Spock

Just a quick note: my problems with enb came from some ini changes I made. I will do some further testing to see which ones it were and then report back :) [edit]The water settings require bDoDepthOfField=1

You can upgrade to a newer ENB version as long as color settings where not changed (easy to check: just take a screenshot and compare, make sure you keep the .ini files). The current ENB water settings behave weird on my system, some do not work at all (especially underwater). I would always install the particle patch if using ENB, just install it at the top of your load order. The old RWT didn't forward some fixes btw. making water look a little weird at night. Putting the particle patch for ENB into STEP extended wouldn't hurt imho. Many people use ENB and it doesn't break anything for those who don't.

Thank you very much! I just got through several mods using your batch file. It saved me loads and loads of time! One minor improvement suggestion for the guide: Point 12. could be improved by stating where to put 5_Compress_Mods_7z.bat and that it needs the 7za.exe. If you optimize your mods 2 months after the vanilla textures you may have forgotten, it's not hard to find out though :)

I started optimizing my mods an hour ago (using the wiki guide, started with Lockpicking Interface), there are some things that came up: 1. does it matter whether the mod files are sorted in "data" (inside the archive) or not? 2. the batch file extracts some textures to the mod optimized subfolders, is this intentional (C:\TES V\DDSopt\Working\Mod Optimized\without wings around keyhole-2845-1-2\Data\textures\interface\objects\lockpicking\lock01_n.dds and C:\TES V\DDSopt\Working\Mod Optimized\without wings around keyhole-2845-1-2\Data\textures\interface\objects\lockpicking\locksmallpiece.dds) ? Should DDSopt just overwrite those? 3. the batch file only extracts the normal map (C:\TES V\DDSopt\Working\Mod Normal Maps\without wings around keyhole-2845-1-2\Data\textures\interface\objects\lockpicking\lock01_n.dds) when executed a second time, this seems strange to me, is this normal? I ran the batch referred to in the guide: 4_Mod_Sorting&Pre-optimization.bat. I did not run 4_Mod_Sorting&Pre-optimization-beta.bat. Thanks in advance! Regards, Spock

Thank you for your reply but this is more about visual quality then about performance (a little performance is a nice side effect though). For example: In Oblivion with the standard max grass distance if the game loaded a new grid suddenly BAM the grass was there. It didn't fade in, it was all loaded when the game loaded a new grid. The same is true for objects. In Skyrim this effect is much less noticeable but it's still there. I spend hours finding the right fade distances for Oblivion to have a smoother fade in of grass and objects, I thought maybe someone around here has done this for Skyrim.

Hi folks, I recently got a new monitor and in order to keep my 30fps in vsync with baseline STEP+ENB @2560x1600 I had to cut some options in my enblocal.ini. The other thing that came to mind was cutting some of the fade distances. My experience from Oblivion was that keeping fade distances at max wasn't the best idea, even if your machine could handle it because more objects would pop in when a new grid was loaded. This resulted in more load stuttering on grid transitions (a cause of instabilities), less overall performance and more noticeable pop ins of visuals. It would be really helpful to know what the maximum fLODFadeOutMult values are until visuals start to pop in at unfavorable grid load angles (if you are closest to the newly loaded grid, this may vary a bit depending on how you move). The other thing that would be interesting is whether the other fade distances like fShadowDistance, fGrassStartFadeDistance are actually the same distances ingame and what the maximums of those values are until you see pop ins. Thanks in advance! Spock

Yay. new version! :) Experimental Parallax maps are now included in the download, some particle issues I had at night are gone plus some more changes to the water.

I'm actually surprised No NPC Greetings shows no esp conflicts :) Acquisitive Soul Gems seemed to conflict a lot btw, I removed it from my load order. I will check for cutting room floor too when I get the time. It would be really really helpful if someone could doublecheck the list in TESVEdit, in case I missed something. Maybe this should be a new pack thread?

Thank you for your list! I'm kind of surprised about Run for your Lives. There definitely is an esp conflict, is it's functionality included? It's core and not listed in the Wiki guide btw (along with when vampires attack). I did a little search for myself and started TES5Edit. This is part question to your findings, part memo to myself. Every mod I didn't commend had no esp or file conflicts (I'm a little tired though so please double check before quoting me and there is still a minor chance of script conflicts). I found two more core mods that Requiem should cover from the feature list (I still can't definitely confirm those): non essential children ClamsDropPearls (esp overwrites by Requiem probably not needed) I did a quick search through the step (extended) list and made a list of mods that might conflict with Requiem (in addition to the the list already included in this pack): Radiant Potions (esp conflicts, should be patchable) BLESSINGS - Altar Descriptions (esp overwrite by Requiem) The Choice is Yours (probably incompatible as Requiem overwrites some files here) Follower Trap Safety (Requiem doesn't overwrite the scripts+espless plugin -> compatible?) Traps make Noise (some file overwrites by Requiem, no esp conflict -> not sure) SM Drop Lit Torches Diverse Priests (esp conflicts, maybe patchable*) Consistent Older People (esp conflicts, should be patchable) The Paarthurnax Dilemma Gildergreen Regrown Animated Weapon Enchants (esp conflicts, should be patchable) Oblivion Gates No NPC Greetings Bring Out Your Dead (esp conflicts, maybe patchable*) Disease Descriptions (probably already included, lots of esp overwrites) Unknown Enchants No NPC Greetings Dungeon Quest Awareness Thieve Guild Requirements Guard Dialogue overhaul (core mod, lots of esp conflicts) *those seem to go into form id conflicts, I dunno how to patch them Mods not in STEP: Better stealth AI for Followers

I personally think AoS is the sound mod to go. But be aware that some sounds might not suit you (horse sounds are controversial) and it does not cover everything yet. Afaik the author is currently working on dungeon sounds and I think I read someone saying combat sounds too. But don't quote me on that one. Another thing about lighting/weather mods: You should give Opethfeldt ENB a try (with just vanilla Skyrim), then maybe add Relighting Skyrim and Enhanced Lighting for ENB (Spell and Torchlighting first, then FX Effects, then RS then ELE RS colors and FX emittance. Weathers are handled by Opethfeldt, Interior lighting can be an option, changes colors though). This gets rid of a whole brunch of conflicts while supplying imho the best visuals for weathers and lighting. Smilie: Since you are so much into Requiem, could you provide me with a list of STEP extended mods who's functionality is already included in Requiem? That would be really great. I could start with a baseline STEP patch for Requiem then.

AOS is not the incompatible beast some people try to make it. Aside from a very minor conflict with AIMP it's fully compatible with baseline step (if you use Michaelrw's patches). There is also a patch for Requiem. AOS is incompatible with most other sound mods. It's not incompatible in a sense that it will break your game. Think of AOS as a composition, now if you add different parts from other sound mods that do not have this composition in mind some things will sound off. It's somewhat similar to adding lighting mods to an ENB that is designed with vanilla lighting in mind. If you add a lighting mod both will shift the lighting producing odd results: One does not fit the composition of the other.

I actually think Skyrim revisited is more prone to conflicts then baseline step. Aside from the gameplay and sound (just use AOS, imho it sounds better anyway) section, most of those mods shouldn't conflict or those conflicts should be solvable with TESVEdit merging. The only reason I didn't start doing this is that I don't know enough about what Requiem touches. I'd need a list of baseline step mods who's functionality is already included in Requiem.

I too think this gives Skyrim a rather symmetric, clean look. It doesn't suit my taste and is probably to far from vanilla to get into STEP. But the textures and parallax maps are of very high quality!

Thank you, that's exactly the kind of assessment that helps me decide. I will have a look into Cutting Room Floor (this will almost certainly make it into my load order, Arthmoor is a name that stands for very high quality imho) and Interesting NPCs. Do you know if Interesting NPCs is fully voiced?

Thank you, great find! That one will definitely find it's way into my load order. How did you like the other two?

Hey Folks, my setup is mostly complete now, but I'm still thinking about adding some NPCs to the world. Two mods in particular caught my interest: Populated Cities Towns Villages by RS and Inconsequential NPCs by Ripple Aside I'm on baseline STEP+Relighting Skyrim+ELE+Requiem. I'm relatively conservative when it comes to new NPCs, while I install those mods to enrich the flavor of the game I would like to not notice NPCs from mods because of dialogue or voice acting. Do you think they are lore friendly and immersive? Did you hear of any problems with them? Most importantly: did you uninstall one of them and if yes could you tell me why? Do you have any other addition that I should look into? Thanks in advance, Spock

I'm not that much into the specifics of hardware, but a friend of mine got angry when I ran Prime for a night on the hardware I bought from him ("Man don't **** up your new hardware, I mean it!"). Although it's only premium components he said an extended stress test is not needed because your CPU will never be stressed like that and it can decrease lifetime expectancy of hardware because everything: voltage regulators, L1 L2 L3 caches, memory controller, every single ALU, chipset, RAM is used like normally only in months. The advice I'm handling my hardware after: run Prime for 1 hour max, 3 for your final setup and then reduce the FSB clock by 1 or 2. Memtest seems to be less aggressive, but 3 or 4 passes should suffice. If you are overclocking on the new intel chipsets watch out for your north bridge (qpi)! Mine got to 107 degrees until I installed a Xigmatek Porter (best NB cooler on air available) with a 80x80 Noctua fan. Use Speedfan to find the right temp, the measurement can be off though.

I think this is worth a look for STEP 2.2.8

Due to the very nature of AOS, I wouldn't use any other sound mod that touches things AOS already covered. If you mix sound mods you will find the sounds mismatched. The only two things I know of which AOS doesn't cover is dungeons ambient (will be in the next release) and thunderstorms.

Would this be any problem? I mean if I got mod x and y, y being lower in the installers order overwriting stuff from x. If I now optimize x and y, WB flagging both and then reinstall x, will the conflicting, optimized textures of y get overwritten? The best way would be if you had a function in wrye bash to repack textures from a mod into the archive overwriting files in the archive.

This is my ENB solution for now. I tried some other popular ENBs (realvision, sharpshooter, k ENB, Phinix) and this is the one which gets the colors right for me. There is no oversaturation and this is not overly cinematic but it still preserves the fantasy feel of Skyrim. The real selling feature are the weathers. This ENB tweaked most weathers to be much more believable. Just try it out, especially during different weathers. CoT or lighting mods other then Relighting Skyrim will mess up the colors though so make sure they are deactivated. https://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/18941 If you don't like the lens flare you can deactivate it in the enbseries.ini. Just set EnableLens=false and EnableSunGlare=false under [effects].

Wouldn't it make sense to team up with NovakDalton? Your approach seems kind of an extension of his, couldn't ask to incorporate his work and work together? Because... well... I can hardly wait till this is finished :)

I might have found a bug: When installing SMAA per the guide, eye adaptation ceased to function under Opethfeldt ENB (using ENB 0.232) for me. I can't really tell if it's a funky thing, but maybe you can reproduce it.

For more background info: Seriously, this is not like a new Crysis engine, this is a revolution of all render engines. Today there are millions of dollars in the game industry sinking into optimizing rasterization engines, trying to cheat what RTPT (real time path tracing) does. Theoretically an RTPT engine could be perfectly scalable with your hardware, you just set the frames and when the image is needed the engine stops tracing more paths. And unless there is a new mathematical model that allows for a more efficient light simulation, nothing in the engine needs to be changed because it already is a physically correct simulation. How good it looks is only limited by the accuracy and thus hardware and content, no need to change anything in the render engine. Carmack says: "One more order of magnitude in performance and we start seeing it used for some real things [...] probably if we get two orders of magnitude you start seeing it as one of the more general tools". I personally thing this deserves a little hype, even if it's still years away.