Selway

I love the idea that you are adding Soul Gems Differ to the TPC! I set that mod up once and decided it wasnt worth it on later installs. However, Im sure Ill be pleased enough with Cestral's choices and the fact that its just one less mod I have to deal with.Â

My pleasure. Hope it helps some. I would love to help in any other way if needed as well. Thanks again!

Cestral, I first want to say thank you for this mod. Figuring out how to mesh all the texture packs is one of the biggest headaches for the average user to deal. I have always thought there should be some way to make just one damn mod with all the textures and I thank you for it! Regarding the ice textures, I have noticed quite a bit of problems with ice textures and how they interact with all of the different types of post processors. Will you be including some sort of basic post processor compatibility list or is this really not needed any more? Thanks again, LOVE your MOD! We need to get the word out for people to donate to you so you can buy a decent graphics card!

First, I would like to say thank you for the countless hours of hard work you have put in to make our Skyrim experience far easier and better.   This guide is one of the few things on the internet that has made me smarter and not dumber! After reading these forums and this thread for a while, it seems like more feedback from a noob might be helpful.  If not, just shoot me a “get lost†post! So, while going through the SIG, these are just some small roadblocks I had, and thus perhaps other beginners might have. Please remember, overall, the guide was/is immensely helpful and that my desire is only to attempt to give something small back for all that the STEP team has given us. Introduction - I know it is meant to be a general guide, however, I would have greatly appreciated much more integration into the actual step process. It would have been nice to have known how each of these sections ties in with STEP and what doesn’t. I know STEP is constantly changing, but this kind of information would increase a beginners conceptual understanding. I would have also liked more editorializing on what the author preferred as the section on Wrye Bash was so good it gave me the motivation to start learning it. Steam/Skryim - I would have found it helpful to have had a guide on how first to cleanly uninstall both Steam and Skyrim. This may seem obvious to some, but just using the provided uninstall functions, especially with Steam, do not seem to perform a truly clean uninstall. This step is necessary for everyone who has previously installed Skyrim in the default directories and/or has yet to follow the backup instructions. Yes, there is help on Google, but it’s littered with fishing sites to sell bogus uninstall programs.  A guide by you or linked by you would be trusted. The link to Steam Mover is dead. It looks like it has been moved slightly. DLC/Mods – The DLC section is perhaps the most clear and helpful of all the sections.  The breakdown by how much VRAM one has is extremely user friendly. It might be made even more user friendly with the use of a table.This information from the DLC section might also be carried over to the Mods section as it pertains to what texture quality should be used for other texture mods. This is also a great place for some integration with the STEP guide as I suspect it probably will cover this in the texture optimization section. Another tip to add in somewhere is to emphasize planning. From what I get reading these boards, one really needs to download all the mods they are going to use, install everything at the same time, on a fresh install, and then go play a new game without changing too much for a long time.  The final comment I have for this section, or maybe even in STEP, is to provide a section on how to generally integrate non STEP mods during the STEP process. Everyone installs more mods after they are done with STEP. Some tech on how to integrate those mods as one goes through the STEP process would be very helpful. I remember reading a post by someone on these boards about this sort of thing pertaining to the general mod type install order. Something like, in general, first install texture packs, then etc etc. Obviously STEP cannot test or guarantee this sort of thing. However, any general advice or tips in this area, I suspect, would be very helpful. Hack - This section is a bit confusing to a beginner.  There are so many it is unclear which one’s we need, which ones overlap, which ones are mutually exclusive etc..  SKSE – Some information like “Most commonly required injector. You most likely will need to install this.â€Â Or “If following STEP, you will need to install this.â€Â Script Dragon. Are there any incompatibilities between Script Dragon and SKSE?   Also, this seems to be a very rarely required injector and thus probably not needed.  Some information like, “You are unlikely to need this as it is rarely used. If needed it is/not compatible with SKSE.â€Â Again, Im a beginner and I don’t know if the new STEP will require this or if it’s compatible with SKSE or not. Skyboost  - Perhaps remove this from the page.   A lot of beginners will see that huge FPS gain and install it without noticing it’s no longer supported. If it’s for some reason it is still beneficial, then information stating this would be helpful. The section on External Compilers is a bit confusing.  First, I would recommend moving the hyperlink from "Wrye Bash" to "CBash."  From a format and ease of read point of view, Cbash comes off at first as some sort of subheading to Skyproc. Nitpicky yes. However, for a beginner, this was confusing at first. Mod Managers – REALLY great section on Wrye Bash.  The only nitpick would be to consider revising the wording to better communicate that the benefits of Wrye Bash far outweigh the drawback of the learning curve. Hardware/OS – Very clear and helpful . The linked hardware guide was very nice too.  One small suggestion would be to provide a link to an external page that keeps an updated hardware “sweet spot†guide. You know the ones that tell what the current best bang for your buck system is. Also, it would be cool if there was a summary section that pulled all the information into perhaps a table to show what kind of system would generally be needed to Run full STEP at different texture levels and settings. Just a few different setups would be enough for people to get the idea. Skyrim Editor – Great information but some of the terminology is over the head of a beginner. A little more information on the practical use by a beginner would be nice. Graphics Editors – Again, a lot of this is over the heads of a beginner. At some point, especially if using the STEP guide, some sort of optimization is required so some more information would be extremely helpful. More information on how these all relate to each other would be a nice starting place.   Also some more information like, if they are mutually exclusive, why they work, when to use one or the other, and advantages and disadvantages of each would be extremely helpful.   For instance, my limited knowledge is that I DDSopt is the best for optimizing texture packages but it is harder to use and takes a lot more time. Optimizer Textures does not optimize textures as well but is better to use when one is looking to quickly and easily optimize or re-size textures. When or what would I want to use SMCO for?  This is also an extremely nice place to integrate into the STEP guide more. Utilities – Same goes for this section. I think a user would especially like more information on Skyrim Unplugged. My first question was, why do I need this if I already clicked the option for Steam not to do automatic updates? A short explanation of this in the description would be great. Also, perhaps tying this back in to the STEAM section might be nice. That’s all and sorry for the wall of text. Please take this all in the context that I think this guide is extremely nice and helpful.  Also, as a beginner, there are no doubt some mistakes and misconceptions.  Perhaps those too will give you clues on how to better help us beginners. *Edit* Yikes, had to fix some crazy changes in formatting when I posted the first time.

Thank you for the info Leet. I've been doing some research on some 4GB cards. I'm looking forward to tooling around Skyrim in style. I'm hoping to have it up and running for the next STEP.

Hey thank you both for your great input. Concerning SLI, I was worried about that. I definitely wont go the SLI route then. Ill probably just get a better card as I spend an obscene amount of time on this game. Thanks again for the help!

Hey all. Ive been following STEP for a long time now and am so thankful for all of your hard work. STEP has opened my eyes to modding and improved my overall working knowledge of computers greatly! I saw this thread and I hope you dont mind a quick question on this topic. I want to know how much improvement there would be if I purchased another MSI 570GTX TWIN FROZR II (1.25gVRAM) and put them in SLI. I've done some research and just have not come up with any real definitive answer on if it would help significantly. Im running a modified semi-updated version of the last STEP and about 40 other mods including COT and Texture Pack Combiner 1.5. I have run the texture optimizer and all textures are at 1k. At this level I am still getting outdoor lag. Im also using Project ENB but will probably try Vibrant ENB next. My goal is to be able to run 2k textures with some sort of decent ENB, full STEP and about 40 other mods. i5 3570k cpu MSI 570GTX TWIN FROZR II 16g RAM SSD HD Win 7 Thank you all again for your amazing work. I cannot imagine what the point of playing Skyrim without STEP would be!