MontyMM

Not too sure about the situation with Skyfalls. I just remember the original problems in RWT because of all the fun and games we had with floating waterfalls, or, as people who refused to read the mod notes liked to call them, "random floating water dragons". :P

I believe uninstalling WATER should not be much of a risk. The original Realistic Water did make a number of cell changes, which left problems when it was uninstalled - the dreaded floating waterfalls. AFAIK, there are no such problems in WATER, though I've no idea about RWT2.

I think we know enough to settle on Vanilla HD as a reasonable choice for core. It's good that we're getting more key pieces locked in.

Well, it is necessarily the case that every single piece of software we install has the potential to be malicious. Just about any sinister scenario you care to dream up is a possibility. The only question is how much information we have to make a rational decision on whether or not to trust it. My position is that downloading a binary file from a mediafire link with virtually no information about its background is simply never an acceptable risk or a smart decision. Having more information, in itself, does not and cannot have any bearing on whether the software is actually a threat, but is does start to raise the probability of whether it is rational to trust it from zero. Though, if it's hosted on LL, perhaps not so much.

No, not at all at this stage, and there's no guarantee that he'll be successful. Arthmoor is very knowledgeable about TES modding, but I don't think he's a great expert in programming, and he just hates ugrids. :P But what Altimor is trying to do makes sense, and he knows what he's talking about. Now, it's entirely possible that Arthmoor is correct, and there are just so many issues that will arise from messing with ugrids that he'll never get a stable result. But what interests me more is that by examining ugrids crashes, he seems to be learning about fundamental issues in the threading and loading behaviour of the engine, particularly ILS, which may be significant to all of us. So, to call it a placebo (as in, it does nothing, but claims it does) is wrong. To say that his approach won't be successful in stabilizing ugrids - quite possibly. But there is a chance, that I think is worth crossing fingers for, that he might be able to address some glaring problems with the engine behaviour along the way, as Boris has done with ENBboost. Again, we don't have enough data yet to know if ENBboost introduces problems along with the fixes, but its ability to change the engine's memory use is beyond doubt.

Altimor is also still working on his SKSE dll injection method to address the thread loading problems - it's a similar approach to what Boris uses to change the engine behaviour.

Just a note that may be relevant - I know that Altimor believes that ILS is linked to poor threading during cell loading, and particularly when loading very large amounts of data.

Have you tried Immersive Spells & Light? https://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/39759/?

TBH, no - I'm not personally very interested in this app, and I find LL a rather creepy place, and would rather not go there ;) But, I see no good reason to object to a link to this app, and people can make up their own minds. It was a just a random mediafire link that I thought should be a security concern. EDIT: When I say "creepy", that is perhaps not a clear enough warning. Here is fairly strong NSFW example of something on their front page. Many people will want to avoid it. And this is far from the most extreme example. If you venture there, you may want to scrub your browser afterwards!

Thanks for that. What you say is right - knowing where a binary comes from by no means makes it magically any safer. But the decision to download a random binary from a totally unknown source, is different than the decision to download a binary from a known forum where its use is being openly discussed. The former I would say should always be rejected, whereas the latter might be a perfectly reasonable choice.

Also agree.

Agreed.

Agreed.

Agreed with regard to Core. I know TPC has always picked out a few choice textures, and that certainly seems like fair game for packs, but not Core.

Could you please provide a link to some information about the background to this? I've removed the download link for now, because I don't think it's a great idea for people to download executables from unknown sources, without some context. No offence - hope you understand! ;)

No problem. I'm sure we can sort things out. Just locking this thread for a while, so we can all chill out.

I'd encourage the rest of the team who might feel the urge to respond not to do, and just let this go away.

My repudiation of memory optimizers was because grand claims were made about solving Skyrim's memory problems, which were perhaps the most pressing question for STEP at that time. To characterize a serious investigation into the truth about this matter as a 'vendetta' does not make much sense. STEP is in the business of analyzing and criticizing things, and then recommending or not recommending them. That's all. You have praised us in this work, and were very keen to join the team. We do our best to dig down to the facts in an impartial way. When you find your own work being criticized, and on the wrong side of the argument and the evidence, suddenly we become a wretched conspiracy. You will find that I support the work of Boris, of Altimor, and that I try to leave encouraging comments for the many projects I follow. Why would I single you out for persecution? I haven't. I simply do not believe the advice in your guide is good. I believe that your claims are too grand, and that the BIOS changes, "memory optimization", registry "cleaning", and other tweaks you propose are simply a bad idea. That's all I'm saying. You continue to insinuate various ad hominem arguments against me and STEP in general. I do not think you are helping your case with your current line of over-reaching and slightly hysterical arguments.

Let's just hold our horses for a second here - I'm getting a bit weary of you acting like the aggrieved party. In all of our disagreements, I have not attacked you personally, only your arguments and recommendations. That, I think, is fairly reasonable and proper behaviour on a technical forum that specifically encourages rigorous debate. I did not accuse you of being lazy, or dishonest, or anything else of that sort. You however, have accused me of hate speech, hypocrisy, and waging a personal vendetta, and that's just on this page! My admin position on this forum neither works for or against me - it is irrelevant in these types of conversation, and I treat it as such. The rest of it, about intelligent apes, glasses of water, and the inherent evil of things, I do not feel properly qualified to address. My opinion on the problems in your guide is as relevant or irrelevant as people choose to make it. If you consider it irrelevant, perhaps you could safely ignore it, and stop using this forum to accuse me of various crimes?

I really don't know why you're dredging up debates I had years ago as relevant to this discussion. In any case, I'm not engaging in hypocrisy with respect to the argument you reference. An "Argument from Authority" does not mean any argument from a person who happens to be in a position of authority (and being a forum admin hardly gives me delusions of being that! :P ) It is a specific form of fallacious argument that says, "I am a great authority on this, for whatever reason, therefore my argument is more valid". That is fallacious because simply asserting your own estimation of how right your argument is likely to be is not logically very convincing! That is what Starac was doing, and what I was taking issue with. I do not believe I have ever made any argument that relies on appeals to my own authority, against you or anyone else on here - I simply give my opinions and try to back them up with evidence and argument. As to the rest of it, well I too have no interest in going through it all with a fine-tooth comb, and I am quite content to just offer my advice and let everyone make their own minds. I can say though, that while anyone using an advanced mod guide like STEP obviously takes the risk of messing up their Skyrim game, there are suggestions in your guide that could cause the significant problems to a user's entire Windows setup, and I consider them an unjustified and unwarranted risk.

To repeat myself, I said: Cleanmem doesn't do what it claims and creates misleading memory readings.ENBboost is genuine and does work.This guide contains several recommendations that I do not agree with, and could cause you significant problems.I stand by all of those statements, which in are line with what I said in the original discussion. I really don't see this as "jumping aboard the hate boat", nor do I see much in the way of hate speech preceding it. There is nothing aggressive or "dishonourable" about criticizing technical solutions, and offering clear arguments against them. I do not personally recommend your guide, and some elements of it could certainly cause problems. I only noticed some of these after the original discussion, which gave me reason to mention this when the thread was raised again. STEP is founded upon open and critical discussion, which does occasionally upset those whose work is criticized. But STEP simply couldn't function any other way, which I think is self-evident.  If you feel the need to remove links to STEP from your guide, we will probably have to live with that as the price of our speech.

I've started a wiki page to show some testing results. It's not linked to from the main wiki at this stage. I forgot to add the VRAM measurements to go with these tests, which would also be interesting. I'll add to it in due course. https://wiki.step-project.com/ENBboost_Testing

Yes - and in fact there is a slight performance penalty when running 32bit apps (including almost all games) on Win64, since it has emulate 32bit, at a slight overhead.

I have to agree - particularly given that these structures are partially destroyed anyway, I have a hard time with the reasoning that justifies their continued existence slap-bang in the middle of cities. A few remnants in the wilderness, maybe.

Excellent news. Thanks again for the continuing work on this - I think the distant waterfalls were the very first thing I wanted fixed when I loaded up Skyrim, and a fix we finally have!