Bealdwine

I find clicking on the spoiler 'button' to open it causes the button to shrink and it remains small after re-closing the text. Afaik it seems to reset back to full size if the page is reentered or refreshed. Is this an intentional behaviour?

Now all we need is the updated Wrye Bash :P

I've tried to add "Mark All Forums Read" to other areas, but the function requires a specific code that apparently is only accessible to the board stats template. I can't even access the language text for that function. Pretty annoying. Adding to my plate of things to work on and see if I can't find some way of making that available on a global level. For now, unfortunately, it's only accessible from the main page. Thanks for all your efforts s4n :) It's a relatively trivial thing so don't sweat it, but all respect to you for the amount of work you've dedicated to the site. Fun isn't it? :D

Ethatron finally got back to me on Optimizer Textures. My post to him is just previous to that. It looks like OT offers a "subset" of DDSopt functionality. I will still test, but if this is the case, then OT is achieving its value by basically choosing lower mips when downsizing resolution (in addition so some other things like DDSopt), which is confirmed to be less than desirable and basically defeats the purpose of the high res textures in the first place (unless reduction is still higher res than vanilla, but this is iffy). Better to get the mod author's low res 2x versions (as opposed to 4x hi-res). Interesting read, but 'Whoooosh' much of it way over my head, lol. I'm still trying to assess how significant any optimisation is in performance terms, and becoming more doubtful in the process. Thanks for following through on this though zMan.

Am I missing something or is it simply not there yet? Either way I could really use a quick 'Mark All As Read' button that works at sub-fora level, it's a bit anal but with things like the thread dump it will always show as holding unread posts because I'm not going to spend time going through them all :P

Excellent :) Are you looking for constructive criticism on this? If so I'll pop it on my 'reading list' ;) [qualification = BA Eng Lit (hons) Just don't ask me to be a grammar nazi - I got into computers originally to correct my spelling, lol]

Lol, exactly that ^ Sorry zMan I didn't mean it as a scold :)Thanks to all for the sound advice I did a closer look at the 440 and agree it's poor - I already failed to eBay another 8800 GT but will attempt again. The 8800 was one of those cards that had a later release as a 1Gb VRAM card, the original being 512Mb, but is too old now to be stocked by retailers. I will check out the ATI 6850 2gb - I used to prefer the ATI cards as I found them 'softer' in picture quality than nVidia which I liked. However nVid seem to be better atm in game support through the drivers, when using ATI I tended to use 3rd party drivers but have no idea if these still exist now. Research in coming.

Discussion thread: BOSS by WrinklyNinja Wiki Link Looks like BOSS v2.0.0 is up at Skyrim Nexus at last.

Thanks for the offer but I've done a pretty thorough research as far as price goes (very low atm) lol. That's exactly the advice I would a) always offer to someone else & b) usually keep to myself... but in truth, barring some miracle, it is going to be a considerable time before the re-build can happen and I'm not getting any younger, lol. I have 4Gb on my Win 7 x64 system and the mobo can't cope with a quad CPU, I don't see much benefit (and definately see some risks) in overclocking my kit, so increasing VRAM capacity and pushing the GPU (with SLi at the right price point) is probably the last gasp of performance my old rig will see. To give you an idea if you're over the pond from me, prices in the UK are often the direct equivalent of US dollars - meaning suppliers take a $100 item and sell it for £100 here :P So PC kit is about a third again as expensive as in the states. I could get a 560Ti 2Gb card for about £210 but until I recover from my last divorce even that is too much, lol. The 440 I mentioned gives me the extra VRAM and could be SLi'd for about £110 for both cards. Anyway thanks for the input guys B)

NMM and MO are the only ones I know of that are reported to order correctly. Still waiting on BOSS and WB updates. :( If using WB, you still have to update plugins.txt yourself. Thanks, I was afraid of that "If using WB, you still have to update plugins.txt yourself." :P just adds a bit onto the turn around time for the testing, ah well... think I'll go to the pub today and face that 'mañana' :)

Nice :D Those changes really work well - looking very 'pro'

We often discuss issues with running a fully modded Skyrim that are dependant or atleast heavily influenced by our hardware configuration (GPU & VRAM, CPU load, RAM, SSD &etc). I thought a place to discuss these might be handy. ** PLEASE DO NOT TURN THIS INTO A "VIEW MY AWESOME UBER KIT AND DESPAIR!" THREAD ** :P Just as a starter - I am very limited in ways I can upgrade my PC atm until I can afford a full mobo-up rebuild. I have the option to either SLI my current card nVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 1Gb (just lost an ebay auction to try this :@ ) or there is a good offer on an nVIDIA GeForce GT 440 2Gb card I'm tempted to test and then SLI if it works out. We have talked a lot about VRAM influence on texture modding so has anyone experience of the latter card at all? The 520 is a dud and this is about my price limit if I plan a 2 card SLI eventually. (A GT 560Ti 2Gb would be nicer :) but is beyond my current budget).

Cool, sounding good s4n :) A little off-topic (sorry) but as i need to do some serious mod testing this week does anyone know if any of our regular mod managers actually function correctly to disable loading installed mods (as in re-writing plugins'txt) or is that purely a function of the plugins.txt file and has to be manually altered still?

Nicely done matey ;) Problem solved.

I'm liking the STEP 2 Theme a lot, as much for the layout/functionality as the re-colouring. Only tweaks I would suggest atm are to try the Nexus grey or dark grey for the background instead of black to keep a consistant 'feel' (I often switch from Nexus to here & back in use) and go back to a light text font - white or off white as that tends to be easy on the eye and shows coloured text and/or links well.

If you care to have someone 'test' that script I'll be happy to :D I already have a seperate folder receiving NMM downloads.

I didn't have these issues (yet) but did notice that after starting to use NMM as a download manager & tracker my plugins.txt file had altered (haven't run WB or the Beth Launcher for some time). It now had Update.esm as #1 in the load order rather than Skyrim.esm (which has left the list completely???) :puzzled: the loadorder.txt file still lists Skyrim.esm so still trying to figure what has happened. I don't have time to run the game just now but will check if it functions tomorrow.

Discussion thread: BOSS Userlist Manager by Surazal Wiki Link GUI for managing the BOSS masterlist. Very handy app. Don't leave home with BOSS without it. Nexus thread Has anyone else stumbled over this one yet? I'm still trying to get my head around exactly what its purpose/use is but I just get this gut feeling it will be useful, lol.

Ah first to post, virgin territory :D Just a quick note about an issue I get on the site. Because I tend to use the 'View New Posts' option to go directly to new content the site doesn't recognise that I don't need to be alerted to new activity in the 'containing' fora so the icons for these are still yellow if I go into the forum manually == confusing :? Eg. I use View New Posts to go to the latest chat in '[REL] Skyrim Unplugged' but once I finish if I go into the main forum the icons are telling me there is unread content in /Mods, the Universe & Everything and then /Specific Mods as well. As you plan to use layers of sub-fora for organisation this is going to recur quite often. Just a small glitch but might be fixable?

Effectively, with RWT(T) now defunct this is afaik the main water related mod going, and will I assume become the selection for STEP. Itwas a shame that Isoku's waterfalls ended up being the bug fest as many users including myself really liked them :( The one thing that worried me is the inclusion of non-related content into the new mod (thinking of the chests, follower, &etc) I've seen a few other modders do this and I think it just muddies the purpose of the install. Maybe that's just my open-source philosophy take on it - one module does one thing really well, not 10 things so-so.

Ah yes, the joys of American litigation ;) We haven't 'quite' got that silly over the pond, but we seem to be working on it. So agreed, lawyers, accountants and hairdressers please board your ships for relocation.

Thanks Monty that sounds like a good interim plan while funds are tight - I run on a P5N32SLISEDeluxe so iirc there is already 2x PCIe x16 and an SLi 'switch' - I had totally forgotten about :facepalm: ...now the only problem is if they still do the 1Gb 8800 GT card! (and can I afford one of course ;) ) The best option alternative I've found was a single nVid 560Ti 2Gb @£209 but any other upgrades will really need a mobo-up re-build which will set me back a min £650 even for an i5 base (that includes an SSD and graphics card tho' - so not bad, just outside my pocket atm). Look out eBay here I come.

Don't apologise zMan :) When you have been around the games industry - whether solo or MMO games - for long enough paranoia becomes a perfectly valid viewpoint as applied to game publishers :P Personally I would like to do a Douglas Adams and send all the accountants in to space... how DID the button counters get to rule the world anyway? (I humbly apologise for the above if any of my friends here happen to be accountants and I sincerely mean that, sincerely, honest)

@Mardread Thanks for that (oh I wish I could afford an upgrade/rebuild :( ) I'm going to try those settings on my older card and see how it fares. I am already using the Sparse Grid Supersampling (can't remember now where I found out about that but works for me) and as TC is saying that SSAO has been borked by update 1.5 perhaps that one still works ;) Which driver are you running? 296.10 WHQL or a newer beta driver? I notice you still use the CoD:MW setting for Ambient Occlusion. Has the newer nVidia driver still not improved on this? Also you don't seem to be forcing AF through the card which I thought was the reason to turn it to 0 in the game settings? I'll update here if I hit any glitches.

I think it is the natural tendency of any organisation to want to maintain (obsessive) control of their product - after all it is what makes them their daily bread. I totally agree with MontyMM's view "Aside from a lack of concern, it's a lack of imagination" and I believe it is only really showing now because previously with Morrowind & Oblivion, Bethesda abdicated responsibility for the games fairly early on to concentrate on The Next Big Thing, so the work of the mod community was insignificant to them, and they may have actually thought it was the merits of the vanilla game that kept the sales running :P This time they have decided to run with the ball and see what extra attention on their part will do for profits... but they have no real conception of the fact that their user base are used to their 'product' becoming essentially public domain - an idea that every manufacturer would consider anathama! Unless they have the imagination and savvy to support the modders as a resource, Bethesda will inevitably continue to accidentally, or deliberately, mess things up. With the advent of the Steam Workshop it is obvious that someone has spotted the relationship between the mod community and the game successes BUT the organisation still cannot concieve of the prospect of 'letting go', and abdicating control to the end user (because they see no direct profit in doing that), so they will inevitably make a pigs ear of the whole thing. The best we can hope for is that they bung out a couple of DLC, get bored with the whole thing and bugger off to make Fallout 4 ;)