elwaps

Just installed 2.26 and regenerated everything. This time I got working Real Roads, foliage as expected but still weird LOD fragments in lantern poles. Nontheless, most of my Skyrim beginning to look awesome is thanks to you, so... thank you! :) So instead of flowers here's some DynDOLODed shots.

I got another riddle for you, hope you don't hate me for 'spamming' your thread. While testing visual/environmental mods (such as all tree mods available, landscape stuff, bridges, roads) I occasionally saw LOD fragments in Lanterns of Skyrim-lantern poles aswell as Real Roads not working and being flat. In addition to that it seemed that either Enhanced Vanilla Trees (or Enhanced Landscapes) were deactivated. I usually regenerate LODs after adding a (few) new mods to test and sometimes this happened, sometimes it didn't. I didn't have a clue and randomly enabled and disabled mods and changed load order until I used the console and saw DynDOLOD making the last change to the lantern pole aswell as to the road. So here's what a quick test revealed. This is how my Skyrim looked with DynDOLOD and all its addons (Whiterun Exterior etc) aswell as the Lanterns of Skyrim Preset active and DynDOLOD output (with its esp) and TexGen output active. Note the lack of foliage, the flat road and the weird LOD fragment in the pole. I then saved the game, left the game, deactivated DynDOLOD, its addons, the preset and the output, restarted the game and reloaded my save. This is what I got: - LOD fragment in lantern pole disappeared - Foliage looked like it should with EVT+EL - Real Roads worked again I'm pretty sure I somehow messed up but I got no idea what could have been my mistake. Is there something to keep in mind when generating with LoS, EVT and Real Roads? For the last few times I only cleared the output folders and the cache before regenerating, should I always clear the entire folder and reinstall DynDOLOD Standalone from the zip files instead? Or do you have another idea about what could cause this weird behaviour? I think I've posted my DynDOLOD settings and stuff before but just to be sure... Mod Organizer Left Pane Load Order (everything that could be remotely involved) - ... - Static Mesh Improvement Mod - ... - Skyrim Realistic Overhaul - Skyrim Realistic Overhaul ADDON Classic Skyrim - Vivid Landscapes all in One - Vivid Landscapes all in One ADDON 4K Textures - A Quality World Map - Skyrim High Definition LODs Dark and Grassy - Skyrim High Definition LODs ADDON Dragonborn Dark - High Quality LODs Meshes - Verdant - DynDOLOD 2.22 - DynDOLOD ADDON Desync Birds of Prey - DynDOLOD ADDON High Hrothgar Window Glow - DynDOLOD ADDON Solitude Exterior - DynDOLOD ADDON Vvardenfell 3D Plume - DynDOLOD ADDON Whiterun Exterior - Lanterns Of Skyrim - Lanterns of Skyrim ADDON Lantern Caretakers - Enhanced Vanilla Trees [REINSTALL] - Enhanced Vanilla Trees Billboards Generator [REINSTALL] - Cover Woods - Cover Woods ADDON Parallax - Skyrim Bridges - Real Roads for Skyrim - Real Roads for Skyrim ADDON DLCs - Alternative Road Textures - ... - Immersive Fallen Trees - ... - Lanterns of Skyrim PATCH Dawnguard - Vivid Landscapes all in One PATCH Static Mesh Improvement Mod Farmhouse - DynDOLOD PATCH Lanterns of Skyrim (this is the preset) - ... - OUTPUT DynDOLOD - OUTPUT TexGen Mod Organizer Right Pane Plugin Load Order is sorted by LOOT with DynDOLOD.esp loading last DynDOLOD - Standalone 2.25 - LODGen 1.20 - .ini-files are default except for TreeLOD=0 - Generating all world spaces at once - Default 'High' preset except for neverfade ships, candles checked and tile size 2048 - Output is C:\DynDOLOD OUTPUT respectively C:\TexGen OUTPUT - No UAC, user is admin, full access to both folders is granted, MO is launched as admin

Even when you want to use the larger windmills without sails? I once saw a detailed guide on what to install in which order with which options to be fine without SkyFalls but I can't find it atm, I currently got purple fan textures. Could you push me into the right direction? Awesome. Caribou LODs were indeed working with TreeLOD=0. I won't keep Caribou in my load order due to low quality and too bright looking textures but that's good to know for future additions :) Works as indended, thanks alot! Now, if I would just set trees to Full/Full/Full and Far Full... :D One more question about the (MO left pane) load order. Please tell me if I'm annoying you but you seem to be like a Mr Miagi of Skyrim modding to me. Load order. Do you sort ALL your mods individually? Or - in case of larger load orders - do you use categories to rougly sort? I tend to loosely stick to STEP recommendations (base game > extenders > fixes > interface > new locations > body > npcs/creatures > clothing/equipment > textures/meshes > environment > quests > animations/effects > sound > gameplay > enb/weather > patches > patcher output) but especially with texture packs and environmental mods exact load order seems to be critical and I haven't found a way besides trial and error yet. Just thinking of things like SMIM, ELFX, EVT, Parallax stuff - getting the load order wrong will almost always lead to glitches or even instability.

I still got to test it with my full load order (>300 esps) but that'll have to wait until I figured out the perfect combination of base graphics mods and brought myself up to date with merging. So far, thanks to you and the seemingly unproblematic Enhanced Vanilla Trees/Enhanced Landscapes working with TreeLOD=0, everything works fine. I don't think I'm gonna integrate SFO or SSBT anyway, those were the mods causing the most crashes during generation - and EVT looks better anyway! I always wondered why I couldn't see any transitions in GTA while having those unimmersive super visible ones in Skyrim. Using TreeLOD=0 with EVT and EL looks waaaaay better, still it costs about 15% fps. I don't mind that using the GTX1080 but I don't think this method is feasible for many people. But reading your post it doesn't seem there'd be anyone able (or, with usable Skyrim SE waiting ahead, willing) to create some morphing technique for Oldrim... Its definitely 3D models having those visible changes. Mostly its shadowing but sometimes you can clearly see the model changing its shape a bit. One of the most obvious models flickering, by the way, is the light tree with the brownish parts in the middle of the middle screenshot above. I haven't been touching ugrids for ages for a reason. This, however, sounds awesome. Aswell as water being more dynamic, Real Shelter becoming redundant, engine stability being lightyears ahead of Oldrim, memory limits,... can't wait for fixes and things like SKSE64! Great to hear you Skyrim modding gods already having a plan! :) Just three more things 1) Just re-generated with the settings mentioned above, adding SkyFalls+SkyMills, SMIM, Skyrim Better Roads, Real Roads for Skyrim, Fences of Skyrim and Immersive Fallen Trees - still no crashes :) 2) I will keep using EVT+EL with TreeLOD=0. However, there's a few mods adding some trees without the possibility to use TreeLOD=0, where I would have to use billboards. One example would be the non-replacer version of Caribou Gone. How do I mix non-billboard mods with those? First generating with only EVT+EL activated and TreeLOD=0 and then deactivating everything besides Caribou Gone and generate with TreeLOD=1 and then merge the resulting folders? Or, as Caribou doesn't add many trees in its non replacer version, generating with TreeLOD=0 and Fallback? Never worked for me so far... 3) I've seen you writing one should set boats and ships to neverFade as there's no DynDOLOD models for them (and the regular LOD looks horrible) - so how do I do this? /edit Just another random DynDOLOD High TreeLOD=0, Enhanced Vanilla Trees, Enhanced Landscapes shot to say thank you again ^^

Just tested DynDOLOD 2.25 with LODGen.exe 1.20 with Enhanced Vanilla Trees 1.6.9 and Enhanced Landscapes 1.4 using TreeLOD=0, all worldspaces at once, candles option checked, max tile size 2048 and the rest at default. Worked flawlessly. And looks great. :) The only thing that bothers me a bit is that I sometimes still got visible 'LOD' to full 3D model transitions (for example approaching the forest south of Dawnstar when coming from Dawnstar and the small tree groups near Whiterun when coming from the meadery) aswell as very visible flickering during transition (for example when entering Dragonbridge coming from Solitude). I got videos of both effects, they occur with Enhanced Landscapes aswell as without it. I could upload them if those effects aren't indended/known (as in 'can't be fixed due to engine limitations'). I also sometimes get trees not being fully loaded when I quickly change viewing direction, you can clearly see them being drawn and shadowed. Doesn't seem to be connected to tree density, also happened outside Whiterun.

Allright, after setting all fans to 'turbo' I went down 5-6°C on 100% load and now never surpass 60°C. I immediately re-ran Skyrim Landscape Overhaul and the results (randomly?) changed. Now, if I run the generation, there are no 'stopped working' errors but instead the TES5Edit script runs until its end but finishes with a 'line 390' error. When you check the CMD-window it seems to be stuck at generating objects for dlc2solstheim world, if you click the window it will crash. This is what Mod Organizer gave me afterwards: DEBUG (19:49:21.0070): hooks removed ----------- LOG END ----------- DEBUG (20:00:44.0500): hooks removed INFO (20:00:44.0523): Windows Exception (c0000005). Last hooked call: int __stdcall GetFileAttributesExW_rep(const wchar_t *,enum _GET_FILEEX_INFO_LEVELS,void *) ERROR (20:00:44.0523): This is a critical error, the application will probably crash now. INFO (20:00:44.0558): Windows Exception (c0000005). Origin: "C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\mscordacwks.dll" (58a156ef). Last hooked call: int __stdcall GetFileAttributesExW_rep(const wchar_t *,enum _GET_FILEEX_INFO_LEVELS,void *) ERROR (20:00:44.0564): Crash dump created as C:\Steam\steamapps\common\Skyrim\ModOrganizer\hook.dll.dmp. Please send this file to the developer of MO DEBUG (20:01:00.0089): hooks removed ----------- LOG END ----------- So it seems to be a Mod Organizer related crash? Or could it help to just reinstall NET? To sum it up, I currently got about three different errors: - 'line 390 End of file' happening at the end of the generation process with Skyrim Landscape Overhaul, giving me the error seen above - freezing at generating atlas textures happening after about 3 minutes with Skyrim Landscape Overhaul, disappeared since increasting CPU cooling (coincidence?) - crashing LODGenCMD.exe happening during generation of Tamriel world happening with both versions of Skyrim Flora Overhaul and Skysight, occasional errors (couldn't copy one so far)

Continued testing... Skysight Simply Better Trees + Skysight Simply Better Trees Billboards (taken from TES5LODGen) = One more crash, unfortunately without MO error, then gave it up. Will try to reproduce earlier error when I'm done with the rest. Caribou Gone Non Replacer Version + respective billboards = No crashes Distinct Skyrim Landscapes (billboards included) = No crashes Skyrim Landscape Overhaul (billboards included) = Two freezes during 'generating atlas textures' without LODGenCMD.exe running, not working so far Allright. I thought they were somehow important as DynDOLOD doesn't work if billboards are missing. Thought there could be faulty billboards or something as crashes seem to be very dependent on which tree/landscape mod is active while generating. CPU is on stock clock and stock voltage CPU temperature with turbo clock and Prime95 running at 100% on 12 threads in 'In-place large FFTs' mode stays below 65°C RAM (DDR3 2133) is currently running on conserative default timings @1600MHz Board is relatively new and doesn't show any signs of damage SSD is reserved for Skyrim alone and doesn't show any signs of damage System didn't have any bluescreens or other crashes since it was installed I will try that specifically for the SFO, SSBT and SDL after testing the rest of the bunch. /edit Duh, I've just realized the Tcase for my 3930K is 66.8°C. Sorry if I should have stolen your time and all my problems came from my CPU running into its temp limit. I'm reading alot about people running it at 70°C and above and I'm pretty sure there's nothing pushing the temps as much as Prime95 and theoretically, instead of producing errors, the CPU should just reduce its clock a bit when hitting the limits - still, this will be the first thing I'm gonna test now.

Allright, after some tree testing with a minimal setup (~50 esps, mostly fixes, no textures except for Vivid Landscapes, no environment mods except for Realistic Water Two, Verdant and Skyrim High Definition LODs) I observed the following: DynDOLOD 2.24 (no ini-edits, all lands, high preset, candles checked, max tile size 2048, everything else on default) Vanilla Trees + Indistinguishable Vanilla Tree Billboards = No crashes Vanilla Trees + Vanilla Skyrim LOD Billboards (taken from TES5LODGen) = No crashes Skyrim Flora Overhaul 2.5b + Skyrim Flora Overhaul 2.5b Billboards = Crashed first (LODGenCMD stopped working), worked on 2nd try Skyrim Flora Overhaul 1.87 + Skyrim Flora Overhaul 1.87 Billboards = Crashed first, then replaced LODGen.exe and LODGen64.exe with your 1.10 version and tried again. Now froze during process the first time but worked the second time. Skysight Simply Better Trees + Skysight Simply Better Trees Billboards (taken from TES5LODGen) = Crashed three times in a row, not working yet. MO gave me a crashlog of the last crash but I just realized it was deleted while I was writing these lines. Will post it as soon as it reappears.

As today I'm not really in the mood for play(test)ing or reading about and experimenting with merging plugins (unavoidable next step for my build) I'm gonna run a few more generations with the exact same settings while monitoring the RAM usage of the first LODGen process to test my hypothesis. While doing that I will record every single run to be able to analyze stuff afterwards I haven't noticed during the run itself. I'm as sure as one can be that my system is stable. Nonetheless I'm gonna run Prime95 and Furmark for a few hours tomorrow during work while logging temperatures plus a few passes of Memtest during dinner. However, I don't want to rape my SSD with write-testing all day, so I'll have to stick with perfectly fine SMART values. > Skyrim is not installed to the programs or even Windows folder but to C:\Steam\steamapps\common\skyrim > DynDOLOD is installed to ..\skyrim\DynDOLOD and thereby not under the influence of MO, which is located in ..\skyrim\ModOrganizer > UAC is disabled, MO is running as administrator and full access to the skyrim folder is given to everyone (just to be sure) > Microsoft Security Essentials is disabled all the time except for when I go online > All drivers except the nVidia one are installed manually (pointing driver installation to inf-files instead of using the setups) to avoid unneccessary software installations > Since getting a new board the system hasn't crashed once for about a year, neither my pretty cluttered Win10 or my freshly installed Skyrim-Win7 on its separate SSD Gonna check this, perhaps I accidentially deleted the output without thinking about it. But first I'm gonna replicate the crashes a few more times. Got your intention, thanks so much for help and your top notch support in general. I'll be back soon... ;) /edit Should I still test with your modified LODGen files (the 1041kB ones) or the original ones that come with 2.24? Tested with the modified ones so far.

Ran it a second time, crashed again after roughly 8 minutes with about 1.75GB RAM usage. Correlation or causation...?

Unfortunately for me it doesn't become available but keeps being greyed out. Perhaps I just need the explanation for dummies... I start DynDOLOD in expert mode, select a random worldspace from the dropdown - nothing happens to the Execute button. Load the high preset - nothing happens. Change random options like Tile Size or LOD Brightness - nothing happens. Change output path - nothing happens. Change the TreeLOD and Fallback options in the ini - nothing happens. Am I doing sth. wrong? /edit Ran the regular tool again with TreeLOD=0 and TreeFullFallBack=1, crashed again after crossing the 1.7GB RAM line. At that moment the DynDOLOD process and the LODGen one both used about 1.75GB.

Its not totally random. The CPU isn't overclocked and just like the GPU does not overheat. The 2133MHz RAM is currently running at 1600 with pretty conserative default settings because I was too lazy to fiddle with the XMP profiles after a BIOS reset so far. The environment is a freshly installed W7x64 on a separate SSD solely intended for Skyrim (see W10 DX9 VRAM limit), still with pretty default settings (UAC is deactivated tho). MSE is the most basic antivirus you could possibly imagine AND is deactivated Until now I could observe > the process was more stable with less mods (you don't say!) > generating 'regular' LODs with TreeLOD=1 and TreeFullFallBack=0 works almost every single time (just did it without errors) > generating LODs with TreeLOD=0 and TreeFullFallBack=0 often needs 2-3 runs to finish properly but then works fine > generating LODs with TreeLOD=0 and TreeFullFallBack=1 never finished properly but always crashed so far > the time it runs before crashing is always roughly the same - after 7 to 10 minutes, depending on overall duration and thereby settings, but never before 7 minutes > my crashes are always memory crashes but the stage of the process in which the crash occurs seems to be 'random'* *you can see this when comparing the screenshot with the short video: in the former it crashed while creataing atlas textures, in the latter it crashed during the 'Waiting for LODGen.exe to finish...' stage. This needs further experimenting, I will have an eye on the RAM usage of the first LODGen process to start, on the combined RAM usage of DynDOLOD and the LODGen processes together and if there's any number (around 1.8GB) correlating to crashes Testing your suggestions now...

Allright, here we go > Rebooted computer > Deactivated Microsoft Security Essentials > Deleted everything in DynDOLOD folder except for the two LODGen-files you gave me earlier > Reinstalled it from the 2.4 Standalone zip > Deleted DynDOLOD and TexGen output > Ran LOOT > Deactivated BirdsHFClean.esp, Bashed Patch, 0.esp, NoLeveledItemRewards.esp, WTF.esp and Dual Sheath Redux Patch.esp in MO > Edited DynDOLOD_TES5.ini: TreeLOD=0, TreeFullFallBack=1 > Started DynDOLOD through MO > Choosing options: Chose all Worlds, Ticket Candles, Set Output Path to C:\OUTPUT DynDOLOD\, Loaded high Rules, Set max Tile Size to 2048, Set LOD Brightness to 5 > Clicked OK... Screencapture of the crash itself plus a few seconds before and after https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Mcx3ckXm4A Screencapture of several minutes before the crash till the final error after the crash* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jqmfhN3MEU *uploading and processing not finished yet, will take a while I thought I give it a shot with EVT 3D trees combined with SFO 2.5b fallback trees, just to see where I would end up framerate-wise. However, I haven't managed to finish even one single successful LOD generation.

I finally managed to catch the little brat while crashing. Seems like I'd be running out of memory. Would fit the inconsistent timing and reproducability. I found out the crashing isn't directly connected to using the fallback option or not but while creating non-fallback LODs 'only' took me 3 shots to complete, I've never successfully created fallback LODs. Can be randomness due to few tries tho. I am using MO which doesn't support the x64 version running through it, I assume going for x64 would solve my problem? Do you know any way to bypass the x86 restriction of MO? Or a way to run the x64 version standalone while using MO's folder structure? Gonna retry now with performance monitor on now...

Thanks. I've used the files you provided and everything worked. Can't tell if it was due to the new files tho, as the error isn't perfectly reproducible. I'll try with fallback and the new files the next time I'm generating.

Just had the error again with TreeFullFallBack=0. I tried to bring the window to the front to screenshot it, unfortunately this is all I could capture, the window can't be maximized or increased in size. As before, the process ended a few minutes later with 'Error in unit 'functions' on line 390: 'end' expected but End of File found.'.

I am actually using Crash Fixes and to me your post reads like 'Keep blowing your Skyrim up until you actually get memory related errors, once you've managed to fill those 8GB (instead of those cute 5GB you got atm) go for the 1080Ti with its 11GB'. Aye Sir, thats my plan! But before I'm going to run out of memory I guess I'm going to run out of GPU power, once you've used some heavy ENB presets and ELFX you can't go back, not to speak of all the polygon count-increasing clutter mods like ETaC, JK & EL... another pro 1080Ti argument. Such a pity Skyrim got a really poor SLI scaling... Just ran DynDOLOD again (without fallback) and it finished without any crashes or errors. I wonder why it crashed before, to my understanding the fallback-option means less work for the LODGen-process. Gonna try it with fallback again when changing the next few mods to get rid of some nasty incompatibilities... thanks for your help!

Update (seems I've missed the edit-deadline again) I've playtested for about 90 minutes with lots of outdoor time in the Rift. As expected my 1080 is at its limit under certain circumstances but everything is running stable and CTD-free. Oh, well, and everything looks fantastic, of course. So before fixing some stuff concerning iActivate (doesn't seem to work properly atm) and inns (3DNPC, RRRE, ELFX and More Tavern Idles seem to fight each other) and re-running DynDOLOD with TreeFullFallBack=1 I wanted to ask what exactly this option does. To my understanding it avoids using 2D billboards entirely and instead falls back to using the full scale 3D model, leading to a dramatic decrease in fps once a tree mod without 3D LODs is used. But in exchange makes every single tree mod visually compatible to the fantastic 3D LODs of Enhanced Vanilla Trees. Is that correct? And is there a chance to use this option for an actual playthrough, performance and stability wise? I currently got ~45fps in the Rift with ENB, ELFX, 2K+ textures, Enhanced Vanilla Trees with 3D LOD and Verdant. How dramatic would the frame-impact be if I added, lets say SFO? Or would Enhanced Landscapes (which I'm already using) be enough to kill my framerate once I got fallback activated? I only avoided using other tree mods than EL because of the visual difference until now. Enabling this option would allow for so much more individualization... Thanks so far and thanks in advance :)

Alright, ran it again with TreeFullFallBack=0. Details Activated all Plugins Ran LOOT Deleted WTF Random Encounter Zones Output Deleted FNIS Output Deleted DSR Output Deleted DynDOLOD Output Deleted TexGen Output Deleted iActivate Patch Output Deleted Bashed Patch Output Ran WTF Random Encounter Zones Ran FNIS Ran DSR Ran DynDOLOD @ TreeLOD=0, All Worlds, Candles checked, Tile Size 2048 > Worked fine this time. During the critical phase DynDOLOD used about 1.2GB of RAM and about 5% of CPU, LODGeneratorCMD used about 1.6GB of RAM and about 20% of CPU. The Former peaked at 2GB RAM and 90% CPU later in the process, the latter decreased to 10% and 1.2GB. Ran TexGen @ 1024 > Worked fine too - but always works fine anyway Next running iActivate Patcher through TES5Edit, then recreating Bashed Patch, then testing Gonna try TreeFullFallBack=1 again next time.

As I can't edit my first post anymore... Without corrupted DynDOLOD Skyrim was stable and smooth and even with DynDOLOD it seemed to be mostly stable but had some regions where it would CTD or where LOD trees wouldn't work. So I've added another few mods from the Campfire family, a few textures and some random stuff and just re-run DynDOLOD. This time I got a 'stopped working' at about 6 minutes while creating the biggest bunch of LODs, almost identical to the one from the screenshot but it crashed at about 5900 instead of ~4200. Also, the entire process was way faster. DynDOLOD finished after about 13 minutes without any further errors.

Hey sheson, hey everyone I recently ran into a problem. I'm currently building my final Skyrim Classic setup which already approaches 200 esps with over 300 mods (using MO). A few 'versions' of my build ago, DynDOLOD stopped working quite literally, it always crashed. I've already identified and got rid of several other errors, now only one is left: LodgeneratorCMD stopped working. Details MO 1.3.11DynDOLOD Standalone 2.24DynDOLOD Ressources 2.22TES5Edit 3.2 (renamed FO4Edit)Enhanced Vanilla Trees with Generator 1.6.9/1.3.9BGWindows 7 64bit on a SSD exclusively running for Oldrimi7 3930K, 16GB DDR3 Already tried Deactivating AntivirusSetting C:\DynDOLOD Output as output folderReinstalling Standalone before runningReinstalled Ressources before runningClearing output-folder before runningClearing cache-folder before runningChecking and resolving errors in other mods with TES5EditNot even generating Bashed Patch before running DynDOLODChecking for activated BirdsHFClean.esp but its not installed yet I'm actually using the ultra option, setting TreeLOD=0 and (for the first time) TreeFullFallBack=1. I've read about the earlier case of the 'stopped working' problem and tried to running the worldspaces seperately. First I tried everything but Tamriel and it instantly worked and was finished within 3 minutes. After that I tried running Tamriel alone and it crashed again after about 7 minutes. I'm currently waiting for it to finish as it seems to continue despite the crash, in the end it will be about 18 minutes (running on a 6 core/12 threads 3930K with 16GB & SSD). Looking at the behavior it seems that at some point the process is running out of memory or something. Might be me using MO which doesn't support the x64 version of DynDOLOD running through it, forcing me to use the x86 version which probably has narrow memory limits?! /edit It actually was 18 minutes before it finished. It did finish with another error tho: Error in unit 'functions' on line 390: 'end' expected but End of File found. /edit2 TexGen worked flawlessly, now trying to launch with the damaged DynDOLOD output activated. I'd be greatful for any advice. And by the way - thanks for making this awesome tool. Once I first got it running with 3D LODs I was laughing hard at everyone telling me tree popping would never be eliminated and Skyrim instantly looked 2 years younger than it already did in its heavily modded state. Not to speak about your great support in here. Big thumbs up! Error Screenshot Modwatch Profile Modlist Info + Main Mod ++ Addons/Extensions +++ Patches for other Mods ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Dummies separating the Sections I try to keep it tidy, hope this helps (or at least looks cool)

Thanks for that post. After some more playing I think I will definitely keep Frostfall and Campfire. The latter as it is a requirement for the former, as it doesn't have any negative impact at all and as camping is cool. And the former because it just adds to realism. I mean... diving in ice cold water for an hour and slaying monsters directly after without any impact from freezing? Nah. :) As for the load order I'm gonna go the safe way then and rearrage them. By "after STEP", do you mean after all STEP mods and before the STEP Patches (2N) section? Or at the end of everything? Latter seems strange to me as I believe patchers like FNIS, ASIS, DSR and DynDOLOD should have everything above them for working correctly. Could be wrong tho. Thanks for the answer! I will continue testing with iNeed but I guess I'm gonna reduce the invervals as I'm still just testing for stability, features, modified places and weird bugs (like last time when I installed too much without testing in between and everyone was fighting in extreme slow motion for some reason). And I guess I'm gonna use automatic actions for Hunterborn before removing it. Don't get me wrong, both mods are totally cool. iNeed just has to be a bit annoying when its the first time when you use a needs mod. And the only thing that annoyed me about Hunterborn was its menu which would have been kinda okay in Oblivion but Skyrim usually doesn't use these menues anymore. If I can switch that off everything's fine. As already written above I'm gonna rearrange your pack-mods then. I just tried to sort them as I couldn't find a clear instruction on where to place them in the beginning. I probably just haven't looked far enough. Same question as above - before or after the patches-section of STEP? And while I'm at it, after some more testing I'm gonna add your other packs. Is there a specific order for your packs themselves? Like loading Survival first, followed by Gameplay Overhaul and so on? Or doesn't it matter at all? /edit Too short additions: first, is it normal that you die because of Frostfall when playing the vanilla start? My char was freezing during the entire cartride and eventually froze to death when he was called to the block. Looked pretty funny but after awaking in some stranger's house I couldn't move as apparently some stuff from the intro scripts was still running. Second, do you, by any chance, plan to do something like a successor for REGS? "Basic" mods like JK's Skyrim and ETaC aswell as some others seem to work fine with your packs and the current version of STEP but messing everything up should be pretty easy when using REGS in its current state. I mean... some kind of JK-ish mod, some kind of ETaC-ish mod, the whole collection of Falskaar, (Wyrmstooth) and some other stuff seems to be pretty essential for every playthrough to me. And I've just discovered The Gray Cowl of Nocturnal... holy ****, this looks great. That's where the digsite-mod from above belongs into, by the way. Don't get me wrong, I'm everything but lazy, I can install mods, I can check for patches and everything. But I'm just too inexperienced to actually check mods for compatibility or even do patches on my own. :/

Thanks for your answer. I have to admit I was a bit impatient and already started installing. The first pack was Survival, I've already tested it and it works fine - tho iNeeds seems to be a bit annoying, at least in the beginning, and its icons (aswell as those from Frostfall) seem to look a bit off compared to the Vanilla/SkyUI/iHUD ones. Gonna try to seamlessly integrate them into my HUD but it seems as there were no bar-ones for iNeed at all. Also, I think Hunterborn - tho being a great addition - kills the gameplay a bit with its oldschool menu, I don't know yet what to do about that. While testing Survival I came to the same conclusion as you and increased uGridsToLoad from 5 to 7. The performance impact was pretty heavy, I'm at about 30fps in the wilds now. However, at that time I was still using fully rendered and animated trees for LOD4, LOD4 models for LOD8 and LOD8 models for LOD16. I am aware of the negative impacts uGridsToLoad can have (probably will have) on my game which can be quests triggered too early, dragons wiping out villages without me being around (which is somehow cool in my eyes as the world shouldn't be centered around me alone) and general instability (haven't had one CTD in about 2 hours of testing tho). I'll just continue playing with 7 and look if it keeps being stable. Damn Skyrim engine, it seems if you couldn't make it use fully rendered trees outside of its little uGridsToLoad-box, so increasing this box seems to be the only actual way of killing the super-ugly 2D/3D transition which totally breaks immersion for me... In the meanwhile I've also installed Skyrim Gameplay Rebalance, re-ran all patche®s and am currently waiting for DynDOLOD to finish. I haven't merged any patches so far but I guess they should work without merging too - as long as I don't hit the esp-limit yet. Can't wait for it to finish, I can't really believe it will work without issues due to the complexity of the guide. With that many mods I think its pretty likely I (not you) forgot some patch for something from STEP or one of my other mods. We'll see. As for the install order, I tried to sort your pack-mods into the STEP categories and within these categories kept your recommended order. SGR, for example, is entirely in the Gameplay section (except for ASIS, which is in Patches now), Survival is partially in Equipment, partially in Misc I think. This sorting made sense to me. However, if it shouldn't work I now know what to do - so thank you again. :)

Hi everyone, hi dreadflopp. First I wanted to thank you for your awesome Packs, although I haven't properly used them so far. They contain tons of mods I wanted to install anyway but I'm pretty sure I would never be able to make them compatible to each other and STEP on my own. When looking at Deleveled Loot, Dovahkin Reborn, Skyrim Gameplay Rebalance (and Survival) I'm pretty overwhelmed in a positive aswell as in a negative way. Positive, because they contain almost everything I wish for (except for content from REGS which I will try to somehow install on my own in my noobish way). Negative, because I feel there's some info missing for me to properly get to a clean mod setup. Don't get me wrong, this is because of me, not because of you - I just feel I will mess up my installation (STEP Extended, Vividian ENB and some visual and foliage mods) when adding all that stuff. Could you give me a hint on which Pack to install first when planning to install all three (respectively four) and where to put everything in the MO (left pane) load order? Either I haven't looked close enough yet or there's just no instructions about that and as many mods in each pack got instructions for mods from other packs, that to me appear like circular logic with no idea on which one to follow first, I'm pretty afraid and confused before starting the installation. Also, looking at your level of experience in Skyrim modding, do you perhaps have a quick hint about what to do if you want to get rid of tree billboards entirely? I've already annoyed vurt concerning using SFO 2.5b correctly but after fixing some things he told me "that's about as smooth as it will ever get", talking about 2D to 3D tree transitions. Unfortunately they're still pretty visible so my idea was to have 3D trees everywhere instead of those ugly billboards... Thanks in advance and greetings :)

Hey everyone. I just got a short question. I was trying to fight ugly tree pop-up for days now and for the first time it looks somewhat decent. I achieved this by forcing the use of fully rendered models instead of billboards via DynDOLOD and for most trees this seemed to work - even without extreme performance impact. However, there seems to be a bunch of trees that still refuse to render in 3D until I'm pretty near which still destroys immersion to some degree. And I believe the notes below are exactly what goes wrong during running DynDOLOD. It looks like there weren't proper 3D LOD models for these trees and that because of that DynDOLOD still uses billboards. Now here's the simple question: How do I change this? Are there any mods containing the needed 3D models (respectively normal maps?) so that I can have 3D trees everywhere including the pretty far distance? It would be okay if it ate some more performance, I'm currently still at 50-80fps in the wilds and I'd be okay to go down to 30-50, especially as my 980Ti gets upgraded to a 1080 soon. But please help me to get rid of the last remains of 2D in my game. :)