Aiyen

You need the folder structure ...\textures\... as input in DDSopt. Most mods have this structure, but not AV. So just copy every AV folder into one named that and run it like you normally would.

It is fairly logical in its buildup. But it does take a while to get used to it. For helmets you most likely want to go under armor, and then look for the entry to daedric helmet. At least that is how I would begin with this particular issue. You can always select backup at the end and then just overwrite the one with your changes if you mess something up. As for a guide we had a post around here the other day with some... details.

Almost certainly yes... you use too much of your available memory for textures.

It is because of ASIS. You have more spawns enabled. With the default settings then there is a small chance that bosses also get duplicated. (I even tried with 3 dudes standing there! Not fun!) This is one reason why I disabled that feature again, since it was just to immersion breaking.

The SKSE main files are in your skyrim folder as they should be. However MO cannot see this folder hence when you install SkyUI in MO then it cannot see the files and makes you aware of that. This is normal, and should not present an issue.

That makes no sense what so ever. Are you sure that you put in the right settings, and folder structures so DDSopt actually performed the optimization and resizes ? Assuming that it is done correctly then where exactly in the game can you hit the 3.1Gb crash? I would like to get an approximate cell name so I can go test it out on my setup as well. Also have you done anything to automatic variants? Depending on your setup then it will contribute to more memory use in certain areas then the other texture packs, just due to the number of different spawns.

The backup folder is in the overwrite folder, and when you create a patch, the file will be placed in the overwrite folder as well. This is normal procedure.

For CPU performance testing you can just test on the shadow settings ingame. Put the values to 4096 in the ini´s and note the performance with your current settings. Then start to OC and see how much much performance you can gain by doing that. Not that the quality is worth the performance cost, but I guess if you max performance with that and then lower again, then you know your CPU is not limiting you. For GPU testing. Just put on an ENB and start to activate everything, and then crank up the settings. It will tell you fairly quickly just how much more you can squeeze out of your GPU.

I think it might be a bit too much.... in general then sunglares need to be rather low intensity since they are not dynamic. With this I mean that every angle you look from will have the same look, and if it becomes too intense then it really stands out. My personal opinion about sun and sunglare is that people find one they like themselves, since it is about as individual as an ENB choice. Speaking of that, then every set of sun textures need their own respective tweaks in ENB to look good. One can look awesome, and another can overwhelm the screen with brightness with the same settings.

It is a common problem with higher quality LOD´s that you get infinite loading screens. I guess it is related to the fact that the game tries to load in all the textures it need, but no longer has enough room to load in everything and then gets stuck in a "wait for more memory" position. This is of course speculation, but reducing LOD quality, or overall exterior texture load seems to solve the issue so it makes sense.

The GPU load is mainly related to graphics intensive additions (Surprise!!! :D ). So if you add a mod that adds more stuff that needs to be rendered, like Skyrim Flora Overhaul then you will most likely see a drop if performance. But mainly any drops in performance is properly going to be due to your CPU before that happens, since it deals with all shadow, physics, decals, etc rendering. Skyrim is more of a CPU heavy beast then a GPU one. You can try to OC a little bit if you got the cooling, if you get severe drops in performance and then see if that helps. Not much point in going all the way to 4.6Ghz though... OC smart... do it is smaller increments and test performance gain as you go. Eventually clock speed no longer really matters, and it is just due to game engine limitations, since only so many cores can be used at any one point. But since you are around 50FPS then you still have quite a bit of room to play with. If you plan on using an ENB then you might not be able to run with high quality settings without a severe drop in performance though.

There is not really any point in using both DDSopt and Optimizer Textures as far as I know. DDSopt is the more advanced program and does everything the other does and more. As for FPS gain for optimizing, then do not expect much in terms of FPS. What optimizing does is reduce the overall memory requirements, which only affects performance when you load in new cells. So you would only get a bit less stuttering when loading new cells. The drop you see after altering the Driver settings is most likely due to the AA you have enabled. Do remember that if you use newer versions of ENB (higher then v.119) these needs to be disabled as they are not supported. If you have 40+ FPS then you should be able to run with more details on no problem. Also the intro ride into helgen is a rather bad place to test FPS, since you do get alot of stuttering, because a lot of script, textures etc are loading during that ride. It is better to wait until after helgen when you run around yourself to measure overall FPS. The area between Riverwood to whiterun is one of the more detailed in the game, so it is a perfect spot to test performance etc.

Disregard this... what I thought was wrong was not really wrong! Try to run all your .esp´s and .esm´s through Tes5edit... it should provide an error if you got missing masters.

Optimizing the official DLC, will not provide loads of memory.. it is more fixing mipmap levels in textures, and changing a few compression's to better ones etc. Also the high res pines have a resolution like 4k X 2k etc. so the memory use is not as bad as a full 4k. But still in exterior it is just not really worth it. Better to save that memory for some pretty armor and weapons in my opinion. Also if you reduce the normals of all the major exterior texture mods to 1k then you should no longer hit the limit unless you are running with AV with 2k textures and normals.

Issues during the initial helgen intro are common, since it is both a texture, and script intensive area. Could be anything. Most of the time a reload will fix it and you can get into the keep and play on. I have never heard of the issue being reproducible at the same spot time and time again, in that area.

Some people like the color correction used by vanilla skyrim and that is fine... personal taste after all. As for features, then that is entirely rig dependent! If you have the rig to get the higher quality shadow and shadow effects, then why not. For me personally the shadow effects of ENB just add too much atmosphere to the game to miss out on. And I also prefer a different take on the color correction. So to answer your questions joshkope... yes I do run my own ENB preset (Skylight ENB). And yes that addon needs to be placed after. But if you are using an ENB then the change darker dungeons make to the game is to alter certain interiors which have forced daytime settings to night time which can otherwise be very noticeable with certain ENB presets. Also as far as I could tell then darker dungeons covers more interiors then the RLO patch.

Companion mods are the bane of stability.... they may work nice with vanilla, but they always seems to cause issues for heavily modded skyrim installs. As for the memory errors... if one can even call them that... I am a bit skeptical. If you reduce "all" textures to vanilla then they should go away! If they do not.. then it is almost certainly not a memory issue. (All here relates to texture mods without and .esp)

Yeah the issue has been debated since Skyrim came out... I can only respond to what I see on my computer. And I see no real changes in performance... done as an avg. FPS with fraps over a few cell changes. Neither in the stability.... had the same amount of CTD´s with and without. I know some claim it helps with input lag... but I have never noticed anything in relation to that. But if you find out it helps you on your machine by all means put them in... cant hurt since it should not be able to corrupt saves or anything like that. In relation to the speedhack.... as far as I know then it removes some useless calls in the game engine... Only really Boris would know I guess. I have never had any issues related to having it on, so I have always just left it on.

It is one of the multi thread ini tweaks..... as far as I can tell they do nothing performance or stability wise.

If darker dungeons is placed before RLO then RLO will overwrite certain interiors with its values. However Darker dungeons touches more interiors then RLO does so it still have some benefit. Also the changes made by darker dungeons are different then RLO in some cases where RLO just uses vanilla values. These you might want to manually overwrite in tes5edit. As for problems with RLO and ENB.... try to go to any small village and go indoors. Then you will see parts that RLO do not touch at all, and depending on ENB preset then they will be a certain amount brighter then similar houses in the major cities that are touched by RLO. I find that the inn´s in particular are bad since they normally have giant fire places etc.

It is fairly simple too "see" if you have done it correct! If it is actually optimizing then the process will take several minutes to half an hour depending on your CPU... if you have have just asked it to move the files about it is normally done in about 1-2 mins. Do note that this is only for very big operations like the DLC packs etc! :) Alternatively there is also a log made that says what it has done.... if it says it did nothing to every texture then it is most likely not setup correctly.

The first one you most likely will never get rid of.... several hours of heavily modded skyrim is the goal! memory errors should not happen to the extent they crash a running application, in that case it is most likely hardware related to your computer. Corrupt savegames... Disable autosaves! They are evil! Make your own saves, and get into the habit of having more then one. Also having a separate save that is only saved indoors is also recommended.

It sounds odd that a game can do anything memory wise that those programs cannot. But you said you where going to do more OC on the gfx to get more FPS.... try to dial down the OC! You said you already found a stable configuration... just stick to that! A few more FPS are not worth all this extra hassle... you can do ini tweaks to get more FPS without any real visual loss as well.

Ah yes thank you for that Raikuden! Well the detailed shadows are the prime attraction for some! :) I do believe you can just go to v.119 and then enable the driver based AO if you have an Nvidia card. That way you do get the detailed shadows and some AO... I know alot of people do this. Mainly to get hardware AA and detailed shadows though.

I run it with SR without any real issues.... since it only alters grass then I do not really see how it could affect anything but SFO. For heavily wooded areas there is also another mod you could get that reduces the quality of those leaves, pine needles that fly through the air. It should provide a bit of a performance boost in the wooded areas. I forgot what it is called right now... used to be on STEP. And yes DoF is about 3-5Fps ... as long as it is not one made for high quality screenshots.