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All mods in the SE guide should be SE versions unless explicitly stated otherwise. It would be best if you could list all those that you are noting, and we'll update the links/instructions I updated AMB in the SE Guide. Install is exactly the same, but I needed to create the forum thread and modify the wiki mod page.

I was looking at the terrain noise maps and decided to compare them. STEP comes with the noise map from Cathedral Landscapes, which is very dark. HD Terrain offers two others based on the exact same pattern as CL, so here they are ... CL > HDT light > HDT dark From the screens, I think HDT light is the best option, especially since it works best for both light and dark landscapes. CL and HDT dark are both fine on darker landscapes but pretty bad on light, snowy landscapes (makes snow look like granite).

We are not officially supporting LE or future LE guides from here on out ... unless someone wants to maintain support for that. Tech doesn't intend to though, and I am no longer running it either.

I added a link to the LE guide on our main wiki page (link at top of forums). We no longer officially support that guide on the forums though.

It's quite compatible with downstream customization with a few caveats as mentioned in the guide. If you follow it and read everything, it will give you direction.

Normally, yes. But I looked at FPS/VRAM many times for these saves on load in testing various things, and they were always very consistent for each. The normal caps were reduced in all three locations with this LOD active. Weird.

Corrected ... Yeah, believe it or not, I've never made it through the whole campaign even after hundreds of play hours over the years ... always get caught up in modding and improvements, and I resist completing the main quests in RPGs to extend the play time. When I finish the main quest, all else loses its luster.

Just saying that's where it seems to fit best logically if it were included.

I like it.

This is likely the problem; otherwise, it would be one of the STEP audio mods in that section. Disable those to check (noting anything that's in the STEP Patch, which will be a bit more complicated to check).

These would replace current vanilla or proposed SSEUT textures. Example compare of Stendar's amulet Vanilla > SSEUT > this mod > Rustic Amulets: I am fine with SSEUT, but this is a decent upgrade to give them a bit more uniqueness and character. I don't see that the meshes have been up-scaled so much as changed to accommodate the new textures. That said, I don't have any issues with the vanilla style. EDIT: Added Rustic Amulets compare

IMO, anything is better than current Gold Septim - Coins Retex That mod is not an improvement to vanilla, because it transforms coins from albeit lower res but 'embossed'-looking into flat, cartoonish circles. In fact, CSSET (also proposed) includes the coin diffuse/normal vanilla replacer, which is worn and quite realistic, IMO. With SMIM's mesh improvement to purses, I think it's best if we don't use this and drop Gold Septim - Coins Retex in favor of CSSET/SMIM. CSSET coins uses 256 k diffuse/normal, which seems appropriate. Not sure about coin piles though or what the original SSE vanilla coin resolution is. EDIT: Here is a compare, vanilla > CSSET > this mod > Gold Septim. Note that CSSET does not replace piles, so that is vanilla. Also Gold Septims - Coins Retex does not provide a replacer for a pile variant, so I think we need to drop that for consistency. For whatever reason one of the piles disappeared when using this mod, but I was able to create them no problem, so must've been a glitch (formids: 04018486 04018488. To spawn coins: player.placeatme F 1 [repeat at least 5x, or they will disappear in the ground]) Based on this, I think individual coins are fine without this mod. I like them a bit more, really. Coin piles from this mod are better. Enough for a total replacer? Maybe.

Compare of formID: 000FEA9B Alduin: Bellyache's (current STEP) > Rustic Dragons (RD) Both are nice, RD is more muted in color, which I think is more compatible with the game. I couldn't see any difference at all between the 8k/4k versions in-game at this distance. I'm sure there would be a noticeable improvement very close up though. Another consideration is that Bellyache's includes customized meshes and several other texture assets, whereas RD does not. RD is also not complete yet, so there may be more coming. In the end, it may be the better option, but for now I'd say to wait until it's complete or use it as an extension to (override) Bellyache's where they conflict.

I placed this in alphabetical order under "AUDIOVIDUAL - Models & Textures". No conflicts other than vanilla, so I think we can judge based on face value alone from the screens (unless there is a glitch in the meshes/textures - unconfirmed). It's an improvement, IMO.

I'm placing this under "Foundation" just after CSSET in the MO load order.

I'm placing this under "Foundation" just after USSEP in the MO load order.

Agreed. Discord is the better option for gen discussion and real-time events.

The following was preliminary testing. Read through this for general background about our testing and findings. The end result will always be what we recommend in our latest mod-build guide. As of last update to this post, these are the currently recommended settings Also see: I am testing various xLODGen settings for "Terrain". I compare the same two areas (snow/no snow). So this is not comprehensive, but gives people some ideas of settings results (on my system) with STEP 0.3.0b. It is a relative compare of different terrain LOD results, all else remaining equal. skyrimprefs.ini LOD settings: [LOD] fLODFadeOutMultActors=15.0 fLODFadeOutMultItems=10.0 fLODFadeOutMultObjects=30.0 fLODFadeOutMultSkyCell=1.0000 [TerrainManager] bShowLODInEditor=1 fBlockLevel0Distance=50000 fBlockLevel1Distance=72500 fBlockMaximumDistance=94000 fSplitDistanceMult=4.000 fTreeLoadDistance=72500 Settings Rationale Based on my review of sheson's xLODGen thread and documentation, it looks like we should be using best quality and largest textures at LOD4, baking normals for best result (only if normals size ≥ 512 at a given level). Why? Because, in RL, resolution of our environment increases as it gets closer. Also, sheson recommends not tweaking brightness/contrast/gamma without good reason: he suggests lightening/darkening the noise map instead. I have confirmed that changing gamma between 0.97 and 1.10 has no apparent impact in game (data not shown). Lastly, raise steepness should be a good add for LOD8/16/32, since it increases bump effects for mips (probably not necessary at LOD4, due to higher quality textures, and closeness of these textures). I did compare using/not using raise steepness, and I didn't find any really noticeable difference (Lo setting does not include at LOD32, but all others do), so I am including it simply because it sounds rignt "just in case". Compression type does have a significant impact on quality, even for diffuse. BC7 is observably superior to DXT1, particularly with respect to shore-line jaggies around water. Compare order: Optimal settings (my system, my opinion) > lo settings > hi settings > ultra settings. Links to the settings are also below. My system is agnostic of these settings. I take no detectable performance hit either way, but I expect that typical PCs will see some difference of more/less significance (system specs in sig). Optimal Settings - LOD data ~ 5 GB, gen time ~ 45 min Lo Settings - LOD data ~ 2.5 GB, gen time ~ 25 min Hi Settings - LOD data ~ 9.5 GB, gen time ~ 45 min Ultra Settings - LOD data ~ 33.5 GB, gen time ~ 45 min It would be great if someone with a PC closer to that recommend for STEP and also running STEP would test xLODGen and let us know about performance impact and time to generate. UPDATE: After getting some feedback from sheson: Added Solitude (looking South from near the main gate) Increased quality on Lo settings to '10' for LOD16 and LOD32 Examined VRAM usage in all scenarios and include a compare of with/wo mipmaps in the 'optimal' settings (apparently, it's not clear if mipmaps are used at all by LOD. sheson confirms that diffuse does not use them, but normals might) Updated Lo Settings (else they are same as linked previously) Compare order: Lo > Hi > Ultra > Optimal > Optimal (without mips) Optimal Setings (no mips) Findings: FPS stats are largely unaffected by terrain LOD quality on my PC. VRAM usage was consistently lower for Lo settings relative to all others and no-mip-Optimal settings (versus Optimnal WITH mips). Not a huge diff, but lower well beyond the +/- 200 MB variation in reported VRAM usage. Optimal (no mips) was comparable to Lo in terms of performance but noticeably better in terms of quality. VRAM usage stats are not entirely reliable, because they varied by +/- 200 GB on my PC on any given save-game load once stabilized. This is consistent with how VRAM (and RAM) behave. Algorithms are being employed at any given time in any given system that govern use of RAM. It depends on what the GPU is 'thinking' at the time a save game is loaded: are you loading from a fresh game boot via MO? Did you recently reboot your PC? Are you loading one save game after another? .. it is inconsistent, but not wildly so. My findings are that VRAM usage is a bit less with Lo settings and by NOT enabling mipmaps/raise steepness. Based on the screen compares and VRAM usage, there is no reason to enable mipmaps or "Raise Steepness" on my system. Simple Summary (for my PC) Use Optimal Settings (no mips) or some proportionate deviation from that: LOD data ~ 4.2 GB, gen time ~ 36 min This takes a bit less time to generate LOD, probably decreases VRAM usage to a marginal extent, and results in quality that is all but indistinguishable from Ultra settings. DXT1 compression does not appear to save much besides disk space and costs in quality, so use it on diffuse maps ONLY if disk space is a major issue.

Here are some compares at two locations. STEP 0.3.0b with/wo HD Terrain Mesh. LOD gen performed according to STEP Recommendations both with this mod active/inactive, so this is a direct compare with the only difference being with/without this mod. In MO, each respective LOD output was active, and only in the HD Terrain-enabled setup was the HD Terrain mod active (it was largely/mostly overwritten by the xLODGen meshes though). Windhelm, Whiterun, Solitude (sequence: STEP --> STEP+HDT). EDIT: I discovered that my compare images had a xLODGen issue, so they weren't accurate. Below are the compares with LOD generated correctly with/without the mod. Summary I see no quality difference on my system with/without this mod.I saw an FPS drop of 1-3 frames with this mod in all three locations.There is no point in using this mod with STEP, probably because xLODGen obviates this mod (meshes are generated by xLODGen in either case, and the /meshes folder in each case takes up the exact same disk space and contain the exact same mesh count).It seems that LOD mesh replacers are irrelevant with xLODGen ... ? Why then do I see a frame drop with this mod enabled? Am I crazy?

I guess it's subjective then. Another problem is that we don't own or ultimately control Discord info. I like the idea of STEP Discord channels for general discussion and hangouts, but for solutions and informative posts, it's not as reliable IMO. Googling is one issue, but so is linking to a specific post from anywhere else. Anyone can see such a post if it's on the forums. With Discord, I think you would need to join the channel and all that. Then there is the problem of longevity and reliability of the info ... call me skeptical, I guess. It seems redundant to use both Discord and the forums. Just that much more work to support yet another venue.

It looks correct ... but there are also three files that should be in the actual Skyrim Special Edition game folder adjacent to the REAL /Data dir. Also, to partially rule out SKSE, try launching the game via MO using the Skyrim launcher. If it loads, you should see an SKSE not running message, but it *should* still load even if there is an issue is with SKSE config. BUT, before you do that: did you configure LOOT in MO2 per the STEP guide instructions? Did you run LOOT? Apply load order changes? Read LOOT warnings/errors and correct them? Do these things first. Then ... ... since you are running a custom mod list, next step would be to disable all mods but for the cleaned SSE masters and SKSE64. Then try launching with the SKSE launcher in MO2. If it works, you likely have a mod compatibility issue. In that case, enable mods in small batches down the list, run LOOT, sort/apply, launch game until it crashes to find the culprit(s).

Waiting on Mediawiki 1.35 ... sometime in August. Then it will be a lot of work on the backend getting that working. Probably September-ish for forum update IF they actually release MW 1.35 in August. Even then, Discord is largely redundant with forums, and the info on past resolutions is harder to find than on the forums, IMO.

ditto, that would be the simplest explanation. There are a hundred other explanations if not that. I added this explicitly to this part of the guide.

You need to run the SKSE loader to launch Skyrim or at least check that. See the instructions at the bottom of the page (also, review the whole page just to be sure). It could also be that you have not followed/read the System Setup Guide completely/correctly. I personally install Steam in its default location and MO2 according to the STEP Guide; however, I have taken ownership of all files on all drives and given myself "full control", which would be frowned upon by the more paranoid security gurus. Installing Steam and all mod-related tools/mods to a custom path and taking ownership + revising security to those paths is the more secure way of doing things ... all addressed in the guide linked. Also, follow STEP 1 of the STEP Guide and probably also STEP 2 & STEP 5.

I clarified the instruction