TechAngel85

Linux is an free, open-source operating system. Here's a more less-techy definition: https://www.linux.org/threads/what-is-linux.4076/ Edit: This is my personal opinion as I'm sure others will disagree, but Ubuntu (a linux distro) is probably one of the most user-friendly versions available: https://www.ubuntu.com/desktop

No problem. It would be nice to eliminate a lot of those patches; thus, making the STEP installation that much lighter.

I'll be digging through that thread and gathering all the changes and fixes for the 2.2.8 changelog soon. Any unresolved issues will be brought up again and resolved. This will be looked into then.

Question... if using the Core/Extended patches, are the individual patches still needed for certain mods, such as the WAF patches for GDO and Improved helmets, for example? This will be a "need to know" for 2.2.8 when the patches will go live.

So lightly modded and GDO is before WAF, probably okay to skip the patch. Heavily modded, use the patch. That's just in a nutshell, but it would obviously depend on the individual setup on whether or not the patch should be used in most cases. For STEP purposes, use the patch.

Either the original Memtest86 or Memtest86+ will work. Both now support 64bit architectures. I think they're pretty much equals; unless I'm mistaken. Both are still currently being maintained and updated as well. I recant that statement... After reading the changelogs. Memtest86+ appears to be superior and the original seems to "borrow" things from Memtest86+. lol

Debate aside, there is no earthly reason I would need that much online storage space. If it's backups, then I'd buy a terabyte (or two) hard drive and keep those backups nice and secure in my own home and possession. Not having a PC interface for syncing files is old school when it comes to online storage nowadays anyway. I'll be sticking to Google Drive which has more than enough storage for me, has desktop syncing, is synced with all my other Google services (email, calendar, etc) and has the level of privacy that I'm comfortable with. Google has had some issues with personal data in the regard of ads and serving ads in the past and also of grabbing WiFi information from resident homes (those were idiots that left their wifi unsecured anyway...that's a separate debate entirely); however, I generally trust Google services.

Looks great, though it's female only and I don't play female characters. The dancing dominatrix from tekken was interesting to watch...Haha! Seriously, this looks really good and it's not just copied from the horses tails.

There's no reason to not own all the DLCs at this point. You can catch a sale on Steam and get them for super cheap...Black Firday and Christmas is just around the corner so I expect they'll be on sale again very soon. Current prices on Steam: Dawnguard - $19.99 Hearthfire - $4.99 Dragonborn - $19.99 *Prices in US dollars.

Could those having issues with CTDs also test the newest version with the new option of having the mod only active during loading screens turned on? That would be helpful in reviewing; however, there are far too many reporting issues to even consider this mod atm, in my opinion.

Descriptions should be of the user's (you) own words and not copied from the Nexus. In your own words, you should tell us a brief description of the mod, why you like it, why you use it, why you're posting it here, etc etc etc. Most of the images looks like shiny plastic goodness. Not really a good thing. How's it look in-game?

I haven't even install it and will not be installing it. I have issues so there's no way I could even test it.

The new "only enabled for loading screens" might be worth looking at to see if the CTD that people are experience disable with the option enabled. This would likely be better for ENBs are well since they have an option that should be enabled that ignores loading screens.

No way I can decide simply from that video. If I was, it would be SOS. AOS is very "noisy" in nearly all of the compares. Perhaps this was simply due to the fact that nearly all the compares were next to water which drowned out the other sounds or perhaps it's AOS. Point is, I can't tell from this compare. I'll likely do a in-depth compare of my own and upload it; however, it won't be for a few weeks at least. One of my fans died in my laptop and I'm awaiting the arrival of a new one. Until then, I can't do anything stressful on my system or it'll get too hot.

A quick google search will show that the ratio of a blue base on a candle is something like 1:10. A bit of quick research and I've found out that a candle will burn blue at its base for one of two reasons. One, the flame is hotter at its base and two, because of the chemical composition of the candle. Since a candle is highly unlikely to burn hot enough to result in a blue flame (and if it did it would melt too fast to be useful), we can conclude this is due to chemical composition. A bit more research and I found out that candles in the time period of which Skyrim is set in were made of either beeswax or animal fat (no modern waxes here). A few more google searches and I found out that animal fat candles typically burn low and slow and almost never have a blue based flame. These flames are much more common in beeswax candles. In saying all of that, I stand corrected. Yes, it is possible that you can have a candle flame with a blue base; however, it's far more rare than having it on every candle in the game. Vanilla doesn't do this. I just installed the mod again to test and I still hold to what I said previously. EDIT: I'm not meaning to step on any toes or feelings. This was just an evaluation of the mod.

This is a killer for this mod and I've already read a lot of the posts over the associated CTDs even with the fix. You can't trade one issue for another and it appears the verdict is 50/50. For some it fixes, for other like Lanceor here...CTDs become more common or even crazy frequent. My toes are tough. I stand by what I said earlier. You and anyone else are welcome to come to any verdict on this mod. Until this mod has proven itself with some detailed reviews I don't see it being marked for testing by myself or the other Senior Staff/Admin. Forgive me but I tread very lightly with mods such as this since ATTK (which got all the rave this mod is getting) and we all know how that mod ended.

There are issues with STEP though. Lots of issues. People report bug threads here and on the nexus all the time, but the diagnosis is complicated because 1) some issues are system specific and some aren't, and there is no good metric whatsoever to distinguish between them 2) most people use mods not included in STEP, and that disqualifies their post from being taken seriously as a bug report. In my own testing with just STEP mods I have found many surprising things about the STEP package to be true. I am not yet ready to publish my results, but I can assure you that STEP 2.7 is far from stable. I can also assure you, that based on my own testing and also based on what has been generally echoed by others in this thread, safety load solves a lot of the problems that are inherent in STEP CORE and even in the vanilla game itself. There are still some troubling things to sort out with saftey load, namely the menu crashes and also, it would be nice to have some inkling of an idea as to how it works. That being said, not including safety load as a default part of the STEP mod package would make about just as much sense as not including the unofficial patches or any of the bug fixes. Echoing some of Nearox... Stable here is a matter of prospective. If you're talking about not a single conflict, then no, STEP is not stable; however, if you're talking about no ILS or CTD then I would say that STEP is stable in its current form. We know about the mod conflicts in STEP. They have been there from STEP's beginning; however, if the Guide is follow the conflicts that can be find in TES5Edit are not game breaking. I and many other run STEP in its current form with my issues. I've thoroughly testing pure STEP 2.2.7 and the only issue I receive is an occasional stutter in heavy areas; of which, is 100% caused by my limited VRAM. I can and have played for hours on end with no issues whatsoever. This can and has been reproduced by other team members and non-team members on various system setups. This, in STEP's current point of view, is stable...conflicts or not. We are; however, gearing up to provide resolution to these conflicts via a "STEP patch". In response to 1 & 2 above: 1) This is true. 2) This is not. We investigate all reports in the bug report thread and attempt to get to the bottom of every one. Eliminating non-STEP mods from the installations is one of the first steps to solving such issues. This eliminates the chance that is issue reported is caused by the non-step mod. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. With that said, we do not monitor all the troubleshooting threads for STEP specific issues. This would be impossible as I would guess that at least 95% of those threads are from non-STEP mod issues or user errors. Sifting through the remaining 5% would take the time of a full-time job and I personally already have one of those. These issues will have to be reported to the Bug Report thread so we can look into them. That is the purpose of that thread. I've already read a lot of what you've posted and most pertains to conflicts in TES5Edit which will be resolved by the "STEP patch". When you're ready to post the rest of your testing results I'll look into them fully. This is getting off topic... As for this mod, it will not be recommended until the experienced members can look into it. I'd be extremely interested to know Monty's evaluation of it.

If you're running mainly with all 2k texture then you are not running the recommended STEP and; therefore, could not properly test for STEP. STEP recommends mainly 1k textures for all exteriors. 2k is okay for interiors though. I've been spearheading and writing the MT part of STEP for some time now. Testing can not be properly done unless your install is 100% pure STEP with no deviations in texture sizes or extra mods installed. Deviations in texture options such as color or artistic direction are okay as long as the baseline texture sizes are maintained for said mods. Deviations which introduce extra scripts or larger texture sizes are not permitted if the install is meant for mod testing purposes. This is why MT has mainly been done by the Admins and Senior Staff; very few members are willing to maintain such installs/profiles.

Anytime I hear someone say this I automatically think...spy!

I have no issues about presence...online or offline. My real name is Jeremy, I'm 28 years young and I work for JCPenney as the Lead Service Expert (basically I'm the manager over the entire floor). I ended up there due to the "recession"; however, turns out that I actually quite enjoy it. Traditionally, I'm learned in the art of technology. Hence the name, TechAngel85 (85 is the year I was born). I'm just a few hours short of my degree in Networks Design and Management...those are fancy words for Network Engineering. I had to stop school due to financial hardships ("recession") but fully plan on finishing that within the next couple of years. Hobbies: I'm into tennis and play at least once a week (getting a bit cold for it now though). I also obviously enjoy gaming, anime, cooking and fixing up computers. The only music I listen to is ambient; if I have a choice. People call that weird but it sets my mood perfectly. If I need to relax I listen to soft, meditative or new age ambient music. If I need to have some energy I listen to trance ambient music. :) I would also like to finish the Mass Effect games but STEP takes up too much of my time. Will most likely have to put in for a vacation over in the Admin forums to have time to finish those games. Haha! Not much else to tell really.

3D Map is in STEP. In the Interface section.

Just a quick piece of info: The new 331 drivers are completed unstable on my system (all of them). I was getting sporadic driver crashes even on Windows 7. I've reverted back to 327 and things are running smoothly again. So if you're getting a lot of driver crashes, this might be why. For those that don't know, I'm running a GeForce GTX 460m in my Asus G7.