMidLODSwitchDist by approaching a tree which is positioned right behind a grid edge. I tried to approach that tree at a 90° angle to the grid edge so the distance to the tree is shortest when the grid is loaded. At that position fTreesMidLODSwitchDist should not yet have kicked in, it should kick in if I move just slightly towards that tree. I found 14000.0000 to be the value that does that. It slightly eases tree popping on grid transitions because the MidLOD is visually closer to the far tree LOD. It comes at the price that you see MidLOD switches on trees you already fully loaded though. But still at a far distance, I think it is worth it. For objects this is trickier, in my testings I found objects of different sizes fade differently. I'm currently using 10.5. The difference is hard to tell, most larger objects still pop in but smaller ones fade. So you don't have the full detail popping in, an improvement imho. For items I'd go with 10 so they don't fade in before larger objects. This is subjective, some people would probably rather have all the detail right away. For me personally I prefer this.

Maybe we shuld ask someone like behippo, ShadeMe or Jrush for a benchmark script. Something that stress tests various functions while doublechecking for integrity and script latency. Somehwat related are suggestions to enable multi threading posted here: https://itcprosolutions.com/skyrimguides/tweak_guide.htm Those could be tested as well. Most items should be spawnable with a benchmark script (so you can directly test stability and performance gain) and we could see if there's a difference in benchmarking with many cell transitions while papyrus is under heavy load.