GalenZ

Yes, SPM shows my VRAM pretty much maxed out most of the time. However, I'm still getting OK FPS. I have a suspicion that VRAM usage is not a perfect guide to actual VRAM *requirements*, as I'm pretty sure that the engine caches textures in VRAM that it doesn't necessarily need during any given frame. This is probably why I get microstutter when I spin around, as ENB moves things in and out of main RAM. I find this acceptable; YMMV. Still, I confess that I'm eyeing the new GTX 1070 8GB cards, especially when the Skyrim Special Edition comes out at Halloween...

I'm currently running SRLEX LotD (pre-new landscape stuff) on a Win 10 system with a 3GB GTX 780 video card @ 1920x1200, with base LotD textures (not the 1k) and am getting decent performance- 45-50 fps outdoors with all Vividian ENB features on, 55-60 fps if I turn off AO and DoF. I'm still in the process of testing, though.

Actually, I *am*someone who's worked with memory management software - back when I was a software engineer, I designed and built memory managers - so I have a deep understanding of the fundamental issues. What I don't have, unfortunately, is a detailed understanding of exactly how CF interacts with SKSE. However, after doing more research, I think I'm beginning to get it. And the end result is, no, there is no conflict - CF totally replaces SKSE memory management, so if you have UseOSAllocators=1 in CF, it doesn't matter what you set in SKSE.ini. Also, it appears that the source of my 'out of memory' bug may have been that I was, indeed, simply out of memory at the system level. In addition to Skyrim, I had a memory-hungry Chrome process running, and it turns out that I only had 1GB of swap space allocated (left over from back in the days when I though 16GB of ram was a lot). So, Win10 itself was telling me i was running out of memory (I got that popup the same time as the CF popup). I have now upped my swap space to far more reasonable levels, and hopefully that will fix the problem. I leave this as a note for anyone else who might encounter the same issue, but as far as I'm concerned, PROBLEM SOLVED. Thanks for everyone's help!

Thank you for the detailed reply. But....I'm still lacking an answer to the question of whether CF and SKSE are stepping on each other's toes by fighting over memory. The CF docs are maddeningly unclear as to how CF interacts with the SKSE memory allocator. And I am unaware of any tool that gives me an idea of how much memory CF is allocating, the way MemoryBlocksLog does for SKSE. When I turned off CF's memory allocator, and looked at the MemLog, I did notice that it was getting up near 700, when the limit is 768. In previous builds, I have found that the standard 1024/256 allocations in skse.ini weren't enough for me, so I went to 1280, which always seemed enough. Update: just found https://forum.step-project.com/topic/11193-shesons-memory-patch-meh321s-crash-fixes , which addresses the issue, and states the CF totally tosses SKSE's allocated memory, so there is no fighting, and the SKSE settings do not matter. However, that still leaves me with the question of just why I ran out of memory. One possibility is that my new followers all tend to have unique high-res skins, I had 2 with me, and there were 3 more in the inn (including Minerva) - looks like I'll need to reskin them, and maybe change the esp so that they actually share skins, rather than each having her own. The other possibility is that, since I was running in windowed mode, I had a very memory-hungry Chrome session still up, such that Win10 itself was telling me I was running out memory and needed to close something. Looks like I need to look at my Win 10 swap space, cause there's no way I should run out of memory. I would still appreciate hearing about any other ways to reduce memory usage, and/or improve memory allocation with CF or SKSE, though.

Good to know. Are you Win 7 or Win 10? (I'm Win 10). And where did you get info to set CustomMemoryBlock? I don't see any mention of that in the SRLE or SRLEX:LotD install guides.

I'm getting some odd crashes in what is pretty much a basic SRLEX LOTD build before all the new landscape changes. (I've added Memory Blocks Log, SafeAutoSave, QuickLoot, and a few followers). Specifically, after starting in Solitude and puttering around a bit (getting 55-60 fps and only one CTD), I've grabbed a couple of followers, headed down to Dragon Bridge, and as soon as I entered the inn, I got a CTD, with Crash Fixes saying it failed to allocate enough memory. I'm suspecting that the cause of this is a bad interaction between the SRLE instructions for setting Crash Fixes to use UseOSAllocators=1, while the SRLEX:LotD guide says to set the SKSE.ini to DefaultHeapInitialAllocMB=1024, the way I always did before Crash Fixes existed. Looking at MemoryBlocksLog, Skyrim simply isn't using it's old blocks - the biggest number I see is '85', rather than the constantly growing numbers I used to see - and if CrashFixes is using malloc rather than the old memory block pool, this is unsurprising. However, as I understand it, the DefaultHeapInitialAllocMB=1024 line is *allocating* a full 1 gig of memory, which is not being used by Skyrim, and is thus unavailable to useOSAllocators=1. And given that Skyrim is 32 bit with a 4Gig limit, I'm suspecting this is the source of my out-of-memory CTD. So, could someone with a deeper understanding of these issues than me - or, who just has a working system - please tell me what setting to use so i *don't* run out of memory? Are you guys using CrashFixes memory allocs, or the old SKSE heap? I'm gonna experiment on my own, but I'd appreciate a discussion of this matter, and I suspect others would, too.

I have to second the questionability of including the navmeshed IFT in this pack, as it does some navmesh changes all over the place, which I have discovered are huge pains when trying to add things like house mods. However, the non-navmeshed IFT is fine - it justs adds some new objects, and in the rare instance that you find a fallen tree blocking something, you can always delete it using the console. The only disadvantage of the non-navmeshed version is that followers can't uses the new trees as bridges, they way you can; they have to swim or teleport across. I would strongly suggest only using the non-navmeshed version in this guide.

Did the right file just get uploaded to the new SRLE Extended LotD Conflict Resolution 1.18? I just downloaded it, and got a plain old SRLEX CR, not SRLEX LoTD.

All I can say is that it didn't sort that way for me, this I needed the rule. Also, personal question to @DarkladyLexy: Are you the same Lexy who runs the 'Lady Lexy xox - Let's Play' channel on YouTube? If so, well done - you've provided me a great deal of entertainment while waiting for Dyndolod build and such. I personally find it way more enjoyable to listen to a female narrator than the plethora of guys doing much the same.

Yes, but we want the record in the generated Khajiit Ears esp to overide the Undeath one, so Loot has to sort it later before we create a Bash patch. Additional Note: Given that people's personal mod lists may contain other esps that the genertated Khajiit Ears must override, I would suggest that the LOOT rule just give it a high global priority, rather than setting a direct LOAD AFTER rule. No harm in doing both, of course.

A note on the generated Khajiit Ears Show.esp patch: it overrides records from Undeath_imp_helm_legend_Patch.esp, but my LOOT just sorted the undeath patch after it. Not a big deal - the only outcome would be not seeing Khajiit ears poking out of a few helmets. However, I would like to suggest adding the following LOOT rule to the guide: Khajiit Ears Show.esp LOAD AFTER Undeath_imp_helm_legend_Patch.esp

Re: Ordinator Merge: editing headers in esps? Doable (I've done it, mostly for ELE variants), but definitely error prone, especially when new versions come out. Certainly not something I would ever recommend in a build guide. Re: renaming the ESP for RSChildren: This is a holdover from SRLE, which I think is unnecessary, as I know of nothing that uses 'RSChildren_CompleteUSKP.esp' as a master - everything uses RSchildren.esm, as they should. It's also benign, since the merge is basically a merge of patches, with no scripts or textures or meshes or SEQ files that depend of the esp name, so it totally doesn't matter if you rename the resulting esp or not. I think the only reason that SRLE renamed the merge was so that save files that used the 'Complete' patch wouldn't complain about a missing esp when it got merged into something else in the middle of a playthrough. I'm pretty sure the rename of the merge is purely a holdover based on 'we've always done it that way', and there's no longer any reason to keep doing it.

Yes, please! I love building on other people's hard work, rather than re-inventing the wheel - especially when mods have unexpected script interactions, and just plain old script load.

Just checking. Like I said, I just came back after a while away, and am just getting back up to speed on what's changed in the modding world since march - e.g. Crash Fixes removes string limit yay!, Wyrmstooth gone, boo!. Any other big changes recently that I ought to be aware of?

More questions, on installing other large-scale mods in this build: I just came back to Skyrim after months away, having left in frustration when the string table issue was raising its ugly head, and realized I would be unable to create the build I wanted. Now, apparently, Crash Fixes resolves that problem (right?), so I can once again keep piling in as many mods as I can get to work together, right? Having uttered the required 'Bwa-hah-hah-hah!' at this newfound power, I want to ask other people if the have any experiences (either successful or not) at getting any of the following mods to work with LotD and 3DNPC and the rest of this build: Anna's NPCs? This seems like a nice set of quests and NPCs to add, like Interesting NPCs but smaller. Amorous Adventures, either the vanilla, OSex, or SexLab versions? Caranthir Tower Reborn? I know it just came out, but the videos look great. Anyone tried it yet? Clockwork? Summerset Isles? Wyrmstooth? I know that it's now gone from Nexus and so cannot be officially supported, but I still have all the files from before it vanished. Any problem adding them back in? Vilja? I know she was string heavy, but I've always liked having her around. Arissa? Rigmor of Bruma? I apologize in advance if any of these mods have been discussed earlier in this forum, but I have not yet had time to wade though all 138 pages of commentary. Thanks in advance for anyone who can give me any advice on integrating any of thses mods into this LotD build!

I think just merging the patches would be a good compromise in that regard, and save two load slots. BTW, thanks for the quick replies, guys - I hadn't expected anyone else to be up this late on a school night!

I have a question about the Ordinator merge. As specified in the guide, the merge is created with the name 'Ordinator Merged Patch.esp', then renamed back to 'Ordinator - Perks of Skyrim.esp'. However, if the merge is done on the full installed mod, then the resulting mod has script fragments and a SEQ file that refer to the 'Ordinator Merged Patch.esp', which will no longer exist after the rename. It seems to me that this will be a problem. As I see it, there are several ways to fix this, with the easist being to just merge the patches, and not the base Ordinator mod itself. Alternatively, the base esp could be separated from it's assets, and then let Merge Plugins only see the esp, and thus not alter any assets. As is, I am going to alter the standard merge instructions, and only merge the Ordinator patches. Could someone with more knowledge than me please comment on this issue? Thanks!

Just a note - the new Bijin AIO 1.3 is *not* a drop-in replacement for 1.2. Some formID's have changed, causing errors in things like the current SRLE Extended Conflict Resolution. Specifically: [00:00] Checking for Errors in [46] SRLE Extended Conflict Resolution.esp[00:00] Ugor "Ugor" [NPC_:00019E1A][00:00] NPC_ \ WNAM - Worn Armor -> Found a TXST reference, expected: ARMO[00:00] NPC_ \ Head Parts \ PNAM - Head Part -> Found a ARMA reference, expected: HDPT[00:00] BrelynaMaryon "Brelyna Maryon" [NPC_:0001C196][00:00] NPC_ \ WNAM - Worn Armor -> Found a FLST reference, expected: ARMO[00:00] All Done! All these errors are easy to fix in TES5Edit, but the fact that there *are* such errors is a huge PITA. Just wanted to let you all know. Also, re: Mirai being removed: Good call. I looked at Mirai a year ago, and left her out of my load order because I found some major problems with how she overwrote vanilla dialog trees, among other things. I put her back in based on the recommendation here, hoping such problems had been fixed, but have not yet even encountered her in the process of testing my new build. I'm sorry to hear that she's still apparently buggy, but not in the least surprised.

Glad to hear that it's easier than you thought - I hadn't realized that your trepidation was from never having done it before. On a slight segue, do we really *need* DSR? I mean, what does DSR give us beyond the questionable satisfaction of seeing our characters stow more than one weapon/shield on their backs? If it adds *any* ongoing script load at all - which it apparently does - I say it's not worth the cost, much less the hassles of installing it.

I mean just changing the flag. As I understand it, the Skyrim engine looks only at the flag in the file, not the file name. Changing the extension definitely screws up all sorts of stuff regarding faces, voices, etc, because the assets are stored in folders named after the plugin, and changing the file extension means having to rename all those folders (plus the same folders in any mods that touch those assets, e.g. makeovers), which is totally a PITA and not something any sane modder should ever do. However, using Bash or Tes5Edit to set the esm flag does NOT require changing the extension, and totally works - witness plugins like 'Wyrmstooth.esp', which is in fact flagged as an ESM, and sorted that way by LOOT. I have not yet explored the issues and possibilities raised by this post, which suggests that setting the ESM flag on SummersetIsles.esp gets rid of the lag when opening the skills menu, and that in general the skyrim engine has troubles with large esp files that it does not have when they are changed to esms. However, I plan to look into it, and would appreciate hearing about anyone else's experiences in this area. In the meantime, I totally don't see how asking a modder to set the ESM flag on a file is any more of a big deal than, say, removing a master from the SR compatibility patch (which you totally need to do if you want to run without EBT, for example). Is there something I don't know here?

Have you tried ESMisfying 3DNPC to see if that helps?

Just a heads up for a patch I just uploaded on Nexus to fix the Silver-Blood Inn being too dark in a SR:LE install. Basically, the RRR_ELFX_Patch took out ELFX's light sources to prevent RRRE's new light source from flickering, at the cost of making the whole place too damn dark to see anything. My patch does the opposite, disabling the RRRE source and re-enabling the ELFX ones, with the end result that I can now see the innkeeper and patrons again! Check out https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/74547/? for the whole thing. I think it would be *very* nice if this patch were incorporated into SRLE's custom RRR_ELFX_Patch. If anyone uses it and has problems, please let me know!

Nothing is impossible to a man impervious to reason. :) I didn't say that I'd *done* it yet. However, preliminary testing says I can get the numbers to work if I'm careful, and take out a few things. LotD already contains BCS (372) and Moonpath (98), I don't really want Morskom (742), Holidays (217) isn't a loss, I don't like Aurora (97), and I never use Better Fast Travel (231) - which, together, save me over 1700 strings. That brings my base SRLEE load to under 54000, so with LotD, I'm only up to 57500. Reports of a few people's long-term playthroughs suggest that they gained < 3000 strings over extended play, which means that if I allocate a working buffer of 50% more (4500), my limit should be about 61000 strings. By that count, I still have 3500 more strings to play with, which I plan to fill up with Anna NPCs (1700), Hunterborn (500), Moon and Star (315), Summerset Isles (575), and a few other quests and dungeons and such that aren't very string-heavy. Once I get things working, I'll post my build and play experiences. -- Galen

I'm working on much the same project, though i'm starting with SRLE Extended rather than plain SRLE. Things I can tell you right off the bat: 1. You don't need to entirely roll your own conflict resolution patch; you can start with SR's. The 'Report Masters' xEdit script is your friend here. First off, if using MO, copy your SR Conflict Resolution mod into it's own folder; don't edit the original. Then, in TES5Edit, click on SR Conflict Resolution.esp, run script, select 'Report Masters', then click on whatever esp you want to remove from your load order. It will give you a list of references to that esp, which you can then remove by hand. Remember to 'Clean Masters' on the header of the CR patch afterwards, then 'Check for Errors' before saving, because 'Clean Masters' can sometimes screw up some records, which then need to be repaired by hand. It's still *way* faster than building your own CR patch from scratch. 2. The only mod that I know you'll definitely need to remove from SR Conflict Resolution is 'Book Covers Skyrim', as it is incorporated into LotE. 3. If you are adding any other mods, be wary of your String count - a recently-discovered engine limitation that is discussed on https://forum.step-project.com/topic/10257-srle-extended-string-count-testing/ and https://www.loverslab.com/topic/56588-corrupted-saves/page-1. THE TLDR version is that the Skyrim engine is limited to 64K strings from mods, and going over causes unloadable saves. A full SRLEE install uses up ~ 56K strings, running the game adds ~3K over time, and LotD adds another 3500, so SRLE + LotD is pushing the limit, which means you have to be careful. Generally, strings are added by scripts in quests and MCM menus, so watch it if you're adding those kind of mods. Vilja, Anna PCs, Morskom, Helgen Reborn, Interesting NPCs, and SexLab are particularly heavy string users. Unpatched DynDOLOD is also a *huge* string hog (thousands), but this can be fixed by using the Sheson's patched 1.48 scripts (not yet on the Nexus, but posted by him at https://www.loverslab.com/topic/56588-corrupted-saves/?p=1486558), which pretty much eliminate DynDOLOD's string usage. Hope that helps! -- Galen

I've just been doing some experimenting with looking at string counts after installing/removing mods, and here is a table of my results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1b9vzvQmn5GVMd5azUy9XHis0-7uN96Xlt_nS013awiI/edit?usp=sharing Some of the entries confirm numbers reported by others, but a few are of mods I haven't seen reports on, such as Vilja and some Jxonz utilties. These numbers should be regarded as absolute minimums for the given mods, as literally all I did was install/remove a mod, restart the game, then make a save after all the scripts were done firing, so all I'm seeing are the static string counts. Some important results: 1. Vilja uses > 1300 strings, more than any other voiced follower. While she's not in a standard SRLE Extended build, I expect a lot of people add her, but she should be first on the chopping block if you've nearing your string limit. 2. The core SexLab framework does not appear to be as string-heavy as some posts have suggested; I see an increase of < 400 strings when it's installed. And since that's the only part of SexLab one needs to run Amorous Adventures (which uses about the same), it appears that once can install and run a 'lite' SexLab loadout using under 800 strings. However, keep in mind that I didn't actually run any of the animations; more testing is needed to see what the dynamic string usage will be. 3. Despite the high string usage of Legacy of the Dragonborn (~3500) and Annas NPCS (~1700), it appears that they *can* be installed together, along with most of SRLE Extended and quite a few other nice NPC and quest mods (Inconsequential NPCs, Moon and Star, Summerset Isle, MLU) and still stay well under the 64K string limit. To achieve this, I had to chop Holidays, Morskom, and Moonpath to Elsweyr (which is in LotD anyway) from my load order, which I don't regard as a significant price to pay. This is the build that I'm trying to create, and I'll post updates on it's stability once I get it up and running. -- Galen