Bealdwine

Basically I have enjoyed all the above games (Tho' I prefered Medieval Total War to Shogun) but I find it difficult to give the time to strategy games that they deserve. But my heart belongs to fantasy RPGs :) As to the Diablo series, well, it was the first simplified RPG game and tbh I looked down on it in many ways but it was also the game that I used to introduce my son to the joys of PC gaming and one we could play co-op & online when that was a rare thing, so... I guess it's a bit of a nostalgia thing for me, and no worse than mindless FPS blasting except with swords! ;) Gods I really do need a worthwhile MMORPG to get all social about :(

Diablo III finally downloaded :) There is the slight possibility I may be a little lax in my attention to Skyrim and our Project for a 'couple' of days... I will try to keep one eye on things here tho'. B)

Thanks sb4n, I'll give that a try after I get some sleep :)

The standard memory config for the GTX 260 was 896MB. Other than that your system is fairly equivalent to mine, with the major difference being my graphics card having a full 1Gb memory. I suspect from that Fri is correct and possibly you are simply pushing your use of High(er) Res textures too far. When you reinstalled you did check that Skyrim was starting ok before you began modding again? I would look at the main texture mods, even if you have the 1K versions, and maybe decide to try using a subset of those recommended. Possibly use the HD DLC + SRO or Skyrim HD - 2K, but not both. Another possibility is to read up on the Guide:DDSopt_&_Texture_Overhauls and consider optimizing the vanilla and HD DLC especially, and 'maybe' the major texture mod you decide on. If you want to test if this will help you could try using Skyrim Mods Complex Optimizer but if you do I recommend backing up your texture .bsa(s) and possibly your texture folder as well, and then after checking return to the guide and redo the optimizations properly with DDSopt.

All this shadow, and potentially parallax, ENB goodness is starting to make me drool. But I would need some specific performance figures before considering any further post-processing (all I have now is SMAA with RLwC). Having only in this recent install scraped up a playable FPS I have to consider even a 3-5 fps loss unacceptable just for more eye candy. Having said that shadow quality (or lack of it :P ) is certainly an immersion issue, especially the terrible blocky on-character self shadowing that refuses to be turned off :(

Have to agree with Spiffy. On a lower spec machine I had a recognisable drop in FPS using RCRN, not huge but significant once you are dealing with an average FPS ~20. I returned to using RLwC which I like anyway ;) As to adjusting RCRN in the way described, using Imaginator may be an easier way if you're not used to tweaking ini settings.

Just an additional note (NB. Disclaimer: I do not recommend doing this and take no responsibility for any grief it may cause another individual): I've never been a huge fan of overclocking as I simply have never had the spare cash to replace expensive kit in the event of disaster... however... ;) As I am hoping to invest in some new PC shinyness soon(ish) I thought I would push my ageing graphics a little - I remaind conservative in my OC and, using nVidia Inspector up'd my GeForce 8800 GT to the following spec: Fan (Auto unselected) = 100% (fan sound is now noticable but not unbearable) GPU Clock [default 600MHz] = 700MHz Memory Clock [def. 900MHz] = 950MHz Shader Clock [1500MHz] = 1782MHz (linked to GPU clock speed afaik) (Standard voltage - stock air cooler) This was stable in-game (idle temp 55C) with temp ~67C and could probably be pushed a little further but not for much real world gain. In the same locations around Riverwood previously tested FPS now ~25-28 :D (As I am now playing properly it may be a while before I get to Whiterun testing, but currently I'm a happy bunny)

Nope :) Just thought I would give something new a try, so using the DDSopt'd files as my 'base' game files (although installed as .7z through WB in my previous install)

I haven't previously encountered any problems with the DDSopt'd vanilla textures, so 'it seemed like a good idea at the time' ;) I may live to regret it but I just thought I would try them as loose files rather than compressing them this time.

I would love to gain this sort of FPS boost but checking the images it removes an awful lot of the 'atmosphere' from the game so I may test it, but think I'm unlikely to keep it.

You may be there before me, I've decided to take my time to Whiterun as I always felt the status you are given there came a bit early. So I'm going to check for all the encounters around Riverwood and back up toward Helgen getting used to the combat changes before I move on (also giving me time to work on my Crafting during this time too). As far as the mod goes I disabled the 'ducking/dodge' part as too slow on my rig, and reduced the CombatEndurance stamina drain to 1 (default 2) but that may go as well. It's great but I get frustrated that I often cannot follow up on an attack that has staggered or opened my opponent because I used all my stamina. (I may well reinstate these at higher lebel). If I get to dragons before you I'll fill you in ;)

Lol, I'll tell you when I get there, this is really slowing me down atm as I need to take so much more care... love it! :D

Nice idea Blitz :) with the addition of animation this can create a nice 'ecology' for the waters. Now that's what I meant by quality over quantity (I was thinking of you adding spawn points too as well as fish species ;) ) Keep up on the good work.

Just another point of note: If you want to alter any setting in HWC I found that using the recommended console commands didn't always work (?) so I had to alter them in the \Data\aadpCombat config file directly. (Remember when doing this to be sure that you haven't resaved this file with a .txt name - MS Notepad has a nasty habit of doing that. I always use Notepad++).

Just a quick update - this IS definately hardcore, lol. With it your fights will take much longer, you will constantly drain out of Stamina and find you cannot make an attack at all... and in the early stages you will succumb to packs of wolves very quickly so be prepared to make a mad sprinting run for Riverwood. (even then it is possible for the wolves to trip you/bring you down). Having said that I still think this is a brilliant mod. I have never felt so vulnerable in Tamriel before and it has a direct impact on immersion and how I have to think about my game-play. +1

Lorecraft - learning and managing for crafting - CORE Author = ArcaneSmith An interesting mod for crafting, adding another layer of control and immersion through plugins that 'teach' a specific recipe and a book that allows you to craft that item at the forge once read. Testing for this system with other crafting mods is still required and I hope to look at that in the near future. Any comments from people already using this welcome.

@MadW Actually I meant more bloated in the mod than in the game - although I guess the one does follow from the other. I don't think it is 'yet' but it's possible it could go that way and I just thought Blitz might be better off concentrating on the quality aspects of the mod than the quantity. Just IMHO of course.

I agree this could well be a good candidate for upcoming STEP. But with one warning, this could very easily become a victim of bloat as more and more fish &etc get added. My advice for the author would be to hold back on more additions for now and concentrate on trying to learn how to get those animations working, that would be a definate selling point :)

During this reinstall for STEP 2.1 I used DDSopt only on 4 sets of files: Vanilla Skyrim.bsa (unpacked, optimised and used to replace the Textures folder in \Skyrim\Data). HD DLC 01 & 02 (unpacked, optimised, re-zipped, .7z installed via WB). Skyrim_HD_v1_5_LITE_-_Landscape-607 (unpacked, optimised, re-zipped, .7z installed via WB). Skyrim_Realistic_Overhaul_v1_3-1024k-5400-1-1 (unpacked, optimised, re-zipped, .7z installed via WB). Where there were seperate update files, as with SRO, they were combined in to the unpacked original before optimising. Now I only mention this because (and there are way too many variables of other mods & etc for me to make this a confirmed kill) since starting to play using this setup I have consistently reached 20-25 fps outdoors around Riverwood. All I can truly say is that prior to this install I was only able to get 13-15 fps in the exact same area. (Note - no ENB, stand alone SMAA [no game or card AA], 8xAF, RLwC, uGrids 5) Not very scientific, not rigorously tested, not in any way guaranteed that your experience would be the same. Just saying ;) This is the best performance/quality I have so far been able to play. I may actually try playing the game through now :) Rig: Intel Core 2 2.4Ghz 4 Gb RAM 8800 GT GPU 1024Mb GeForce 301.24 + Game Booster 3 + FPS Booster v.1.1

I've continued using this version 'Height_Adjusted_Skyrim_-_Morrowind_Lore_Heights-7587-v2-5' and can report there being no issues I have found (yet).

Are the devs telling everyone to download the SVN?? Is 295.5 not still up on the Nexus?They are only supporting 295.5 right now. Otherwise they would release the SVN as a 296 Beta ;)EDIT: Still waiting for Monty and Beald to chime in on this topic, as I suspect our brethren across the pond may be inclined toward deliberation and consistency ...Personally I switched over to the Python build (I may well be using Python for other things too ;) ) and installed 296. I've had no issues so far and it was a very easy automatic installation. I don't think it would be too much trouble to recommend that and switch back once evrything gets sorted with Nexus. Those who install the Python version in the mean time can stick with that afterwards, no reason to change - but do mention the seperate Python UNinstall issue.

I did test with this a while back (meaning the exclusion list was even less complete) and much prefered it to 'Optimizer Textures'. The author really does seem to understand his stuff - even if he admits to still being on a learning curve for 3D. Unfortunately at the time I was testing out several things at once (bad policy I know) and ended up with missing textures and screen tearing. I do NOT think this was caused by SMCO however - more likely a modded to destruction setup ;) Still trying to shake this 'flu/sinus problem so definitely intellectually under par for now :P

@Vond - does the fLeafAnimDampenDist* tweak apply to both the pine needle and the aspen leaf animations?