alt3rn1ty

Yep the first if you read the MS info linked is for Win 8 and 7 ( SP 1 ) - Going by its title The second is for supposedly just Win 7 ( none SP 1 ) - Again going by its title For me the latter installed 17th April .. So exactly how it applies to some peoples setup I guess will be variable, but the article contradicts the title : Article ID: 2952664 - Last Review: June 3, 2015 - Revision: 9.0 Applies to Windows 7 Service Pack 1, when used with:Windows 7 EnterpriseWindows 7 Home BasicWindows 7 Home PremiumWindows 7 ProfessionalWindows 7 StarterWindows 7 UltimateMaybe this is also region dependant ?, the only good reason anyone has come up with for this "OS updater" is that maybe it is to regulate how many people get it at any one time, so as not to have the world downloading the OS all at the same time, when MS says go, at the end of July.

One other thing I have seen somewhere .. I think MS have been considering clamping down on the boot sequence, so much so that between the BIOS kicking the machine to life, every stage of software loading would be signed and encrypted, in a chain that would not allow for another OS being included in a dual boot setup. Basicly, if windows was installed, forget having Linux dual boot on the same machine, you would need another machine or just Linux and dump windows. The idea being that at no stage during the machine booting would any other kind of software be able to get a foothold ( like rootkits before the kernel ) I do not know what the eventual decision on that will be.

Good to see 7-zip and TES5Edit working okay The way I understand it this free update is going to be the last Windows OS. Windows 10, once you have it by whatever means ( new machine / exisitng 7 or 8 owners / bought ), will be the last full OS upgrade. Thereafter it will be rolling updates via windows update forever after. There will not be a Windows 11 etc. Thats why I believe everyone should be wary of this new one ( besides the sneaky way it is being pushed onto everyone, via windows updates that did not explain what they were doing ), the Tyranny of the defaults after you get a free OS will I think become much more prevalent ( Green buttons to say yes which do more than they say ). I imagine Windows 10, to be like a steam client, ads in your face but at the desktop level instead of just a client with advanced settings you can easily bring under control. I didnt like the way they initially pushed Silverlight to compete with flash via Important Updates ( changed later due to pressure from the press and bad publicity ), or more recently we have Skype being pushed by windows updates, software which microsoft allows the NSA / GCHQ to take snapshots of your teenage kids on their bedroom laptops .. .. Now they are pushing a free OS in the same way with opportunity to undermine users privacy by changes in User License Agreements / anyone in power with the knowledge / backdoors for privileged organisations. Spartan will never catch up on Chrome, the amount of fuzz test hammering that the Chromium project software has had with googles server farm dedicated to that one task .. Spartan will always be waaay behind in security research. MS would have to start massive fuzz testing, and offering rewards like google does for the worlds best to try and find holes in it.

Yep I asked about it 5 days ago too, see conversation and posts after this one with a bit of testing https://www.afkmods.com/index.php?/topic/3132-skyrim-useful-ini-settings/page-2&do=findComment&comment=155525 Read on up to post #36 I think he is right that it only applies to sound fx and not music. Apparently its a certain fix for stuck sounds ( though I cant corroborate because I never have the problem, so my recommendation is purely on what I have seen of other peoples recommendations, and at what point lowering the setting fixed it, as far as I have seen publicly noted it did not need to be any lower than 8192, though whoever gave Arthmoor the figure of 4096 may have still experienced the problem .. No idea where the information came from in the first place ) And lastly from what I can tell it has no discernible effect on increasing HD activity, so really 8192 / 4096 ... whatever works for those who have the problem use that figure. I have also edited the main description again, one day I will be happy with it :D I have opted for minimal information. Any more questions : People have many references in this topic to read up on already. Edit : PS We are still talking about the same setting I think, you said "uiMaxAudioCacheSize" .. I am talking about uMaxSizeForCachedSound= which is the setting that USKP uses aswell as my description recommends .. and the reason you asked Arthmoor reference the same setting, I think ?.

Excellent, thank you JawZ

If anyone does not want this to stomp all over your current OS for a while ( let the cannon fodder go first ) Apparently there are 2 updates you need to uninstall to kill it, not just one : If you go to Control Panel > Programs and Features > Uninstall an Update, then you look for KB3035583 and additionally for win 7 .. KB2952664 I have both of them in my Updates list ( The first installed 20th May, The latter installed 17th April ) Then if you get offered them again in future, just right click and hide them if you still want to deny the updates. I'm still going to let them happen, Cannon fodder-R-Us ( Got Win 7 discs so no problem rewinding after the event for me ) Source of additional update info Security Now Podcast #510 - Go to 29 minutes and play on.

Yep just about all sound formats have compression, wavs are generally uncompressed ( load one up in audacity after converting it to wav, and you will see Audacity ask you a question about making and working on a backup of uncompressed format sound files ), but they can be compressed with other codecs ( like Skyrim and xwma ). Mp3s are compressed ( variable ), Windows Media Audio ( WMA ) have variable compression ( you may have seen Windows Media Player has settings for saving music tracks with different quality, this is also compression being applied, the less compression, the better the quality, but the bigger the music file ) and so need to decompress as you play them, and your computer has to decompress any file into ram Similarly, all image formats have different forms of compression, JPG ( Joint Photographic Experts Group ), lossy compression ( loses detail the more compression ratio that is applied ), PNG ( Portable Network Graphics ) Lossless compression .. All developed with different needs and the desire to use less space when stored and less bandwidth when transferred over the internet. But they all have to decompress to show / play them. Ever heard of compression artifacts in texture files ?, those particularly make a mess of the vanilla skyrim normal maps on female faces - the blocky nose problem is quite a visible effect of such compression artifacts, its due to the type of DDS compression chosen, and how low they went in reducing the resolution of the file : That file had to decompress into ram before Adobe Photoshop could display it ( via the DDS Plugin you have to install in Adobe Photoshop so that it understands the DDS formats to decompress them ) Some DDS formats are more lossy than others The same can happen with sounds, you want to stream good audio quality retaining as much sound detail as possible .. but at the same time you want it to compress as much as possible Some formats are better than others XWMA encoding is really good at compressing sound files, with very little loss of sound detail Really Zoom in to the detail of a sound track and you will see all the audio detail that you would wish to preserve after any compression is applied .. Any form of lossy compression gets worse the more you save it too. Load up a jpg with 80% compression ratio Save it again with the same lossy compression ratio .. And because of the compression method, some of the detail is lost Someone else does the same to the same file = More detail is lost Eventually you would have a picture that looks a mess. Or a sound file that sounds awful. Edit : See also Audio File Formats table https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_file_format and Audio Compression https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_compression#Audio or Data Compression https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_compression Microsoft seem to be hiding information about the xwma format these days, I had some old links to more details in that post on Emmas Site ( linked in my previous post ) .. But those links in that post are dead now, the new moved link on Microsoft site does not include all the old detail they used to give. Edit : I think MS have renamed xwma to ADPCM compression encoding since https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee415711(v=vs.85).aspx

7-zip needs testing. Its a staple of many projects, Wrye Bash not only uses it but includes a copy in its executeables ( I dont know if MO does the same ? ) .. I have seen mention that for someone else it did not work on the beta 10. Probably just early beta teething troubles, but it would be nice to know this is still going to be a dependable tool when 10 installs itself.

@ Shadriss - A reference for what, and what sounds weird ? In reference to my post I do not know what you are referring to. XWMA encoded files https://wiki.multimedia.cx/index.php?title=Microsoft_xWMA Or Ethatrons research ( I cant link because his site has been down for a while now, it used to be a sub-paragraph on his NIFOpt guide, entitled "A little calculation", which was also relevant to BSAopt and DDSOpt performance of extracting files and loading them up versus loose files loading up, the former being the faster when more compression was used in compressing the BSAs those three utilities can produce ) But I did quote it in the following post .. https://forum.step-project.com/topic/5819-optimized-vanilla-textures-by-tony971/page-3?do=findComment&comment=96363 XWMA Sound files being compressed too much and not loading from highly compressed BSAs .. I dont think it is noted anywhere, I have seen it in conversation between mod authors quite a few times, personally I discussed it with Emma and Amgepo on the hidden development part of Emma's site in reference to Vilja and the thousands of voice files Emma has to make for her companion mod, and also had my suspicions confirmed by CDCooley who has knowledge of the same problem on the BGS forum .. somewhere. I recall other mod authors also being aware of the problem. I cannot give you a link to those conversations though. I think also the official archiver which comes with the Creation Kit has different compression levels, and for sounds being used in a mod there is a recommendation somewhere ( probably the Creation Kit wiki ? ) not to use higher compression levels when creating a BSA with sound files in them, but to stick with the default compression level. I would say no, thats why I am referring to Ethatrons calculations when it comes to performance when a highly efficient compression method is used. In my experience with my laptop ( which I regard as a lowest common denominator machine due to it being minimum specification for Skyrim ), highly compressed = better performance, thats why my other mod Vanilla Reduced Textures utilises BSAOpts very high compression technology. I have tried those 33000 textures installed in many different ways, including different compression levels, high = better / faster loading imho which corroborates Ethatrons findings. ( This is why the replacer files in Kill The Orchestra are not just wav files, even though they are now smaller than the original files they replace, I encoded them back to xwm to make them more efficient at loading as loose files ( I would also have liked to put them into a BSA, but the possible combinations of BSAs for everyones choices of music would have been ridiculous to make ) ). But as mentioned you cannot compress xwm files too much further in this way I have been a fan of Vilja for a long time, and on occasion I have reduced the textures for that mod .. And tried bundling the whole BSA up again including its voice files - The textures were fine .. The voice files were another matter, a lot of them did not work as they should do, until they were packed in a BSA with a lot less compression than BSAOpt is capable of. The Vilja team confirmed my suspicions, they had the same experiences too. Wav files, which are much further compressed into xwm files, and then even further compressed into a highly compressed BSA = Sometimes they do not get loaded by the game engine.

Oh right well in that case yes the way I understand that is the xwma encoding has to be decoded to play them, which decompresses them and takes up RAM as it does so before the files are played in the original wav format Its a bit like the Highly compressed BSA versus loose files calculations Ethatron did, it costs less in time to load and decode a much smaller file, than it does just to load a bigger file with less compression.So long as your decoder is extremely efficient, which xwma is. Compressing those xwma files further ( inside a BSA for example ) can actually make the game engine fail to load them ( depends on how much compression is used in making the BSA ), so decompression timing is critical for xmwa files to be played correctly

I own such a laptop, which is minimum specification for the skyrim game, sporting an IDE HD The mod does help my machine slightly, as does my Vanilla Reduced Textures. But this mods purpose is not about performance, is it ? @ Kessno Read the description again, I have just chopped that technical section out completely. The performance aspect is only really a bi-product feature for old machines like mine so I thought I would mention it for others with such machines. Its obviously becoming a focal point for people wanting to squeeze more out of their machines to compensate for other problems .. The mod is not going to benefit people with machines that can do quantum physics, have SSDs, and do the next milleniums weather forecasts on just one of its cores. The mod : Silences music you choose ( not all music .. whereas the games volume setting silences everything ) It allows you to still have for example Tavern music It stops the tell tale bad creature is nearby alarm which the change in music warns you about It allows you to hear more of the games sound fx, and other mod sound fx like AOS for example. Those are the mods features, the purpose of the mod. Thats what you are using it for yes ?

I have been carefully wording the description so that it is not misleading, please re-read the orange highlighted / emboldened / underlined parts of the description below. If the description is still misleading - Please advise as to how better it could be worded, so that you are no longer confused ======Technical====== This mod installs loose sound files in xwm format, with the same path and filename as the original files contained in the games sounds BSA, when the game engine finds loose files like these it uses them instead of the originals ( the same way Texture replacers work, also works on Sound or Music files - Reference topic BSAs and You. I Used xWMAEncode for the conversion processes, and used Audacity to manipulate the sound files. The sounds are perfectly silenced, mono 44.1khz, duration 1.1 second, and then reconverted back into xwm format with the files original name. I think this helps the game performance slightly ( YMMV machine specs ). Even with the volume turned down for music, the original music files are still being loaded and processed ( Have a look at images on this mods Nexus page, I did a screenshot there using ProcMon to determine this is the case ). With small empty sound files its a little less loading / processing the game has to cope with. Here are the stats on all the games original music files in one folder converted to wavs .. Thats 3.15 Gigabytes of data the game engine is partially loading and constantly juggling just to keep the music flowing. With my mod installed, the game only needs to juggle 2.94 Megabytes of data around( my small 8k silent replacer files ).Less load on your system playing the game.

And reference the Volume = 0 : Does that stop TESV.exe accessing music files You have to setup a filter in ProcMon which Excludes everything but Read File access to Skyrim Music and Sound FX files ( it takes a while to do that but you can save a filter setup in ProcMon, like the one I have .. ) All the above read file accesses were streaming up that window after the volume was set to 0 Skyrim shifts a lot of sound data, constantly ( just think of all the voices around you, weapons sounds, foot sounds , animals around you, all the sounds in an adjacent cell which need pre-loading etcetera on top of music being streamed and swapped in .. Those default settings really are not surprising ) Edit : NB - The above with ProcMon requires you to have loose music and sound fx files installed as replacers for the originals .. Otherwise all you will see is heaps of access to voice / music / sound BSAs', not individual files. I have AOS 2.5 and all my own silent music files installed, which were repeatedly accessed by TESV.exe in the above screenshot.

Well if I may suggest one of your ini wiki development topics may be a more appropriate place for continued experimentation Process Monitor and VMMap will help

Greg see post #27, the links in that post, thats why oqhansoloqo is trying to contact Arthmoor and see if he knows anything further technically .. .. I have known Arthmoor a long time, and he usually has information or details which are dependable for every decision taken, this is why I am reluctant to say its a bad setting to recommend to everyone. But logically I think its better if you have more cache, the problem is what to set it at to stop the stuck sounds for everyone who does not use my mod. The problem does not matter for me, I dont experience it. ( I have a mod ini which loads later than the USKP one with my own setting, just make your own ini with the same name as something guaranteed to load last .. Bashed Patch, 0.ini for example, and put your own settings in there ) Edit : I have another consideration on this subject - I dont think setting a cache is so important these days due to the advent of SSDs'. If the majority of Skyrim users have SSD, and dont have traditional spinning platter HDs', then all the old business of seek times and the efficiency of a hard drive, how fragmented it is etcetera do not matter, and will probably not be a consideration as a potential bottleneck, because SSD read speeds are lightning fast .. .. Except if you do have a traditional HD, then more memory cache allocated would be better albeit so long as you dont set it so high that the old stuck sounds come back to haunt you. My laptop has an old IDE hard drive in it, so less cache = bad for performance overall. Thats why with my mod installed, reducing the size of all music files drastically with silent 8k files, I can afford to set a lower uMaxSizeForCachedSound= setting, but I still would not set it as low as the USKP or SMPC recommends, that would mean lots more constant loading from the Hard Drive.

For the game vanilla sounds and music, I am inclined to agree .. But then what do you say is a good minimum to set to stop the cached sound fx being stuck, this is a proven fix for that problem. Looking at the vanilla music files and sound fx, I would say a couple of hundred mb is a good setting, when you consider one music track can take 100mb of that cache, you need other music and sounds cached aswell. Here's another vanilla music file at 90mb I can get away with having a really low uMaxSizeForCachedSound= setting, with the music files all reduced to 8k each, but the rest of the community with at least the vanilla sounds and music ( I mean we dont even know if that one setting covers both sound fx and music, we assume so because it has audio in its name, and its the only setting that could affect both ). I think it needs more experimentation on determining how low to go to get rid of the problem without reducing the audio cache to near useless amounts for the vanilla files. But then .. How many users has the USKP got, and has that setting caused any discernible problem for the masses for as long as they have all been using it ? I have no real good answers, apart from I am pretty sure the setting I recommend for use with my mod is good. Without the mod I think the game is probably utilizing the hard drive a lot more to keep feeding the game with sounds and music which are not being temporarily stored in a ram cache due to lack of cache set asside.

So that would mean I am recommending everyone use just 8k ? ( thats smaller than just one of my silent 1.1 second duration music files ) USKP is setting 4k automatically for the whole community .. And SMPC is telling everyone to set 512 bytes as a cache for the games music and sound So the whole community has this setting set to a value ( any of the above ) which would be more appropriate on a ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64 or maybe even a BBC micro ? I cant believe the assumption of "Then it would be 256 kB, 1 mB, and 2 mB respectively" purely because of the games original music file sizes and sound FX sizes, a lot of which need to be cached initially .. In the above screen, just one of the games vanilla music files is 23mb. A lot of them range 20mb up to and above 100mb each in some cases, so how does 256kb + 1mb + 2mb work as a cache for the vanilla files if your assumption is correct ?, you cant even get that one vanilla file I highlighted in a cache that size. The only reason I think 8meg ( 8192 ) is a good value is when my mod is installed, chopping all the music files down to 8k 1.1 second silent files, to be cached along with the games sound fx files, which similarly do not need a huge buffer. I can well believe the games initial settings are indeed 256meg, 1gb, and 2gb respectively. Maybe a bit excessive, and probably is cause for some sounds getting stuck in a big cache and repeated when they should have been flushed ( The original reason for USKP and SMPC recommendations ), but they are not so excessive to be unreasonable for this game.

uiMaxAudioCacheSize + uiInitialCacheSize ( ui stands for User Interface ? ) I dont know what those do, the setting I use is the same as USKP uses in its Unofficial Skyrim Patch.ini ( Thats a "Mod Defined" INI as noted here INI Files ) uMaxSizeForCachedSound=8192 I thought I was being generous compaired to the USKP setting which has this setting at 4096 But regardless of you mentioning a completely different setting .. If its confirmed somewhere that the setting myself and the USKP are using should also be raised because its not in Megabytes, but assuming it needs an amount in Kilobytes, or Bytes, could you let us all know ?. I am assuming I am recommending 8 meg with my setting. Source Post = https://www.afkmods.com/index.php?/topic/3132-skyrim-useful-ini-settings/&do=findComment&comment=151096 Also mentioned using just 512 ( half a meg ? ) by RolloLG in this post = https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/778240-uskp-addon/page-63&do=findComment&comment=10946786 ( Thats the sticky post for SMPC )

Glad it installs ok, performance is going to be very subjective, I know it helps my laptop.

Difference will depend upon your machine, and how much you have going on in your installation = Way too many variables for me to give anyone a good idea I do not use MO, I would rather stay with Wrye Bash and LOOT for all my file management needs Testing NMM out is no problem because it can be easily installed / uninstalled when I am done with it. I believe MO should use the same fomod scripting I have written for NMM users though. Let me know how it goes Edit : Are there actually any mods out there specifically written to be installed with MO ?, or are they all like mine, written with NMMs method, and MO does it that way too I know MO has the capability to use Wrye Bash wizards, and NMM Fomod scripting, and as a preference it will use the NMM method when both scripting methods are present in an installer ( like mine has ) .. But I do not know from first hand experience how that goes.

Nope, watch TESV.exe in Process Monitor calls for music files ( you have to filter out a huge amount of other files ), they keep on getting pulled by the game engine ( Mentioned that in the description ) Which if you think about it makes sense, the game needs all the music files it needs in the game wherever you are, for that moment when you raise the volume above 0 - If it didnt then the game would be in a bit of a flurry to get the required files "oops crap the volume just went up, just hang on a minute while I go load them all" :) Preemptively it needs them to be loaded.

:) I just edited the description a bit again, previously it was a bit misleading in that it gave the impression the game loads all 3.15gb at once which makes my mod look astoundingly good in comparison .. Changed to read : "Thats 3.15 Gigabytes of data the game engine is partially loading and constantly juggling just to keep the music flowing. With my mod installed, the game only needs to juggle 2.94 Megabytes of data around( those small 8k silent replacer files ).Less load on your system playing the game."

Ooh now that I come to think of it, one of my favourite external locations is Arcwind Point Centre of the map here https://srmap.uesp.net/?locx=65815&locy=-99518&zoom=15 https://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Arcwind_Point As you approach the area from the south east, and then get to look down on Arcwind Point, its one of the most atmospheric snowy areas in the game, it also gives you a bit of an intimidating feeling as you walk towards it. I remember the first time discovering it gave that feeling ( and thats before you experience a few surprises in that area ) Really good iconic screenshot area, complete with flying lizard .. and friends. Edit : Arkngthamz I linked previously also has one of those nice Interior Exterior areas ( Similar to The Karthspire cave leading to Sky Haven Temple ) screenshot

Sorry to say I cant help much apart from giving guesstimates .. EMO being a music mod = I dont even look at them. If its just a music replacer ( ie, all the tracks are the same path and filenames as the vanilla music ), and they are in the same format as vanilla music, and of a similar size / duration to vanilla music .. Then yes my mod will benefit the performance of your machine. Vanilla music is over 3gb of data your machine has to keep juggling in the background to keep the music flowing ( fading in from one to another depending upon where you are and what is happening in the game ). If the mod adds more music to the vanilla set, and / or the tracks are larger than vanilla then the mod will be adding even more data to be shunted around your machine constantly. The game does not have to manage all 3gb all at once, but keeping it flowing is an extra burden on your machine, especially if you do not have a dedicated sound card ( if you have never heard of these, think NVidia Graphics card .. but for sound instead ) Laptops would benefit the most from my mod. The motherboards on laptops on average are less efficient at shuffling lots of data around the bus than a desktop motherboard is, and the sound processing is usually inferior to a desktop motherboard too ( even a desktop that uses just the motherboard sound processing chip instead of a dedicated sound card is bound to be better than a laptops capabilities ) And of course, you dont get to hear half the game sounds and effects with music drowning it out, or all the marvellous work for instance in the newly released AOS 2.5 :)

For anyone who hasn't noticed .. AOS 2.5 is on the streets