z929669

I'll just take your word for it if you were starting off with vanilla/baseline INIs on all counts and the guide was followed exactly. After ensuring all settings, including timescale in BP, are you looking at performance during the cart ride? If so, what was your historic FPS (average, min, max) and the updated after switching cards from launch of intro sequence up to the point that you go into char creation? This is a good baseline comparison, because no user input (other than mouse look ... mouse should not be touched) applies. Timescale reduction can cause havok issues and other strange behavior during this sequence. Do you still get noticeable stuttering? What about when running around outdoors or FPS from top of Drangonreach starway in Whiterun and ourside main gate in Solitude (looking out to the South towards the marshes)? If you are, then it is time to begin looking into SKSE memory settings and ENBoost memory settings (independently) and checking again. If you still have these issues, then I think that comments mentioned previously about CPU and system hardware (other than GPU) may be relevant. I have no experience with AMD-based chipsets, so I would not know from my own experience. I will say that I have seen huge benefits enabling vsync in ENBoost versus not (graphics transitions, particularly in interiors, was vastly smoothed out for me). Your new card should have tri-buffering capabilities built in, so you will get much better performance under vsync that you previously did, I think (not as much FPS sacrifice if you are not hitting >= 60 FPS or whatever your monitor refresh is).

NP, we appreciate the info, just wanted to keep Phillendreher's eye on the ball. @Phillendreher (I like the member ID, BTW ... is it your name or word play on philanderer?)

My bad about AF when using only ENBooset (and not ENB 'proper'), you are correct. Just set everything exactly as we have laid it out in the guide, using no other advice or tools that are not mentioned in the guide. (see? Even I --the person who largely worked on these instructions-- do not always catch everything, so it is really easy to miss something ;) ). Not saying that this will fix your issue, but I think we have yet to determine the nature of your issues, since there are some remaining unknowns. Begin with vanilla-generated INIs, and ensure that you have absolutely no custom settings hiding out in enblocal.ini or elsewhere. See addenda to my previous post. Once we have established the baseline, then make changes one at a time for testing and verification of current speculations (if even necessary or possible) YES, especially in the cart intro! Please don't follow any SRLE instructions at this point vanilla everything,new MO profile,follow STEP explicitly,provide result,THEN tweak incrementally and check diffs.

PLEASE ... Force AF via the driver and disable AF in ENBoost! (that is what the instructions say to do, and I have specifically noted that the result is the same, but I see slight boost to FPS) ... still wondering if your other settings mirror the guides, given that you continue to deviate in these situations :/ Once you do exactly as the instructions say, then we can have a meaningful exchange and THEN try out other settings, one at a time. Not yet! Let's keep the deviations to a minimum. Begin with a pure vanilla-generated set of INIs please. Also, did you mess with your timescale? If so, that is a deviation from the baseline instructions, and we cannot troubleshoot unless we KNOW you are operating under the absolute exact settings ... everywhere... as described in the guide. Lots of decent info/advice is being offered here, but it is all irrelevant unless we can establish a baseline common to what we recommend ... THEN we can speculate.

Are you certain? iMultiSample=4 (this is Skyrim AA) Do you have ENBoost vsync enabled? Are ALL of your CCC settings identical to those I linked? Is everything set exactly as described in the links I provided? (check again, and again ... and again) I use AMD (several different cards since we have created these recommendations), so I have set these optimally based on my own testing. They really work, so since there are many settings, I cannot help but assume that you have missed something or changed something that we did not mention. We have already verified that ENBoost VideoMemorySizeMb recommendations are correct, so only deviate once you have made absolutely certain that your settings match ours (and that nothing else was altered).

agree somewhat (it is an $80 diff though), but I would not spend more than $250 for a GPU (i.e., I would wait for R9 390X 8GB [or similar] to go down in price before purchasing). Also, you will pay different prices for different designers, labels, and OEMs: https://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&Description=radeon+R9+390x&N=-1&isNodeId=1

The 'ghost' entries are files contained within the vanilla BSAs (read, not extracted). They are always read by the game (and MO by proxy when you set load order). I can't really say anything but that this has nothing to do with your CTDs. You should be able to right click those entries and see what they are associated with, IIRC.

Original equipment manufacturer (OEM) pertains to the components of any hardware. Much hardwre is rebranded by a label or outsourced by a designer to an OEM.

Use ENBoost (enable vsync, thus limiting FPS to INI settings, and AMD graphics settings exactly as described in the STEP guide. Skyrim will stop even the best GPU, because it is based on a game engine that is much older than 4 years. Your frame rates are fine, and your stuttering issues are most likely related to no vsync and possibly improper AMD settings and ENBoost setup.

Yes, me! Good enough, sure, but not as good as offloading the task to an expansion card if you have the slots, especially if you are interested in more advanced capabilities. Agree it is probably negligible for basic HT sound, but it is consistent within the larger paradigm, so I do it. Refs: https://www.tested.com/tech/569-integrated-vs-dedicated-sound-cards-whats-the-real-difference/ https://techreport.com/review/23358/asus-budget-xonar-dgx-and-dsx-sound-cards-reviewed https://techreport.com/blog/21742/are-sound-cards-still-relevant (see editor's note at bottom)

@EisDrache My CoolerMaster PSU has been going steady since 2009 ... almost continuous use with no power issues at all. Not sure if you are speaking from experience or based on hearsay, but I am not familiar with this generalization. Many brands (like all hardware manufacturing) are just labels and rebrand PSU made by various designers/OEMs, so saying any one brand is 'garbage' is an over generalization (CM is a label with a pretty good rep). These articles go into some good detail, but unfortunately, some dinglebob posted the thumbnail images of certain tables rather than the full images, so they are useless. Use a combo of the two to get a better idea of who is who: https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/power-supply-psu-brands,3762.html https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/psu-manufacturer-oem,2729.html

My advice is pretty general, but hopefully informative: I am admittedly not up to date on latest/greatest hardware ... but ... I never go with any hardware that is latest/greatest, because the markup is so ridiculously high. Usually after one year or so on the market, today's latest hardware is priced between 25%-50% cheaper ... today's latest/greatest will always be obsolete within 6 months to a year, so it never makes sense to get it. If you really love something recently marketed and need to have it, you should wait 6 months to a year to get it. This applies mostly to processor and GPU, but also to mobo and other hardware.I always go with CoolerMaster brand for Case and power supply (but I am intrigued by BeQuiet now, as mentioned here). Go with a full tower and don't skimp on the case ($200 - $500 for a good one) ... it is hugely convenient to get yesterday's premium case (large fans for quiet & cool in one, handy drive bays, lots of room for processor fan and add-on drives). I use the CoolerMaster HAF, and I love it.I always go with Intel chipsets, and would opt for Asus or Gigabyte mobos (but I am not a fan of Gigabyte's CMOS software).As DY says, SSD is a no-brainer. Get one 100 GB for OS (and only OS) and at least one other 250+ GB for files, media, backup (one for each if you have the need ... ideally two each for RAID1 mirror so that you never need to worry about data loss ... there are even better RAID configs, but that gets costly with more than 2x drives per RAID config). Don't bother RAID0 with SSD.Also, go with a mobo that does not integrate sound or GPU, because both consume resources otherwise best partitioned onto independent expansion boards. This also wastes mobo real estate to allow for better things. Mobo/processor should be OC friendly, IMO.Obviously, be certain that mobo supports USB 3.0 and SATA 3.0 (unless there is better SATA now)Others can speak to the best GPU for the buck to go with right now (Nvidia versus AMD and what model for each). I would lay off SLI or CrossfireX (but not sure if they are more applicable now or better engineered for use with your software)Get a premium CPU cooler (I use the CoolerMaster V8, but there are lots of good ones). Skip water cooling unless you like dealing with potential issues with that and a lot of monkeying around.See grant's thread for power supply (I use a CoolerMaster 800W, but see above note)Corsair memory modules are good (among others; 8+ GB for gaming, 16+ GB for graphic art & big video conversion)Consider Newegg or TigerDirect (not sure how they price internationally though). Mwave is another I often check.My main specs are in my sig. HTH

Nice work on these. I am not aware of any existing guides anywhere on the web that are so comprehensive and detailed.

Probably no human moderation at all. They could only be using a text analysis app to filter for certain things (or nothing at all). Steam is pretty lax about this stuff I think.

Thanks for the info, Kate ... OT: do you have a lot of kids? (love that user name)

Thanks again for cleaning up, maintaining, and increasing relevance of this guide, Tech ;)

Toxic? Not sure about that, but it is a bit silly. Typical behavior for an internet community.

Looks like one of your mountain LOD is using the terrain texture.

This can be more specifically addressed after the software update. I personally would like to see a change as well with use of some different standard font flavors for headings as well as heading spacing (above and below). I like this blog reference and will carefully study it when setting up the site typography ... nobody is more anal about this stuff than me, and we have limitations currently because s4n set it up and I only tweaked what I thought were the major changes needed. Currently, there are subtle difs among all headings, but a bit too subtle. For now, I think it is fine, but will make it better after the update once I see what manifests then.

He said he was following the instructions explicitly, so if those details are included in those instructions, assume he is. If not, then these are details that should be added (as is anything else we glean from this use case). Clearly, there is either something jprdrizzt is missing, or there is a detail or two that could be added to the instructions. @jprdrizzt You can help by at least posting your log as requested. I would delete the log (to clean up any irrelevant output), run your explicit STEP setup via MO as instructed by the guide, and then post your fresh log output inside spoiler tags (assuming/after you get a crash). Also note any details that happen from the time you launch until the time you crash (game launches successfully or not, crashes after some point in the game, indoors/outdoors crash, no memory log output, etc.).

Thanks ... I think that I had jittering carts and wacky intro when I reduced Timescale to 10 and fixed by bumping to 12 or so.

It is also an issue caused by reducing the Timescale too much. Default Timescale is 30 (IIRC), so running a lot lower causes all kinds of havoc issues.

That's perfect then to rule out DynDOLOD being the cause of any mod-related issue, so running the procedure to generate the DynDOLOD mod using the base vanilla setup is a good test to prove that it has been properly derived and that the issue is not related to user error or DynDOLOD per se. I may just do this myself when the time comes.

DynDOLOD is entirely optional. You don't even need the mod to use STEP; however, we felt that it added/fixed a great deal of the historic LOD problems with Skyrim ... so we included it. I agree that it is an involved setup, and until I have an opportunity to implement it myself, the instructions and installation methods will likely remain tedious or difficult to follow (yes, I claim ( :P ) to be the person that is the pickiest about clear and concise instructions, so I claim to be the guy most likely to simplify the process if it can be done). Too much in RL and site maintenance lately to have dived into DynDOLOD at this point though (and I admit my addiction to Destiny:TTK at present). It could indirectly cause these problems though (as you said previously) if DynDOLOD is effectively responsible for increasing VRAM usage beyond capacity of memory management settings .... but I think it is more likely related to mod setup issues indirectly related to DynDOLOD.

@jprdrizzt Since everyone's hardware is different, it is not possible for the guide to include 'ideal' settings for memory management (e.g., SKSE, ENBoost, etc) that apply to everyone. We supply a good "best practice" baseline that may not work for all hardware, given an identical mod build. For this reason, it is important that you consider tweaking some of the memory settings if you have ruled out any setup issues. Nevertheless, it is very likely that you are dealing with setup issues rather than memory-management issues, so you should focus on DynDOLOD setup, so leave memory settings at baseline and verify DynDOLOD setup with extreme prejudice before messing with too many dials. Else you risk missing something simple and wasting a ton of time. I would want to rule that out by setting up DynDOLOD on a very minimal STEP build (or even plain vanilla if that makes sense ... not sure, as I have not even set up DynDOLOD myself yet). You know that the STEP build is OK it seems and that the issue is with DynDOLOD setup (or associated memory management), so verify that you are doing this correctly by limiting your setup to very few mods affected by DynDOLOD, generate LOD, verify success, add in mods one block at a time, generate again, verify again, and so on. If the issue is fundamental DynDOLOD setup, you will have problems with DynDOLOD even with a minimal setup. If the issue is with a particular mod, you will encounter problems whenever that mod is included in DynDOLOD. If the issue is memory management, you will encounter problems at some asset threshold, irrespective of mods involved. Takes awhile, but worth it in the end.