haelfix

I have a 4gb Nvidia 680, and this game takes VRAM use to the maximum and then some. Â Much over 3gb is asking for trouble, and almost always causes a CTD. Â So yes, for SRE texture optimization is more or less mandatory full stop.

I thought i'd start a thread where users try to find bad texture transformations from DDSOPTing the various mods in Sky Revisited. Â I've done about 15 or 20 of the big texture overhauls (architecture, armor, landscape etc) Â So far, I had a problem with WATER (which as indicated in the guide is a nogo) and I wasn't satisfied with the result from AOF mountains, but so far the rest seems -ok-. Â Will update if I find more problems. Incidentally, many of the more modern texture overhauls are already optimized. There was a lot less gains (delta's) than from DDSopting the Bethesda files.. A few mipmaps here and there.

So I was going through the full load order in Tesedit, and noticed a few weird things.  SMIM seems to conflict in several sections with the unofficial patches.  I'm not sure if its important or not.  Just something to keep in mind.

Yea but the worry there is that you play with your lvl 1 toon perfectly fine, and then have a nasty surprise late in the game when there are many more scripts running and there is much more activity. Â So yea i'm using a lvl 40 clean save (no mods) to verify the integrity of the game. I'll look into DDSOPting the mountains and architecture. Â I've been wary of that b/c it seems like there have been a number of reported errors outside of the usual Bethesda BSAs.

So my system is beginning to die under the MOD and script weight with the recent fixes and Neovalens latest update round. Â I'm pretty sure its not conflicts perse (particularly now that SkyTest is gone). I've noted my lvl 1 saves are relatively free of ctds for about ~20 minutes or so, whereas my lvl 40 saves dies relatively rapidly (particulalry with AV installed). Â The usual culprit is a script loop that I believe is caused by dragonborn that hasn't initialized yet. Â So even though I run a nice 50 fps even with ENB, AA etc I think my cpu and total RAM expenditure is beginning to be a problem for the system. I'm considering a few things. Â 1) Would a new harddrive help? 2) DDSOPTing some of the large texture packs or the large files. Â If so, which ones are recommended, i've noticed a lot of body/hair/face and eye textures are particularly straining on my system. 3) What .ini tweaks do you guys use for the papyrus script system as well as any RAM and CPU tweaks.

Tested Sky Revisited up to 4.7. Â Stability definitely takes a hit with SkyTest, Deadly Dragons and AV even with the tesedits. I ctd'd twice when approaching a dragon kill. Â AV and SKYtest seem to only work together. Â I can't enable one without the other without having an instant CTD at load screen (weird). Â I noticed after the AV patch process that it generated a invalidation file .bsa in the MO bsa folder. Â I don't know what thats all about. And yea, just in general what was once rock solid stable system starts going off the deep end with these mods enabled.

You have to be really careful with Dragonborn. Â There are inumerable CTDs that are caused by that DLC that have nothing to do with your mods perse. Â It's really frustrating when you're trying to quality check things to be undone by Bethesda. Â I have vanilla saves of a lvl 40 some character from my first unmodded playthrough that I use to test things, and it definitely causing way more problems than the new lvl 1 saves. Having said that, I think there are a few generic places that you have to look out for. Â The high traffic load areas for one, others like Helgen keep, but also when you zone into bandit dungeons (this checks leveled item lists and graphic conflicts) and then fast traveling to major cities like Whiterun. I am pretty sure the game is about as stable as its going to get through what's been done in Skyrevisited. Â Beyond that point, are imo some problem areas. Â (computer is an I7-2600 @ 3.4ghz 8 gb RAM + Geforce680 4gb card, win7 -64) and I can't keep things stable past a certain point in the load order. Â Especially when using the higher lvl save.

A couple more hours adding and removing mods to look for stability. Â I've got the game stable up to 4.7.1 (again with a few mods removed, like racemenu, lanterns and those that Neovalen hasn't had time to clean). I keep getting instability from beards.esp, brows.esp and hair mods individually. Â I don't know why, since Tes5edit see's them as fine and they aren't really doing anything, other than adding textures. But ritualistically I keep getting the same reproducible CTD off an unmodded save when I zone into a dungeon or when I fast travel. I figure they must be putting me over VRAM budget or some such and some other problem is killing the game, but still its really aggravating.

That was it. Â I didn't realize I was using a MO profile ini file. Â Thanks.

Yea it won't create that skyrim/logs/script directory for some reason.

For some reason i'm having difficulty seeing Papyrus logs using Mod Organizer.  I run the game through ATTK in the MO executable, and I  enabled papyrus logging in skyrim.ini.  However after 3 playthroughs, it still has not created a directory. Is this a MO issue?

So I have installed most of Skyrim revisited (up to the current snow and rock textures where Neovalen stopped last night). Â Running the game like so yields no instability in the areas I have found so far. So going further, I tried adding the mods that did not have past ESP problems as well as upgrading them if there was a dragonborn file. Â (currently all files are up to date in MO). However there is definitely instability in multiple spots (that don't naively require cleaning, or didn't in past versions of SRE). Â I've been fiddling with it for the last hour and there is definitely something weird in the animation section (even with FNIS and Dspsob off), multiple problems in the armor sections and the UNP files need to be disabled as a general rule as they instantly cause infinite loading screens when zoning into dungeons (bleak fall barrows). Â Some problem mods (this off a vanilla save): Automatic Variants Amidian book of silence (weird) Magic duel (this causes a reproducible item to appear in my inventory (health absorb) that causes an instant CTD) and something going on in the beard, hair and eye sections. Eyeballing things in TESedit. I'm still not sure Ants in the pants, WATER, Lanterns of Skyrim and Atlas are perfectly clean (even with Neovalens fixes), Water Breathing emerge is possibly clashy with some other mods, AV is definitely problematic with Dragonborn.

Skyrim - Textures.bsa HighResTexturePack01.bsa HighResTexturePack02.bsa HighResTexturePack03.bsa Dawnguard.bsa Dragonborn.bsa HearthFires.bsa Are the only textures you really should unpack and DDSOPT (the .dds files in particular)

Lets just focus on the actual screenshots.  For reference, Sydney's article is here: https://skyrim.nexusmods.com/articles/856/ Which compares RLO to ELFX to  RLO + ELFX.  There might be a selection bias here, since the author chooses the particular screenshots, but in my subjective experience this is roughly the general gist with a few exceptions and problem spots. Now, I am partially color blind (most males are), and images are highly subjective things, but from a physics point of view (and I am a scientist) RLO clearly is more accurate with regards to lighting placement and shadows.  Now while it's not perfect b/c of engine limitations (you aren't going to get perfect unless you start ray tracing and customizing global illumination models), there is no doubt that RLO gets the physics more accurately than ELFX. ELFX has the nice smoke from fires, which Sydney could add (maybe he should make an optional pack), but other than that the main problem is that inclusion of Elfx into RLO ruins the exact and meticulous lighting placement work that the RLO team has done. So to my eyes at least, RLO by itself is a clear winner here.  Unfortunately, that's about as objective as we can get.  Discussing coloring, brightness and contrast is problematic b/c of variance in monitors, ENB settings and the like.

I too am a little confused about the issue. Â I gather there are some of the old problem textures that are still appearing in the new HRDLC1-3. Â My question is, are they replaced in STEP anyway?

This is almost the perfect lighting solution. Â Clearly better than RCRN, ELFX and anything else on the market for what it does. It does lack a few of the RCRN extras (like some of the additional fog, and it doesn't get the same vibrant colors during the day), and it doesn't texture the candle/hearthfire smoke like in Elfx or add as many new lights, but in terms of graphic and shadow fidelity it can't be beaten. This is afaics the only mod on the market that makes lighting direction and intensit look sane. Â It's just that good. That it's modular is a major plus as well (unfortunately adding Elfx seems a little suboptimal as it removes a lot of the good parts about RLO)

nm ignore that.  The answer to my question is to enable unpackBSA=16384 in the dialogue section of the MO ini file.

So I think i'm missing something regarding .bsa extraction. Apparently the first time you install a mod with a .bsa file, you are supposed to be prompted whether or not you want to extract it. Â I either never saw this message or I pressed no, or I misunderstand whats supposed to happen. I see the .bsa file in the bsa data column, but I don't see any extracted files or folders in the actual mod directory. So my question is, how do I enable this setting to be turned on? Â Where do I find it?

For instance UNP Female Armors.. You write 2.1 (both main files), Meshes for UNPB, UNPB Hide Armor Fix, Nocturnal Robe for base UNP body. Â Special installion: don't install textures folder. What we find in the directory.. 2 main files: Â the bootpack version 2.0, and the female armor version 2.1. Â We find 3 files you mention (all version 2.0) , but also a patch to upgrade from 2.0 to 2.1. Â Unclear where we put that patch (do we upgrade the optional files or the main file). Â Which texture folders do we not install (I assumed for all files)? In each of those files, there are optional packages and its unclear what we pick or not. Â Whether we merge them all together, etc etc Same problem with the better male package and weird version numbers as well as the directory structure and options to pick. Â I think I also felt some ambiguity with the all in one faces (5.0b and 4.0b for UNP seemed odd). Anyway, i'll figure it out on my own later tonight, but just saying that it might throw some people off.

Quick question. Â Is it possible to see old archives of your wiki page from several days/weeks ago or can we only see the most recent version? Â I can't seem to find a wiki record. Also, i'm a little bit unclear on a few UNP sections. Â I've been experiencing CTDs when I load dungeons, and I think they are the culprit, which likely means i've installed them wrong. Â Some of the version numbers and file options are a little bit ambigously worded and it would help to be a bit more specific about which file(s) you want, which patches overwrite or merge in what order etc (incidentally i've merged a number of optional files in Skyrim revisited in MO.. Is this a bad idea?)

So I have a suggestion. Â I just have spent about 4 hours doing your guide, and I have finished it successfully more or less. Â The biggest time sink in all of this is doing the TESVediting. Â Honestly maybe there are 30 files that need extra attention. Why don't you just zip up your override folder and make them available somewhere (indeed some of those patches would be useful for many people in a larger scope). Â I very much doubt its particularly memory intensive. Also there is an issue with the Perseids Inn and Tavern explanation. Â I believe there is a file that is missing (where is the hearthfire patch referenced in the tesvedit) Also a dance of death dawnguard has been updated

9 times out of ten, the reason for stuttering is simply video memory issues. Â I realize that it appears like you are fine and staying under by inspection of various utilities, but for instance walking into a heavy load area (like walking into riverrun) will nearly always cause a problem if you haven't prepared for it in advance. The best tool for this is DDSOpt, as it can easily shave off a few hundred megs in some of the bad areas. Â Obviously if you are way over, nothing will help other than reducing texture sizes and/or reducing Ugrids. Again, 9 times out of 10. Â

The real annoyance is that Dragonborn is going to break a lot of mods here

Just curious. Â Is there any particular reason you have chosen MO over Wrye Bash? Â Just the dl abilities?

The guide on this site is pretty good, as well as a youtube video for the installation (I believe there is only one for skyrim perse). Â Still, its going to take about an hour or so to assimilate Wyre bash, although it might be less if you've seen it before (the feature set is much reduced relative to Oblivion). Â I assure you, its well worth it though. Â The amount of time it saves in disinstalling things is astronomical. I strongly recommend you learn Tesedit though. Â With 200+ mods, even if by some miracle they all played nice with each other and loaded, its almost guarenteed that your game will end up being an unstable mess (read ctds every minute and a half). Â Fortunately, tesedit takes about 5 minutes to figure out and dramatically improves the stability of the game (its not perfect, but then that minute and half might become something more like 10 minutes, which is a big deal). Â I have about 200 mods as well, and it only took me about 20 minutes to tesedit everything I needed to do. Â Really quick in comparison to learning Wyre bash and the specifics of each mod (eg what do i keep, what do i overwrite, what changes might conflict etc). In fact most (but not all) newer mods are already tesedited for you, so you really only have to worry about the old mods (like I said there are about 10-15 of them that are really nice). Still, the bottomline is there is no shortcut for mod setups. Â It takes time, a lot of time, and the amount of time for non STEP installations is even greater.