z929669

OK, I'll update the Nexus with the revised 2.2.8 patches (thanks!) Wait! AOS_ICS Patch.esp and AOS_DSI Patch.esp ... are still listed in the ReadMe as merged into STEP Patches, but these mods belong to AOS - Patches mod, which we removed ... AOS itself does not provide these patches ... are they even required for AOS 2.0? If not, and if we are not using AOS - Patches, these should be cleaned from the STEP Patches and the readme, no?

OK, I'll wait to scrutinize that stuff and avoid the risk of sounding like a broken record :P

Still have yet to check out any 5.xx, but planning to soon. Lots of good options that I am sure will fit most users (including me). I will mostly be looking at fires, particles, skylighting and litesprites under various lighting and weathers and interiors/exteriors, as the rest of this ENB has historically been pretty right on ;)

Thanks for this. I admittedly did not know that the armor meshes were a composite of the exposed body mesh and the armor mesh used as a total body replacement mesh ... (correct me if I have this wrong). I had always assumed that the armor/clothing meshes wrapped on top of the body mesh. It makes economical sense though that they would be a composite of the body + armor mesh ... assume that clothing behaves same? Of course, this also explains why Tech is seeing gaps/seams with CNHF and vanilla clothing/armors (if the body always supplies the hands and the armor only supplies up to the wrists). Of course, I will look at all of this myself, regardless I'll contribute at some point :P

Points taken; however, we have a lengthy thread on these forums about "memory optimizers", and clearly the idea that memory is "freed up" is a misleading concept that potentially perpetuates a whole lot of fiction. It is semantically incorrect. Better to state "memory is reallocated, effectively 'freeing up' memory tied to one process for use by another". I know that this seems persnickety and anal retentive, but information tends to be adopted in the way it is presented, and there is a rather controversial fallacy that is wrapped up in this. Again, if I am wrong, I invite an expert in this area to correct me. The important thing is to get it right and keep it so, IMHO. @keithinhanoi (& Jafin16) The ENB community desperately needs a (relatively) definitive and updated guide to ENB config. We have a decent ENB guide on the wiki, so feel free to upkeep your notes out there as an appendix or edit the article yourself (there are sections on INI configs). Otherwise, please share your WIP so that others can update that info accordingly (if the current guide needs a revamp or significant restructure, then so be it! ... Techangel and EssArrBee are the biggest contributors at present I think, but look at the page history if you want). Much of the wiki info is based on advanced-user experience and "best guess", so broad consensus is important to maintain validity of that info. It is important that we keep everything aligned and centralized.

Thank you for putting up with me :P

Thanks guys. Could you address points made in this post though? Let me know how I can help.

However, there is now a new AOS2-DLC-USKP patch that muddies the waters. Also, some of the plugins mentioned in the Patch ReadMe do not apply. This all leads to questions for which people like me (anal-retentive people) will be seeking answers. Best to address and make everything consistent and account for all of the differences. If the patches are fine, that is great, but the readme and the AOS mod install instructions need to account for the new info.

Strange that the SG normals seem to blot out that D-cup cleavage. Although I do mostly like what the SG normals are doing .... I recommend A-cup for sure. Large breasts are rare in humans of normal weight and good physical shape. I will look more closely once I get some answers about the state of the current STEP Patches. I am bringing my Core install up to current 2.2.8 and having trouble with some of our instructions that I think need to be addressed (If I am confused, surely others will also be).

Bump. What updates must be made to the STEP patches or to our installation notes?? I posted some of my issues on the Nexus mod thread. Basically, I am verifying my Core install and updating. If I am running into these issues, so are others. We should probably clarify and make this piece simpler.

@Jafin16 I am not saying you don't know what you are talking about ... I'm just a stickler for getting the facts straight, even in a simplified explanation. The most important thing is that nothing is stated that is not factually accurate. You did provide a disclamer, but people still hone in on little details and regurgitate them elsewhere (i.e., inconvenient misinformation). You mentioned that: My issues are with (experts correct me if I am wrong): "frees up system memory" - My understanding is that it does not free up any memory at all, but rather it reallocates memory. "not mirroring" - My understanding is that mirroring VRAM is inherent to D3D9, and that it cannot be stopped (or at least that ENBoost does not stop this). As I said above, my generalized understanding is that ENBoost reallocates memory from the TESV process by allocating as much GPU memory as possible into VRAM (I would think the most recently accessed info). This maximizes the use of the most efficient memory for graphics (VRAM). Once VRAM is maxed out, it is my understanding that it uses the enbhost process to hold the excess (I would think the oldest GPU memory) ... and IIRC from inspecting my own processes while running ENBoost, I think that multiple enbhost processes can exist to hold excess and prevent the 32-bit related crashes relating to the 4 GB limit of each of these processes. Based on my own interpretations, Boris does not relish posting (particularly in English), and he will often gloss over detail (or avoid it altogether) in order to avoid posting in detail. ... this is probably why he deferred to your post with his own post that you quoted above. Your simplified explanation may have been 'close enough' (my guess anyway). This is one reason why documentation on ENB is severely lacking (IMO) ... another important reason is that ENB is updated so often that doc may quickly become irrelevant or downright incorrect. This is all preferable to Boris spending a lot of time on doc that would otherwise be spent on devel (which is the case now I assume). Nevertheless, I wish he had a partner. A countryman of his own that he could explain detail to in his native tongue who could then document everything and translate it all into English. Too much to ask, I am sure, so no complaints from me! The best we can do then is to try to understand as best we can and carefully state things in posts and other communiqués so that they are reproduced by others to provide a consistent message that we hope is correct I adopt this position mostly due to my own selfishness, because I forget what info I do not continuously use over and over again :P EDIT: A good way to look at the ENBoost behavior is to use uGrids 17+ (with Sheson's patch and Stable uGrids mod).

CNHF is the only possible mesh replacer for STEP, and it looks like I am going to have to test with STEP's existing Core clothing and armor replacers. We are not going to adopt any body-specific clothing/armors. We want aMB et al. to work on all STEP bodies, so vanilla-body compat is key (unless every clothing and armor mod under STEP offers a CNHF version where needed ... or we modify them ourselves). I will figure something out and propose a solution to all of this in the next week or two (or three or four). If anyone else wants to do some testing, this is what I have in mind (using XP32 skeleton; need to look at different races as well): Examine pure vanilla female meshes/textures under STEP:Core (i.e., get rid of all female body mods): nude clothing (I'll pick a few different outfits to test) armor (I'll test as many armors as possible)Examine current female STEP:Core body as previous (i.e., with all female body mods currently in STEP:Core) Examine CNHF 2.5 female body under STEP:Core under both scenarios above and under Mature Skin and possible other texture options.I'll need to create my first female character (no, I have never created a female char in all my years of playing TES games) under various races for testing. This will take me a very long time without help, so if you want to help, then jump in. Be warned though that I am methodical, and I won't include others' contributions unless they follow same methodology (i.e., I will just do it over myself). I will start with a Nord female, so maybe others could pick a different humanoid race. There is always the chance that I will see a different path as I go and change all of the rules though, so I could just be full of crap in the end :P

AOS now seems to have several redundant patches that make installation pretty confusing. Out instructions also are no longer 100% applicable. I need help to rectify: What are the differences among the following (?): AOS - DLC PatchAOS - USKP PatchAOS - DLC + USKP PatchBy the nomenclature only, it would seem that we should be recommending the last one, but we are recommending the first instead ... why not the second one? Also, the STEP Patches mention the AOS_ICS patch ... what is that ??

Aren't the STEP Patches out of date right now, given updates to AOS and GDO? Also, the AOS installation instructions are off as well. Once I get clarification on status, I can help getting all of the resources updated. The following (from the Patch ReadMe) include at least one plugin mention that does not seem to exist (??): >>CORE PATCH USERS: All patches from STEP Core 2.2.8 were merged into this patch, those patches are listed below: - StaticMeshImprovementMod-FurnitureChestSnowFix.esp - StaticMeshImprovementMod-DragonbornTernFix.esp - WeaponArmorFixes_ambSkyforge_Patch.esp - WeaponArmorFixes_GuardDialogueOverhaul_Patch.esp - DiversePriests_ConsistentOlderPeoplePatch.esp - AOS_USKP patch.esp - AOS-WAF Patch.esp - AOS-GDO Patch.esp - AOS_ICS Patch.esp - AOS_ADS Patch.esp - AOS_RealisticWater2 patch.esp *If these patches were downloaded and installed either untick them or uninstall them. >>EXTENDED PATCH USERS: All patches from STEP Extended 2.2.8 were merged into this patch, those patches are listed below: - StaticMeshImprovementMod-FurnitureChestSnowFix.esp - StaticMeshImprovementMod-DragonbornTernFix.esp - WeaponArmorFixes_ambSkyforge_Patch.esp - WeaponArmorFixes_GuardDialogueOverhaul_Patch.esp - DiversePriests_ConsistentOlderPeoplePatch.esp - DiversePriests_BringOutYourDeadPatch.esp - BetterQuestObjectives-NECPatch.esp - BetterQuestObjectives-PaarDilemmaPatch.esp - BetterQuestObjectives-DBForevertoMisc.esp - BetterQuestObjectives-AMBSkyforgePatch.esp - BetterQuestObjectives-TheChoiceIsYoursPatch.esp - AOS_USKP patch.esp - AOS-WAF Patch.esp - AOS-GDO Patch.esp - AOS_BlockSparkles Patch.esp - AOS_EBT Patch.esp - AOS_DSI Patch.esp - AOS_WetandCold Patch.esp - AOS_RealisticWater2 patch.esp - Enhanced Blood Textures - Improved Comabat Sounds.esp I also recommend that all tabs in the ReadMes be removed and replaced with spaces. Display accross various text editors is really messed up due to differences in treatment of tabs both inherent to the various apps and due to user changes. Spaces do not suffer these display issues.

@keithinhanoi I see that you are giving ENB settings some focused attention and that you are writing up a guide of sorts on this. Are you using the wiki for this? If not, I encourage you to do so, and I will use that as a resource for our guide. As little as one month ago, I was pretty versed in my understanding of ENBoost and the way it manages memory, but I lose all info that I do not regularly recall on almost a daily basis ... been taking a break from Skyrim stuff lately. As I recall, ENBoost parses TESV.exe allocated memory onto the enbhost.exe process, effectively obviating the 32-bit process cap and preventing the crash. At the same time, ENBoost ensures that this is done only after utilizing all D3D9-related VRAM capacity ... ultimately, this post (the Jafin16 quote) does not jive with me and seems to convey some misinformation (although it may effectively be correct), but I cannot address with convenience at this time. Perhaps you can? IIRC, ENBoost does not stop D3D9 mirroring of VRAM to sys RAM, nor does it 'reduce' utilized sys RAM ... it just ensures that all game memory has a valid place to 'live' in the most efficient manner for use with video rendering ... ? EDIT: Oh, and VSyncSkipNumFrames=0 (use all back-buffer frames) was mentioned above for some reason and was not addressed ... leave this at zero if using EnableVSync=true (as recommended by STEP). Changing to one or greater will most likely cause a strobe effect. AFAIK, this setting theoretically allows certain configs to better sync the video memory back buffers (vsync) based upon frame rates "wanting to be" consistently greater than monitor refresh rates (i.e., the GPU efficiency), which is pretty rare for fully modded setups on even very powerful systems. I am not sure if it works for anyone, but I assume that this might be helpful for VERY powerful video cards running with vsync (and 60 Hz monitor refresh rates).

Ideally, we don't want specialized female armors. We want to use vanilla compatible armors and clothing. (see previous post)

We need to test CNHF 2.5 under current STEP for starters, noting any incompat with armor/clothing clipping. Then we will need to test CNHF 2.5 with texture replacers like Mature Skin and others to determine which do and do not have seams. Where texture seams or mesh clipping are present, we need to identify the mods that are conflicting with CNHF 2.5 meshes or Mature Skin (et al.) replacement skin textures and ... ... determine if these mods have any compatibility options for CNHF 2.5 or Mature Skin (et al.) as applicable.If no compat 'fixes' are available for existing mods, or if solutions result in the installation of more mods to alleviate compat issues, then we are at a roadblock and will need to create one patch for STEP that we host on the Nexus. This is the simple solution that adds the least amount of complexity to the STEP installation, and addition of a single female body replacer should not complicate the installation more than that, or we have to ditch the whole idea.

Woops, you are correct. I thought the max quotes per post also defined max nested quotes per post (for which there seems to be no ability to set explicitly, which is rather limiting). Since there seems to be no way to limit the number of nested quotes, I turned off that quote nesting functionality and raised the number of max quotes/post to 12, which should resolve all issues other than multiposting with quoted posts that sum to a total number of quotes in excess of 12. For example, if you quote a post containing 8 quotes and then post to same thread within 5 minutes, quoting another post containing 5 or more quotes, then you will trigger the error (which only displays in "full edit mode", but simply fails without error in "basic edit mode"). There is no quote nesting functionality now, which was the case before I change anything, so I effectively only added 4 additional quotes per post and reduced the double-post merge time from 10 to 5 minutes .... whew!

I have to admit that CNHF is the most realistic, correct (and appealing) of them all. If we can get a recipe for proper, seamless, vanilla-cloting-compatible config, then that is what we should go for in STEP. CNHF also has believable underwear.

Dimonized is same base as UNPB, I think. Probably best to apply full Mature Skin to each mesh base as prescribed by that mod if possible.

Mature Skin produces seams? If so, which mesh bases? Does Mature Skin have options for any/all of these mesh bases? Are seams apparent in the configs that Mature Skin is built for?

I was able to reproduce the error on a test thread I created. Since automerge is a valid function (not neccssary to use the horizontal rule element, IMO), we do need to allow multiquotes. The current quote limit has been increased to 4 (from one), and the automerge time has been decreased to 5 minutes (necessary to prevent thread spamming). Anyone that hits the quote limit with these settings probably deserves it!

We do not want excessive nested quotes. One is the max s4n prefers, but I was willing to go to two deep, which is what it is right now. Adding the [ hr ] tag is not possible in the GUI for automerge. I'd have to look into modifying the template for that.

Just tested and you are correct. I was unaware of this. I'll redo the shots for each in Core rather than vanilla and this time have XPMS and FNIS active in all. It might be a day or so. Would you like me to go ahead and use a 3rd party skin just for testing so the skin matches on each? Yes, I think the mature Skin would be best if that works for all.

Did this happen prior to allowing multiquotes? (I never noticed but also never tested explicitly) Merging posts is a nice feature I think, so would rather disable multiquotes again.