Rune11

Well, in case anyone else ever comes across this problem, I think I have figured it out. Skylighting + Cloudshadows disabled = no crashes. Both of them enabled = CTD within 2-3 minutes, every single time I tested it. No idea why, might be unique to my set up (Obsidian weathers, various ENBs with the same results, loads of other mods but mostly the same as Lexy's LOTD), maybe I screwed something up with conflict resolution, I don't know. Whatever the case, it works with those two options disabled.

Hello, long time modder here with a problem I can't figure out. I follow Lexy's LOTD for the most part with a good sprinkle of my own choices mixed in, ample PC specs (GTX 1080 TI), and I use NVT ENB with Obsidian weathers. Game runs beautifully if ENB is simply disabled via shift-F12. The instant I turn it on, it starts randomly crashing and seems to become more and more common as I play to the point that it is unplayable. I had this on a build a couple of years back and switched ENBs and it oddly fixed it, not working this time though. Have cleanly deleted and re-installed all ENB files, tried to troubleshoot any odd settings/mod interactions/ini files, etc. Seems very odd as I have searched many sources and can't find any mention of similar problems from other people. To be clear, it runs perfectly fine with ENB installed...just not when ENB is enabled. I know this isn't an oft visited section of the forum but any ideas or pointers from anyone?

That's very useful, thanks! I will merge a few more mods then, maybe deactivate some and see what happens.

Yeah, exact same problem I am having. I can confirm that the problem still exists when not using the "Lore-friendly" mods and the "chest hair for Geralt" mod. Haven't tried it without the "Geralt hairworks colors and beard styles" yet.

I'm having the same problem as Lightsourced, with the exception that restarting my computer only helps sometimes and often I have to start the game 2 or 3 times before it will actually work. Always runs in the task manager though, I have to end task before trying again. I am an experienced modder and have tried a whole lot of different things (including scrapping the entire install and starting fresh twice) and I still can't seem to get it to work consistently. Very frustrating, haven't been able to find a solution yet. I followed this guide last summer and had a flawless playthrough, wiped my hard drive and decided to start it over but ran into this problem. The only real difference between installs is I now have it on HDD instead of SSD...wondering if that could effect anything with causing it to hang? Should probably clear something off my SSD and try that again...see ya Andromeda, wasn't worth finishing anyway hah!

Darth_mathias, I highly recommend checking out that Noble Skyrim texture pack. I load it just before the Vivid series of texture modifications and it is the best look I have found in Skyrim in my opinion (with maybe a couple of small texture exceptions). I'm surprised it hasn't generated any interest here on the STEP forums.

Hey the suggestion in that post worked, thanks! The AI BSA was indeed listed last and putting it to first allows it to start up fine.

I have had a similar problem with my setup and just fixed it, this may have zero relevance to your situation but I figure it is worth posting just in case. I just started using this guide today and have just barely finished the ENB section. No mods installed yet, only the cleaned vanilla esms. Mine kept crashing as well, only through MO and with the exact same Windows Exception quoted above. In the profiles section of MO, I simply UNchecked automatic archive invalidation and it fixed the problem. Starts up great now. I thought it said to have that checked in the guide, I could be mistaken. Regardless, it may be worth inspecting your profiles to see if that makes a difference.

Interesting. Deliberation must be a very serious matter for Newegg. Thanks for the replies, I'm afraid that I am very much like Neovalen in this: I despise texture pop-in and I'm a high res snob, I admit it. Maybe I should look into returning mine too, the FPS has been great...but all of those frames are pointless if you are stuttering around, and I have certainly had some of that with Skyrim and even Inquisition (that might be an SLI thing). My cards are MSI brand so I will see what their policy is. I wouldn't mind going back to one card for the ease of use. When/if Newegg decides to finish their extensive deliberation process, would you mind giving us a heads up here on the boards Neovalen? As always, thanks for the info guys.

Hey all, I haven't posted here in a while but I am a fairly accomplished lurker. I too have 2 970's in SLI and I'm in the same dilemma as Neovalen...I also bought them from Newegg and run a 1440p monitor. All of the benchmarks I looked at when I bought these showed them to be much better at running 1440p than a 980, so I have to wonder if it would be worth the drop in that performance to go down to a 980. I know some of these games are already maxing out that 4gb, but is a 0.5gb difference really going to matter that much? I just don't know enough about the real difference there. I have noticed that running games at 1080p vs 1440p can result in HUGE FPS drops, 40-50 frames sometimes so I am hesitant to try going with a single 980 just for the sake of that 0.5gb. I could always run at 1080p...HAH yeah right, that isn't going to happen. That said, The Witcher 3 is going to slay the mightiest of computers I think, but I want to at least have a fighting chance.

I'll throw in a thumbs up for this one too. I have been using it since it came out and I like it. I don't understand why none of the high res packs out there bothered to do anything with the strange looking vanilla door here. Every time I opened that door in Solitude I would cringe at how ugly it was...it looked like it was supposed to have some kind of depth to it and a metal texture, but it sure didn't. This mod is a simple fix for what I see as an overlooked ugly vanilla texture.

Just a quick .02 from me, it is a toss up between 1 and 4 in almost every image set in my view. A couple of minor details were nice in 2 and 3 but not enough to overcome the overall look of 1 and 4. I would have to scrutinize it more fastidiously to decide between 1 and 4. If I had to choose immediately, I would probably go with 1....or maybe 4 :facepalm:

Yeah, good find! I love High Level Enemies, it's always nice to cut down on esps while increasing options and compatibility with other mods.

Speaking of perk overhauls, have you guys ever tried out TheThirdRace Skill Overhaul? I'm surprised it isn't more well known, I came across it quite by accident a few months ago and finally found in it the perk overhaul for me. It is actually very close to vanilla, it just improves it and makes it a bit more fun. The method he used was to take the best parts of all the great perk mods out there and put them into one whole. I have tried SPERG, SkyRe, ACE, Treebalance, and a few other less well known ones and I always like bits and pieces of them but never the whole thing. So this guy seems to have found those best parts and put them together, like using Kryptophyr's Stealth Skills Rebalanced, slightly modified, for the stealth skills. I had a hard time finding a good skill overhaul until I came across this one. It's very simple, lightly scripted, and modular. I actually use Empowered Magic for the magic skills (which is an awesome mod by the way), but TTRSO works great for all of them. https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/33860/?

To clarify on the amount of ELE edits I made, I have a few mods that load after ELE (I believe Alternate Start is one) that obviously block the changes ELE makes. So it is mostly just forwarding the imagespaces, I probably had to make a lot more edits than you would with a standard SR install. Even then, they were just edits to forward functionality. As was pointed out, their really aren't that many unofficial patch edits to make. At first I was forwarding the unofficial patch changes like "show sky" that ELE didn't have incorporated, but after testing things out and actually going to these locations, I realized that the ELE changes were correct every single time. I was surprised to find that the unofficial patches had enabled sky and weather in some locations that absolutely had NO sky at any point. Not even through a crack or fissure. It seems he has put forth a lot of effort to enable/disable sky, weather, and other such changes only where appropriate in ELE. In short, his changes just make a lot of sense.

I'll throw my vote in for Aiyen's Skylight ENB, I have been using it for a couple of weeks now and I am really liking it. I have always been a big fan of RealVision and Bronze316's ENBs, but they are slightly too...I don't know quite what the word is, colorful maybe. The ONLY thing I didn't like about UW was the skies, maybe it is just me but clouds and skies are a big part of the visuals in this game and I always felt like UW's were just a bit too washed out/muted. I like a little more color variation I guess. I did love the DoF from UW, best one I ever came across and when trying out different ENBs I would always end up copying over UW's DoF. I have ended up ditching DoF altogether though, I usually get rid of microstutter when I disable it. Microstutter annoys me greatly, and since ditching DoF I am surprised to find that I actually prefer the visuals this way. Skylight ENB looks great in nearly all regards, my only negative thus far is performance, not sure why either. That said, I'm definitely over 30 fps consistently, I just like to be more like 45-60. As for ELE, I have been using his Interiors plugin for a couple of months now. It did require a TON of edits, more so than any other mod I have ever messed with. They were all straightforward, but there are soooo many of them. However, I have found it to be very worth it. But even if you don't want to use ELE, correct me if I'm wrong but it seems to me that Skylight would still look great without it. I have used a few different presets with ELE that weren't designed for it and they all still looked very good (especially RealVision). ELE seems to be subtle enough that it doesn't make a huge difference in that regard, I see it as more of a fix to vanilla issues than an enhancement or overhaul like ELFX. So in summary, Skylight is definitely worth testing out!

Wow, is this for real? If I'm understanding this correctly, I can convert just about any armor I want to any body type I want using this tool? Some of the conversions out there are pretty terrible, this would be a great tool to get good at.

This is great news, RLO is my favorite lighting mod. The others just seem a little off in too many aspects to my eyes. I haven't been using it recently because of the lack of updates so I am really looking forward to seeing more of your work.

I've just got to say, this is excellent work. I have long been a fan of CoT, my game just doesn't look nearly as pretty without it. But after trying out a plethora of different ENB presets over the months, I ended up ditching CoT specifically because of the problems that this team have now fixed. Seriously, Skyrim has never looked so beautiful in my opinion. So great job guys! BTW, this may be just me, but that top screenshot from Prod80's post is one of the best screenshots I have ever seen. Is it the volumetric sunrays making it look so incredible?

Thus far, after about 20 levels of using Safety Load on a somewhat modified Skyrim Revisited install (read: Skyrim Revisited plus a bunch more mods), I still have yet to get even a single ILS. Yes, I do have the occasional CTD, but these don't even REMOTELY begin to approach how aggravating and game blocking the ILSs were. I suppose if a person never has ILS problems in the first place, then there is no need for Safety Load as it would probably just increase CTDs. But if you DO have ILS problems, it is absolutely worth it. I have never had this stable of a modded Skyrim build, and it is also the most heavily modded one I have ever had. Just throwing my opinion in after having used it for many hours now. Maybe it shouldn't be a part of core STEP or anything, but I think it should certainly be a recommended option for those wanting to modify beyond the core STEP setup. Edit: I haven't seen it mentioned yet, but it should be noted that one thing kapaer implemented was for Safety Load to CTD upon detection of an unfixable ILS...a preferable alternative to sitting on a load screen forever, waiting to see if it loads or not. This could explain some of the increased CTDs.

Rootsrat, thanks for the JDR link, I completely agree with what you have said about it. It fits almost perfectly with the rest of the music and the overall feel of Skyrim in general. It isn't overly done and it adds just enough to bring some freshness and variety. Great mod!

I have tried this mod out for about 3-4 hours of actual gameplay, ranging from outside, to inns, to a barrow and on up to High Hrothgar. I have found a few of the songs to be very good, but most of them just don't quite fit the setting for me. They are a little bit too "busy," the kind of music that almost demands attention rather than subtly melding in with the background. I can certainly understand why some people would like this mod, I definitely like some of the songs. But there were a couple where I was thinking, "OK, that is just annoying and really doesn't fit in." But, hey that's just my opinion. On the other hand, I find it completely incomprehensible as to how anyone couldn't love Jeremy Soule's music...I mean that guy is a musical genius. That said, the same old songs get tired after awhile, no matter how good they are so I am going to check out this JDR compilation that rootsrat mentioned.

I don't know about black magic but he is definitely in collusion with at least one Daedric Prince. Its the only explanation.

Its good to note that he explains how it only fixes one type of ILS (when it is caused by overloading the game engine with too much content upon area transition basically). I don't post on these forums much but I was so happy that this actually works for me that I figured everyone else should at least check it out as well. I figured it was too good to be true, but I haven't had any other problems. I currently run Seasons of Skyrim True HDR (fantastic performance and vanillaish ENB by the way) and use ENB boost and all of that, no issues on my side. If any of you want to test it out, just throw in all of the Immersive Settlements plugins haha. For me, they always guaranteed some pretty constant ILSs. That is, until I installed Safety Load. Yes, I realize I just sounded like a salesman. Assuming this continues working as it is, it wouldn't replace a good, clean, well managed install of course. I never really had problems with lots of broken or conflicting mods (thanks to the great community here), and my computer is plenty powerful for all of this, but I always feel compelled to push the poor Skyrim enginge to its limits by carefully adding more and more content. That is when I run into problems, transition into world + too many objects, meshes, textures, scripts to load up, etc = ILS. This mod seems to have fixed that problem though! If I run into any issues, I will certainly post them here.

I was actually in the process of doing that as you posted :).