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I appreciate the idea of incorporating realistic textures into the game ... more importantly, in context with the surroundings. Agree with Starac's general principles and Besidilo's point about subjectivity and in-game, evidence-based compares. We all should probably back up our opinions (me included) with real evidence-based arguments according to a basic set of assumptions. Plausible-looking, realistic textures in terms of: Materials (i.e., what is it made/formed from? Prevalence in Tamriel? Natural or magical?)Colors (i.e., see previous)Surface texture (i.e., smoothness/dullness/reflection/refraction ... and reason)Blending with adjacent textures (i.e., see Starac)... to name a few off the top of my head. Furthermore, anybody has the right to like what they like for whatever reason that they like it; however, textures should be graded according to a fairly strict set of well-defined criteria to leave as much subjectivity as possible behind. We will incorporate specific criteria into our future testing regime to avoid seeming bias.

I disagree that it is misleading, because it is a fact that I get no stuttering on my system even with the 2k max overhauls and then some. It only happens when I pile on more demand, which means that the 1GB limit on my card(s) in my system is a soft threshold, so I reason that there must be something going on regarding buffers and memory management. I simply devised a plausible theory to explain it, and until an expert on this particular interaction between VRAM and system RAM can explain the reality in lay terms, I am sticking to it (although, I agree that 1.5x is probably off the mark ... 1.1x or simply "soft threshold" might be more realistic .... but still inexplicable). Exactly my point. I'd really like to get a good explanation without digressing into the conceptual barriers of theoretical physics. I'd like a simple model (which is always possible, given an expert with enough creativity to extrapolate).

I also hate mobile web browsing. Much prefer tapatalk, as you get everything sorted properly. latest posts all in one place, PM alerts, subscription alerts, etc. IOW, I don't mind vertical scrolling at all, but I hate small buttons and zooming in/out and side-scrolling. PITA

SRO should win all potential resource conflicts.

Agree, spend the price of a back of chips

Now That would be really cool

Yes, we are way off track on this, although good chili is suspect to improve SU performance ;) Go ahead and move the relevant posts to the gen discussion thread if you want. No sense keeping good chili ideas from the rest of the community :P

I don't ever use recipes (cooking for me is like a combination of art and chemistry ... I also grain brew beer, which is much more recipe and process dependent). Here is what I use as a base (all approximations). You can add any number of other things (e.g., your favorite chopped vegetables, but you will need to adjust up all spices to account for the added water): 1 lb meat (ground or diced, depending) 1 large onion (chopped any way you like) 1-2 heads of garlic (sliced, diced and/or minced) 1 28-oz can of diced plain tomatoes (use your favorite or you can use fresh, but blanch them in boiling water and skin first) 1 8-16 oz can tomato paste/sauce (depending on if you like think or thin chili) 2 cans diced chilies (preferably fire roasted, hot) 1 pablano pepper (or pick your favorite, as available) 1 16-oz can red kidney beans 2 tbsp chili powder (use McCormick or other top shelf, generic has a bunch of low-grade spices mixed in) 2 tsp cumin 1 tbsp coarse-ground black pepper salt to taste There are many variations and feel free to add other spices like oregano, coriander, cinnamon, cardamon, unsweetened bakers chocolate, etc. but do so in small amounts to taste (wait 10 min at least) and pick only ONE of these or else it is just like mixing too many colors together ... you just get brown. The real trick is preparation. It is very important to brown the meat with the onions, garlic and fresh peppers. First brown the meat on very high heat in a big pot. Make sure to mix and toss it frequently and don't simply cook it. Really brown it by slightly burning it. This adds a fantastic flavor. You will need to cook all the water out of the meat and the raw vegies before it will begin to brown. Takes about 10-15 minutes on ultra high heat with frequent tossing. Add all of your spices for the last few minutes. This high heat really brings out the spices too. Then add all of the 'wet' ingredients (it should make a lot of noise and steam) and turn the heat down to low-med. Add 1-4 cups of water (supplement with a mild beer if you like). bring it to a light simmer with the cover on and then turn it off and cool for an hour or two... leave the cover on, as this is now a sterile environment, and you could leave this for days this way without spoiling so long as the cover stays on. However, you only need to cool enough so that you can place it in the fridge overnight without warming up everything else in there. Next day, simply reheat the whole pot on low (takes about 30-60 min) and serve optionally over a small pile of rice in a bowl and add some fresh diced jalapenos or serranos and onion or brown some chees over the top in the toaster oven if you like (I don't do cheese with my chili). It should be mild to hot and it will be fantastic, I guarantee, as long as you don't accidentally drop in the salt shaker or half a jar of spice other than cumin or chili powder during prep (those two spices are the main flavor and cannot really ruin your batch if you add too much). Voila!

just need a small null-entropy chamber :P RE Bison: Bison is leaner than beef, but flavor depends on what they are eating. A July bison that has been grazing on fresh grass should taste nice, but I would prefer to compare a nice porterhouse or strip steak from each. beef usually tastes good due to the corn-fed diet. Bison tastes better to me, because I enjoy a more hearty and natural flavor, and it just tastes better to me when I know that it is environmentally friendly. A fantastic 'red' meat is actually ostrich. Much like beef tenderloin. Meat only imparts a subtle flavor to chili, so texture is what matters most for that (IMO).

Great time of year for chili.... I have mad two batches already. I like a thin sauce with lots of chunks of meat (bison is great), tomatoes, beans, onions and peppers ... lots of garlic, cumin and chillies. Served in a big bowl over a couple small scoops of Indian Basmati rice. Yum

OK, I follow you now. I updated the reference post to sync up with the BAT file. I believe that frihyland recommended that 3.1b textures were superior to 3.2 where there are conflicts; however, I suggest that you compare these conflicts using this utility to decide for yourself.

Just look at the first few lines of the BAT file and set up the folder structure likewise, or you can simply rename accordingly;)

Optimizer textures is much less powerful and adaptable than DDSopt (read through this thread some more). Also, you don't want to constrain textures to less than 1k (if I understand your question), that results in stripping out the highest mip levels and definitely affects quality (again, much info to find on this thread, so I won't go into that here). Skyrim Performance Monitor provides data on VRAM and RAM; however, I am uncertain as yet whether or not RAM = system RAM or dynamic VRAM. Again, real data is far more dependable than speculation, and my testing has revealed that it would be overly conservative to constrain dedicated VRAM to anything less than 100% of available on-card VRAM ... at least on Sandy-Bridge systems using ATI HD6xxx and up. Take a look at the performance data again and note that none of these values cause any stuttering on my 1 GB VRAM system. The data and methodology speak for themselves I think

My theoretical assessment is based on a lot of real-world testing and info submitted by others. The point is that the actual perceived threshold imposed by the GPU VRAM capacity is larger than that threshold. Whether it is closer to 1.1x or 1.5x remains to be empirically determined, preferably on a number of different systems, both single and multi-GPU. If you reference the performance data (note table footnotes to col headers), you will see the evidence of the actual memory-management behavior between dedicated and dynamic VRAM. System RAM interaction is the black box, but the data in the tables suggests that 1.1x is pretty safe, and I am stipulating that as one approaches 1.5x, stuttering will become more and more noticeable. I assume that we would see stuttering something less than half of the time 1.5x ... how much less depends upon the sophistication of VRAM/RAM memory management, which will depend on a lot of things. Theories are interesting, but only real test data provides the answers ;)

I want to say that SLI and crossfire cards have to keep copies of one anothesr VRAM, making their actual pool of VRAM resources closer to 1gb, even if they have 2gb of memory available (due to redundancy). I am not 100% sure on this... however I am confident that I have read something on the inefficiencies of SLI and Crossfire before when it comes to memory management. Some weak confirmation on this detail: https://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1331011 I am a member of the OCN forums with some 5k posts... I will do a search in their news section (I know I have read at least a couple articles on it) and post back if I can find something more concrete on the topic. I have a theory alluded to often on this and a few other threads, but I have failed to add it to the guide or to make it more visible on this thread. What you refer to is addressed by my suppositions as stated on this post (will update the OP as well)

Welcome to the community ... 1.8 introduces issues relating to the CK I believe, and many mod authors will need to update their mods. There is a thread on this in the general forums I think.

I worked with him a bit on the SMIM BAIN wizard a couple of months back, so I had not know he was out. I emphatically support fixing Windhelm meshes as well. Those muddy steps just inside the gate look like my first-grader's poster-board art project :P

Certain SRO textures will probably not fit certain of the SMIM meshes correctly. Brumbek modified his and SkyrimHD textures to fit those meshes, and he will likely release SRO versions as well in the future (I assume according to Starac's post on the SRO thread).

A lot of great content exists in the guide, but, even more so than the SIG, it needs to be better organized, marked up and condensed in order to be affective as an oft-accessed resource. I added a "Quick Start Guide" tab for the moment ...

We should update this to better follow the new STEP categorization. Meaning that we whould group many of the existing header tabs under "Extensions" or "Utilities" and update the links. In general, I think it would be good to reorganize the flow, update the links and improve the markup (leaving most of the content as is). This resource is a bit daunting as it stands regarding ease of accessing info relevant to setup and testing.

SMIM should go first by default, but I have yet to look at these particular versions together.

Go for it. I will articulate whatever you create with the WBG.

I did not know that anything Mechwarrior was still available! I used to love that game. Guess I'll have to check it out (it must still behave like a simulator though or I will not engage).

Yep, this looks like a winner, as it ties Skyrim into the larger context of Tamriel (specifically Morrowind), which is fantastic. Morrowind was definitely my favorite TES construct, so I'd love to see more of it with the enhanced graphics and physics. This and Halo 4 will be competing for all of my play time :P

Agree, this will be a Core STEP mod henceforth. Regarding this and better rocks & mountains: Does anyone know if SMIM and/or USP cover these fixes or plan to?