Aiyen

Looks more like a shader effect missing then a texture, are you using an ENB or some other mod that alters shadows etc?

At the end of the day we just want nice cinematic weather that adds to the mood of the game so it is not all just sunshine and aurora. The realism factor is up to personal preference and can be done with ENB´s setup with individual settings.

Well you could always edit out the weatherid´s that you do not like! ;) But at the end of the day mods this massive would never get anything done if they had to do everything twice. It would however be nice if there was a way to create options for people like creating a set of scripts to allow people to take out say a weather via MCM. It should be possible in the future, at least I just saw a mod today that can show all info about the game currently including cell name, set weather, timescale etc etc.

Think this discussion have gone a bit too far away from the core issue that started it all! 3Gb card is the best choice regardless of who makes it. 4Gb cards only really makes sense if you are doing some serious graphical editing since those programs are the only ones who can make use of that extra VRAM. Also SLI/Crossfire setups would only improve your FPS when running ENB and the like, you still only have access to one set of VRAM. And since most performance versions of the newest generation cards laugh at ENB then even one card can run them at decent FPS depending on how much you crank up the quality parameters.

Without knowing for sure, then I guess it is because DDSopt does more operations on each texture then SMCO does. DDSopt checks mipmaps etc etc etc as well with the step recommended settings as I recall. All of this takes more time.

Sounds awesome! Hopefully I will be done with my initial ENB settings tomorrow so I can finally getting to play a little bit, and see how it looks!

I would most likely recommend the GTX 660 3Gb version it is the best price/performance card out there atm. from nvidia. I dont get ATI cards since I generally do not like their drivers much, but that a personal thing not much hold in evidence etc. I personally have the 2Gb version and I run it fine after doing the a heavy duty optimization of various outdoor textures... got no issues in cities or in dungeons/caves. When I get a CTD it is mainly because the game uses up the full 3.5ish GB RAM for too long and then has to load in a complex cell. I found out that if I just save my game when I notice that I have run at that level and then quit to menu and reload the game. Then the game will remove everything from previous cells that it seems to keep and I can play on with no CTD. (Tested it and verifed that it works in my main quest run!) We can hope that the "memory optimizations" that are coming in 1.9 will address this issue and make the game better at cleaning the stuff out it does not use anymore. Also walkman I am a bit curious as to why you would go up in VRAM use by applying an ENB... since postprocessing should not require that more textures are loaded it only applies more operations on textures already loaded in (Which then only requires your GPU to do more operation pr sec. which leads to FPS drops if it is not fast enough). Even if there is some rise it should not be in the order of 200-300Mb Strange but I guess it is possible.

lol yeh good catch, did not even think about it! Just got used to it being the lighting mod with only two letters, and somewhere it just got mixed up! :S Also finally more or less got the day settings nailed in the ENB i am making for myself... god it takes forever to change .fx files when you have to go into the game and out again to verify every change! I am sure there is a smarter way but for now I guess I just do it the hard way to get the experience. Then tomorrow I will hopefully get done with night and interior settings as well and then the final tweaking can begin, and THEN I can finally play the game! That is unless patch 1.9 screws up everything for me and I end up getting so frustrated that I just buy heart of the swarm and play that instead!

Yes once RL has an installer and a confirmed place in the load order then it is good to go for STEP. But I think lighting is something a bit personal, so I see no issue in recommending either a completed RLO or RL in the far future. But I guess the STEP mandate is going to say that RLO is too realistic. :P I am currently trying out the crazy lighting build with CoT, RLO+ELFX and then RL for the DLC´s. Decided that it was most sensible to put the RL files between the unofficial patches and the other lighting mods but good to get some confirmation!

With this many mods installed then the occasional game freeze is inevitable...It is most likely not due to any hardware issue. Also with CoT and RLO installed then you are bound to get some more complications since those mods are not really optimized. Heck even CoT needs cleaning which just makes one wonder what else is hiding... but not much point in spending a long amount of time trying to figure it out when the major update is just around the corner. Atm I am doing the crazy lighting show with a combination of CoT , RLO+ELFX and then RL for the DLC packs since the others do not cover them yet. But I only have the long load issue sometimes. This is most likely because of the new version ENB... but damn I would not go without the new optimizations to SSAO.. I can run them at improved quality levels now without framerate drops, which is actually quite nice.

Sounds awesome Neo! Cant wait. To return to a previous question then I got an update. It does not matter if I remove the Z-lighting entries from the ini´s or not when it comes to the long loading times that can happen. It might be ENB related but I have not really tested that yet since I have not found any spots where the problem is persistent.

Yes I know I am a bit harsh on RLO, and that the next update should address many issues. However they also need CoT 3.0 to be released before they can fix the interior day night issues properly. The places that are fully edited in RLO are superior to RL imo, but it is also the problem. They do such a good job that when you 1 min later enter a place that does not have that touch then you really notice it. While RL does a fair job in a lot more locations to date hence you do not notice it as badly when you run around the world. I personally cannot wait for 4.0.7 and CoT 3.0 and I am also sure that will be the way to go unless the other mods get some more help... overhauling everything in skyrim and all DLC´s is no longer a one or two person job!

Okay I have some initial impressions of that various lighting mods. In general I have tried them all with a large amount of different ENB´s and without to get the best possible impression under various conditions that I think are vital. I will split each up into groups and then share my thoughts about them. First: With and without CoT CoT does a lot to the ambient lighting and general mood of the game bringing it far away from the pure vanilla experience. I personally think this is a good thing because it does so in meaningful ways. However for people who do not like it, then just adding mods like dramatic clouds and sunglare etc. makes vanilla weather more noticeable and enjoyable as well. Regardless of which exterior mod solution is being used they mix very well with all of the interior and general lighting mods. However CoT with its changed lighting does more to make the changes stand out. RLO Hailed as the most realistic lighting mod of them all, but I must admit that I am not convinced. Most of the time I think the lighting intensity is a bit too low. Especially if you have a house with several candles and chandeliers then each light source is done super nicely, but there is no combined effect so the room still ends up being much darker then what is realistic. The worst "lack" from RLO imo is the lack of window lighting, if you got a house and there is an entire wall with windows then the room should be brighter. I have noticed it in several houses but it might just be that they have not got around to that part yet. RLO +ELFX: A better solution then pure RLO imo. The main difference I noticed was that when you have multiple light sources the combination effect is better then just pure RLO. However since ELFX is not supported after the next release of RLO then I have done the least testing with this setup, but I am going to do it again tonight. RL: While the individual lights are not as realistic as RLO+ELFX then this mod does have its charms. It does many things well enough, and I do not really want to say it is worse then the alternatives in terms of realism. But it still shows that the authors have a different take on how it should be done which is a good thing. One of the tings I noticed the most is that homes are not as dark as in RLO because they seem to include some ambient lighting in rooms if there are windows etc. which I think is a really nice touch. In general I just got the impression that RL have been around more then RLO has atm, both inside and outside. BUT! And it is a big one. Compared to RLO´s easy to use installer then RL is just a pure mess. You get individual .esp´s for each DLC and vanilla, and then updates and extra on top... Also they state on their site that BOSS is doing a wrong job of putting them into the load order, but the help they provide for where they should be is rather limited. If it is going to be used for STEP there needs to be a guide on where these files are supposed to be. Also an installer would do wonders. As it stands now I would not recommend it for STEP use due to this. As for ENB´s then I am currently in the process of trying to figure out which parameters to use for post processing while using CoT. The main goal is to avoid the (For me) infamous heavy rainstorm that lowers all ambient and direct lighting during the day, but because of the post processing then the sky is all bright which makes for a really horrible scene that makes no sense. The hard part is to get rid of this while making sure that the sky has a blue color and not a boring grayish tone, which to me is just the quick and dirty solution. Once I get the ENB finished up later this week or next, then I will hopefully be back with some screenshots to better address some of the issues I touched on here.

Oh crap... new game version around the corner... I am never gonna get to play this game, guess I now have to wait another month for all the mods here to catch up... :( Guess I should force steam to not update the game...

For ENB´s there is no general rule of thumb as to which version is best. (It varies from computer to computer) I personally get between 15-20 fps when I get out of helgen with v.0.119 but I get between 30-40 with v.0.154. I recommend the newest version if you want SSAO on since it has vastly improved and optimized code compared to 0.119. Project ENB has some really good .ini settings for CoT however all the .esp´s it bring into the load order are kind of redundant in the newer ENB versions...also the only reason the author is sticking to v.0.119 is because he wants hardware AA which is his personal choice of course. But I personally prefer the vastly optimized SSAO code in the newest version and then egde AA.. it is not as sharp as 16x MSAA but compared to the FPS cost then it is vastly superior, also with a good DoF then you kinda never notice the jagged egdes most of the time unless you really look for them. The problem with project ENB is that his .ini files are not really compatible with the way the newer versions do stuff so it requires a bit more then just copy paste. Also the postprocess he use produces some strange marineblue screens on the newest version on my computer, it goes away if I use a newer one from either K ENB or unreal ENB etc. So as part of my help to STEP´s lighting choices and ENB I am doing a major rewrite of unreal ENB to accomodate CoT and Realistic lighting. While Unreal ENB looks "decent" with CoT out of the box, then it has some serious brightness issues with a large part of CoT weathers. One example is some of the heavy rainstorms in CoT. They reduce the ambient and direct lighting in the scene, but the sky settings with Unreal ENB makes sure the sky is all bright and shiny which makes for a rather horrible experience.

well 12.8 also states that in order to fix some of the bugs, he had to make some pretty big changes to his code so he suspect that more bugs will show their face soon. Guess I wait a little bit before upgrading! Last thing I want is problems with the MO atm!

The cloak physics one is sadly not in a state where it has anything to do with the other cape mods. Not much point in it then, but a definite one to watch out for in the future! Also real shelter is nice looking for sure! But it needs to be in a final state before I am going to include it... would just bug me that the feature only works in so few areas for now!

https://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/32505 This has finally gone from beta into real action, and it looks promising. I am currently using it however I either get 60 fps everywhere without ENB or 30ish with so I do not think it really affects the higher end cards all that much, but more optimization is always nice I guess. https://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/32424 This one seems to go nicely with the animation mods already included I am however not really an expert in it, but it might be nice to have.

The author have not been able to follow up with updates and change old mods with new and better ones etc. I think that is the main reason.

Unreal Cinema got an endorse from me just because its the best DoF I have seen so far. Not annoying, and not performance heavy like most others... and most vitally you can create a new char without the face getting blurred when up close! But other then that I can say I have about the same performance as you do, just with 30fps avg instead of 45+ but I also have a card model one down and not SLI so that is expected, on the other hand I got a better CPU so I get a bit more performance in the shadow department to compensate.

I would be more interested in your actually RAM usage (not the percentage since that will include what windows is using in the background.) as well as your VRAM. Perhaps since you have a high quality SSD makes the difference since that allows you RAM/Cache communication to happen much faster which provides that little extra that prevents a CTD while changing complicated cells. We kinda already have concluded that VRAM cannot be the sole reason of the issues. I am using the same texture packages as you are with the same optimizations and I only hit 1700Mb avg. and 1900Mb peak. If install SRO 1k version instead I can drop this to 1200ish but I will still get at least one CTD or gamefrezze before the first dragon. But my RAM usage varies between about 2.7Gb and the max 3.2(5)Gb.. and this is when the game engine gets unstable and after a while CTD happens. If yours is much lower it would explain why you run so stable compared to the rest of us.

My first thought was the burn frezze shock mod instead of impacts for spell frezzes, but since it also does it when I do a char that never does a single spell that cannot be the only reason. The inf. load I also have around riverwood sometimes but most of the time it is just a like... 5-10 min load (I tested) but most of the time it is just faster to restart the game and load another savegame and then the one in question. I do not have any transition bugs yet though.. but then again atm I am disabling mods I dont want on my list to make loading times and general stability better (I hope.) Unless someone has some ideas on how to make the game unload data from previous cells better then I think I have reached the limit of sensible optimizations in the memory department. I think I would rather focus on helping out step with ENB´s since that intrigue me more. Also I would like to play the game at some point hehe.

Kinda annoying, now I got the VRAM under control, and the CTD´s are fairly far between now. However I do get random game frezzes. It can happen when I throw a spell at something, or if I get a skill point. Heck even if I am just attacking something. Common for each of them is that the sound playing goes into a loop so perhaps it is a sound issue. Is anyone else having a similar problem ?

I had two pine trees in the intro to helgen do the "danceing". Basically it just looks like the tree adds and removes alot of branches depending on which angle you look at it from. But yeh I can also say its about 15fps loss. As for the VRAM usage then I cannot really compare with you since we use different cards... Mine only has 2Gb while yours have more, but I can run the game with the same settings as you and use about 1k less VRAM, you properly get higher fps then me though. Just finished my next optimization pass. Removed More village animals, and roosters at dawn and lantern caretakers. The last two because it only deals with a phenomenon that requires me to be at very specific spots at very specific times and then I would personally rather have other mods installed then those. As for more village animals, then it is to reduce the amount of stuff being loaded into the game, since I have this theory that my crashes are essentially due to memory problems with the game engine loading in more then it can handle. I also optimized HD trees, and the realistic mushroom, and halfsized its 2k normals for the fungi on trees. All of this allowed me to run through helgen, all the way to whiterun, back to riverwood and up towards the barrows before I got my first CTD. So a definite improvement over last time when I would CTD passing through Riverwood the first time every playthough. But also still got a CTD after having done the barrows and walking back to Riverwood... so still too much high detail stuff in that area. Might look abit at SMIMS next since it does add stuff all around the world and most of it is really high quality.Â

I tried it yesterday. There are still issues with "dancing trees" even in his latest edition. I am fairly sure we need to wait until the author gets this fixed up. Which most likely will not happen until SFO gets a stable version again. Not much in the VRAM department though.. but it does give a nasty FPS hit when you run with an ENB... since now shadows take up even more processing power. And yeh I am also doing optimizations.... still get 2 CTD before the first dragon is down. One on the road to Whiterun the first time, and one on the way back from the barrows. It is playable but would be nice if I could get rid of at least one of them.