CaramelCake

I've been using this mod since the beginning of my STEP install and I haven't seen any issues with it at all! Though becuase of that there might be problems I can't see because it's all I've used, but it all looks great to me so whatever. Oh, and I'm not using a ENB right now if that's useful. Thanks for all the hard work TechAngel!

Are there any mods in REGS that should be optimized with DDSopt?

I went ahead and tried it, seems to work fine! No idea what I did wrong but I can worry about that when I've managed to get this thing to stop falling to pieces every time I touch it. hahaha... skyrim hates me. :( Thanks for your help everyone!

Alright now I have a kinda different problem. I finished optimizing without changing my compression settings and dropped the completed folders into MO, but it says Dawnguard, Heathfires and Dragonborn are all redundant. Looking at the size of my folders the only one that doesn't match up to the reference image is "HRDLC2" which is almost exactly 1.5GB larger then it should be. "HRDLC2" is also the file that's conflicting with DG and HF the most (DB is all over the place) so I'm guessing that "HRDLC2" got some files it shouldn't have, is this going to be a problem?

I've been following the "DDSopt Skyrim Quick-Start guide" hoping to solve some odd framerate issues I've been having and in step 18 of the "Optimize the Vanilla Skyrim Textures" section it says to change my Constraints to various "DXTx" settings which DDSopt calls "Lossy". Is this a necessary step? Is there no real difference in this case? I ask because the guide seems to assume a system with around 1.5GB of Vram and I have 4GB, so I don't want to limit my quality if I don't have to. (Assuming that is what's going on here of course) Sorry for what I realize is probably a very newbish question.

Yeah, I guess that's true, I just find it weird that everything ran fine, then I changed something and it all fell apart. But ah well, I know how to fix it if it breaks again. Thank you for your help everyone!

Success! Updating the graphics drivers fixed it! Got through the carrage ride at 60fps all the way though with STEP:Extended and REGS! Only problems i had were a brief drop to ~50fps when I got to Helgens gates (which happens not matter what seemingly) and a crash right before I got off the cart, but I'm willing to think that it was just Skyrim being random since it didn't happen again. My big question now is what caused this whole thing? I still want to add some lighting and weather mods to my game before I start playing, maybe even try normal Vividian out since I only tried the HQ version before, but I don't want to do whatever it was that caused all this again if I can help it. Any ideas? (Also I know this is a double post but I figured it warranted it.) Edit: Added a photo and clarified a bit

I did follow your instructions Tech, the .ini files in [my games/Skyrim] are the new ones and I copied them over to MO as well. Thus far I've run Skyrim (post .ini reset) totally stock though Steam, on the "default" profile though MO (aka no mods) and on my "Step+Regs+Whatever" profile though MO. Stock Skyrim seemed to run the best but it was still at sub 60fps and choppy, the "default" profile was pretty much the same and with everything loaded I lost around 10-15fps extra. I'll look into my drivers next, they should be about as new as can be since this computer is brand new but who knows. I'll also try to get another intensive game loaded up to see if the problem is with everything or just Skyrim.

Well yeah those are there, but that shouldn't matter since I'm launching through MO, right?

I didn't, but none of it looks like it should be doing anything, just .log and .dat files, except for a "Dual Sheath Redux Patch.esp_Consistency" but that shouldn't do anything if DSR isn't on right?

Alright, here's what I did: 1. Wiped [steamApps/common/Skyrim] again (yay backup archives) to make sure I didn't have any weird ENB or SKSE file kicking about. 2. Made new .ini files as instructed and dropped them in MO. 3. Restored all settings to default in nVidia Inspector. 4. Launched Skyrim though Skyrim Performance Monitor and MO on the "Default" profile. And I still have sub 30fps with stuttering! On vanilla! Arrrgh! Something that stood out as really odd to me was SPM's "GPU %" stat which read 98% the whole way though. So I guess this is a system issue and not a problem with Skyrim? I just don't understand what changed between when I started and now. If it's useful I got a screen grab of SPM: That's letting it run until you get off the cart by the way.

I'm a total newb at modding and configuring computers in general and have probably done everything wrong. Just getting that out of the way. My problem is that skyrim was running great, (Locked at 60fps) then I added some lighting and weather mods + Vividian ENB and lost more performance then I wanted (40-50fps) so I took out the ENB and redid my L+W mods only to find that skyrim now wouldn't even reach 30fps! and I don't see any improvement except in loading times even when I return everything to my baseline where I was getting 60fps before! These are my specs:https://wiki.step-project.com/User:CaramelCake/SystemSpecs I guess I should give a rough timeline, so here goes. 1. Installed STEP:Extended fully, with 2k textures all around. rock solid 60fps 2. Installed REGS fully, didn't test becuase "The Lighting mods won't take long!" Ugh. 3. Struggled though installing High-Quality Vividian ENB and mods following this guide:https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/articles/49706/?, got around 40-55fps with some minor stuttering. 4. Uninstalled the ENB and W+L mods then followed this guide:https://wiki.step-project.com/Pack:Weather_and_Lighting, Not installing any enb. (besides ENBoost) 5. Testing gave me sub 25fps with bad stuttering, tried going back to just STEP+REGS only to get the same result, went back to just STEP with no difference. 6. Cried a bit. 7. Nuked [steamApps/common/Skyrim] and restored from a clean zipped backup, reinstalled SKSE and ENBoost, no difference. 8.Gave up, started writing this post. All of my testing has been the opening carrage ride and Helgen escape. At this point the only thing I can think of to try is deleting everything and starting all over again, which would make me go completely mad. This is my current mod list for reference. (I just used the export button in MO) I'll do my best to get any extra info if needed.