statmonster

It looks like the Skyforge textures (but not esp) might be missing from the new weapons pack. Or maybe they are there but the installer didn't grab them.... EDIT - or maybe they are in the .7z file but the installer didn't grab them. Will try again. EDIT - The Install everything (default) option will include Skyforge weapons, if you choose which options to install it seems to miss Skyforge even if you tick the box.

You must rebuild it if you removed (or altered) any esp/esms that contributed to your leveled lists - they are masters to the bashed patch and it will crash without them. If you are just testing stability it's probably not necessary to rebuild it otherwise. If you want to play then you would want to rebuild it whenever you add or remove mods that alter your leveled lists, but not really otherwise. Still it doesn't take long so I usually do it before playing if I've made any changes just to be sure. At least that's my understanding.

He indicated that Glass is in the next updated, not today's. "next: DLC Dragonborn nordic carved, glass armor+weapons"

Sometimes (is that ambiguous enough?) It's probably safest to do so - or wait for Neo to update the entries. He usually notes whether this s required in the change logs.

Kryptopyr - I agree. STEP would be better with this mod, but its a deviation (for the better) from Vanilla. That said, as someone who uses your mod, I would live to see you incorporate the fixes into your mod, who knows exactly when USKP will be able to fix these things. Plus I want to see what additional features you can add with these fixes - and I'm impatient!

Big update to Cabal's aMidianBorn Book of Silence. Is the weapons file missing?

I don't think it's strictly necessary for this. (If you are fiddling with AV textures or weapon and shield meshes it might be much more important.). Sometime I just take the AV and DSR mods out for initial testing so I don't have to worry about it. I would probably ignore it for initial testing, but the do it before you make a final decision. BTW, I am certainly no expert on ths and if others with more knowledge or experience suggest otherwise you should strongly consider their advice. Also, for testing use Arthmoor's Live Another Life. You can quickly start out in a variety of places and check things out. It's a great resource for testing mods and performance. In particular I like to check out starts in Whiterun (heading east to the Ritual Stone), Markarth (going out the gate and then northeast to the Forsworn mine) and Solitude. The Fall Forest outside of Riften might be another good place. Sometime I do a quick run from Markath to Whiterun and points east. The Helgan camp into Helgen and then to Riverwood and the Whiterun to Ritual Stone runs are both brutal for CTDs - if you get through these several times with a low probability of a CTD you're doing well.

Perhaps. You can probably use any mod (or setting) you want, you just can't use all the mods (or settings) you want. So there are some good general guidelines on what to do but then you will also have to make a judgement concerning which tradeoffs you find better. SMIM is game breaking one way or the other - it just makes things look better. Try a lower resolution version of it and see if that helps. The advantage of MO is that you can quickly swap in and out different options and try them out to see which combinations of performance and quality you like.

I also find ACE (with Duel Combat) to be quite easy to implement - but it seems to be more of a rebalancer and tweaker mod rather than a complete overhaul. I wonder if it migh be getting a bit long in the tooth though - (however there is a Dragonborn patch for it which seems to keep things up to date),

The problem is how it actually works. You can't move objects via script... you need a separate item mesh that's offset. Interesting.BTW, I tried the Skyforge Shields which I discovered through your compatibility patch - I think it's pretty good and fills some nice niches. The patch works well too.

You might consider trying Higher Level Enemies to make later encounters tougher.

I first thought of allowing the distance to be set in MCM. This would work for the PC but not really be practical for NPCs

When people speak of half sizing a 2048x2048 normal they usually mean 1024x1024. If you are going with 1024x1024 textures I would suggest seeing if the same size normals will work for you. The better test than looking at FPS is to see if you can generally avoid CTDs.  Try some of the notorious spots (heading up from Whiterun across the bridge and towards the Ritual Stone (though this can sometimes gives CTDs even with vanilla), entering Riverwood from Helgen, maybe exiting Helgen, leaving a building into a large city and leaving a city into the world). I also found that leaving the skyrimpref.ini shadows (both primary and secondary) at 2048 rather than 4096 really helped a lot. Neo mentions this. If you only have 1.5 GB of VRAM I wonder if you might not want to set the secondary at least down to 1024. Keep in mind that changes to your ini file will not happen quickly on a saved game unless you force them via cc.  Aiyen's suggestion not to implement the z-fighting techniques also really helped me avoid infinite loading screens in Solitude.

Good idea. Start with SMIM, Skyrim HD, SRO, Serious HD Retexture - all in "Foundation". See if 2k for these and 1k for normals (including the Beth HD DLC) works for you. With your VRAM you might have to go 1k for both, but I'm not sure. I found doing this (2k and 1k for normals) helped but I have a GTX 680 w/ 4 GB VRAM so you might need more optimization, I'm guessing. I found doing the DDSOpt really helped. One warning - apparently you should not do WATER. Good luck.

Well that didn't work. EDIT: Maybe the key is DO NOT choose an MANUAL install. EDIT: I think that worked... Thanks!

Do you have to rearrange the file first, because MO does not like how it's organized as things are not in the data folder and there does not seem to be a way to get MO to recognize multiple data folders.

How does one install Soul Gems Differ - Full and Empty 1.5.2 via MO? When I download the BAIN installer installer version (1.5.2) all I get are a series of check boxes within the standard manual MO process, and not any sort of an installer.

True - but the TES5Edits are not difficult (one or two excepted) as Neo lays it out keystroke by keystroke they just take time and attention to detail. Gopher's (I think - the guy with the British accent) video on TEST5Edit (for ITMs and UDRs) is also an amazing resource. Between these two one can develop an intuition of how to use TES5Edit looking at a new mod and figuring out what sort of common issues to look for. I wonder if a very much striped down version of SR/STEP (but with very detailed step by step instructions to walk the new mod user through it) might not be helpful to newer players who want to get going quickly - maybe how to set up MO to install the unofficial patches and maybe half a dozen of the most useful mods (SKSE and Sky UI come to mind as being foundations for other mods), edit the ini files and then build any necessary bashed patch, plus probably a few more issues. This could have someone unfamiliar with modding up and playing within a few hours and provide a base for them to install their favorite mod or two not included in SR. I know when I first looked at STEP my motivation was to figure out to to build a stable base that that I could add a few mods that really appealed to me at the time, as well as how to actually add mods to my game. As you bring up with the TES5Edits - I think some additional commentary of the relative merits of the various steps would be useful: what is essential, what is adds a bit of stability, and what adds a bit (or a lot) of increases to the graphical or immersion experience. That might help with new mod users understanding where to devote their efforts, especially if their time is limited (or they are eager to get playing). BTW - none of the above should be seen as critique of either STEP or SR - I have tremendous admiration for each of them and think they have made my Skyrim far more rewarding.

I actually think SR is easier for novices to implement than was STEP. Sure it is more complex, but the incredibly detailed step by step instruction in SR are extremely useful for holding your hand through the process when you don't understand everything. The modding knowledge required to start using SR is actually very very low. When I first ran through STEP it was good, but still left many answered questions about exactly how to implement some of the processes.

Agreed. I like it a lot too but it seems to be fixing a fundamental design decision in Skyrim to make money easy to come by. I think this is a mistake and the game is more enjoyable if it's hard to acquire money or buy powerful items easily, but that's a change from Vanilla. It's a great mod I will continue to use, but I'm not sure it fits in with core STEP. It might be very appropriate for Skyrim Revisited or other overhauls.

I would sort if prefer they be even further away from the back if a backpack is worn rather than kept in hand. Still I can see that might be too difficult. Note also that some Frostfall backpacks (mostly light ones I think) are worn lower down on the hip and thus do not clip shields on the back. Is the plan for these distance changes to apply to NPCs as well as the PC?

A ton of BOSS updates today. Removed 6-7 items.

Where is a blow your own brains out smiley when you need it? LOL... not in my plans for now. Obviously as you say its huge... So helpful!

I can see why this would be desirable if playing a Mage. I'm unclear how it keeps to the vanilla experience. Or is it that vanilla should have included this?

Good find. I'll probably give it a whirl. How does it interact with the with the Occlusion Culling in Skyrim Project Optimization? Â As near as I can tell they are completely unrelated and should both work together. What are the main differences you see using this and say CoT & RLO w/o ENB? How much of a performance hit do you think you are taking?