A Few Pre-install Q's

[Oeolycos]

Hello all, I'm new to S.T.E.P./SR:LE but have been playing Skyrim on and off since release. I am fairly knowledgeable regarding installation and use of mods (WryeBash, merging, TES5Edit etc.)  but I have a few questions before installing SR:LE. I have read the guide, downloaded all the mods and am just waiting for a new power supply before starting, meanwhile...

 

1. Harware:

 

AMD FX8350 4.0GHz

Asus GeForce 770 OC 2GB

8GB DDR3-1866MHz (CL9)

non-SSD HD (7200, 16MB)

1680x1050 resolution (16:10)

Win7-x64 on separate SSD

 

Not the best but I think it's adequate, any opinions regarding how it will run? I will initially install 2K/1K textures where available and will choose 1K when only straight 2K are available. If it runs smoothly I will selectively upgrade them later. Also I will take it easy with DynDOLOD and ramp-up quality if possible. I might use ENB to letterbox down to 16:9, this should save a bit on rendering (and better suit my preferred FOV).

 

2. Videos:

 

Are there any videos (YouTube, whatever) available? The only I've seen have been a 36 part (so far) install series that the fellow has been working on for six months (ugh!), he's half-way through and there is no gameplay so far. I would like to check-out the visuals/mechanics, although I'm going to install regardless and am familiar with the major mods. Any links? Searching returns too many results where the "revisited" is referring to the author "revisiting" Skyrim, not to SR:LE.

 

3. Conflict Resolution:

 

I'm a bit fuzzy on this area, having never really done it. I've created TES5 merged ESPs but I'm not sure if this is the same thing. There's a video linked to frequently around here but it's only related to the TES5Merged patch. If I use the prepared conflict resolution patch can I safely avoid learning more about this area? I'd really like to learn, it's not that I'm lazy, however I am color blind and it's a nightmare to differentiate between the red/green text (LOL).

 

4. Thanks:

 

I want to thank the STEP community in general and Neovalen specifically for his SR:LE guide, it is nothing short of superlative.  Really very top-grade stuff here.

 

Cheers for any help, input or comments! :-)

Edited April 27, 2016 by Oeolycos

[hishutup]

 

AMD FX8350 4.0GHz

Asus GeForce 770 OC,

8GB DDR3-1866MHz (CL9)

non-SSD HD (7200, 16MB)

I was privately helping out a friend and found that the AMD proc really limits the game. Id recommend just be conservative with mods that add a bunch of objects in the game like ETaC, JK skyrim, landscape overhauls, etc

 

2. I have no idea what you want, everyone has different tastes.

 

As for 3.

Conflict resolution can be a number of different things and is why I really hate the term "conflict" as it doesnt convey anything other than "a potential issue." Even though, most of the time its not an issue but just inconsistencies in the game.

 

1. Record forwarding: Just click and drag all the elements in a record forward so that you can have the lighting from on mod, the sound from another and all while keeping USLEEP edits forward. Very easy to do by hand but can be time consuming. This is best to leave to a patcher like smash or wrye bash. Smash will be the best patcher after it is fully featured. 
2. Actual conflict resolution: This is where you need to get in the heads of the authors of two mods and combine the effects so that they share similar traits this is usually tedious, confusing and is quite rare. This type is usually hard to script and takes a long time to find an equation that comes out with accurate results.
3. Patching: Applying an effect from one mod to cover another. This is usually and time consuming. An example of this would be patching Morrowloot to Lore Friendly Weapons by editing LFW leveled lists to fit Morrowloots mechanics. Something like this is best to just script, kinda like what I did with Vivid Snow.

 

Thankfully, one only really has to do record forwarding.

[Oeolycos]

Great, thanks for the quick reply and useful info!

 

Regarding the CPU, yeah I'm not happy with it but had to buy a new one on the cheap - I am typically an Intel guy but my budget was limited. I will follow your advice and limit new objects mods, I've done enough modding in the past to know which are the real pigs. Good to know up-front that my CPU will be struggling, I was more worried about the GPU to be honest.

 

As far as videos, yes tastes vary but I have yet to find a single video showcasing SR:LE (okay, there was a 2min long preview). Considering the proliferation of Skyrim vids on YouTube I found this surprising, am I missing an obvious link somewhere? I saw the jpeg previews linked in this forum and they look great so I'm not worried, just curious.

 

Okay I should be fine with "conflict resolution" then, if it's mostly limited to record forwarding. Your explanation is more clear than any other I've been able to find, thanks for that."Time-consuming" doesn't bother me (I'm retired), just the colors in TES5Edit are problematic. Regarding "Smash" are you referring to Mator Smash? Some places my Wrye Bash install is called Wrye Smash so not sure which you mean... I've never tried Mator but don't mind early/beta software - is it recommended to switch yet?

 

Cheers!

Edited April 28, 2016 by Oeolycos

[hishutup]

 

Regarding the CPU, yeah I'm not happy with it but had to buy a new one on the cheap - I am typically an Intel guy but my budget was limited. I will follow your advice and limit new objects mods, I've done enough modding in the past to know which are the real pigs. Good to know up-front that my CPU will be struggling, I was more worried about the GPU to be honest.

 

To be honest, the cpu will probably perform just as good as the 770. If you have 2GB Vram I'd max out at 1k and 2k special items(mountains, dragonbones, etc)

 

 

 

As far as videos, yes tastes vary but I have yet to find a single video showcasing SR:LE (okay, there was a 2min long preview). Considering the proliferation of Skyrim vids on YouTube I found this surprising, am I missing an obvious link somewhere? I saw the jpeg previews linked in this forum and they look great so I'm not worried, just curious.

Eh, if you are curious just install SRO followed by Vivid Landscapes AIO and lastly SFO. That will give you a general idea as for videos, SRLE is still quiet unique as it isnt considered a standard. So specific videos are rare unless some made one just for you. I dont have a full install of SRLE or I would let you view it through steam. 

 

 

 

Okay I should be fine with "conflict resolution" then, if it's mostly limited to record forwarding. Your explanation is more clear than any other I've been able to find, thanks for that."Time-consuming" doesn't bother me (I'm retired), just the colors in TES5Edit are problematic.

Eh, it can still be overwhelming. Since you are color blind you may have to single out each type of conflict using xEdit's filter. Heres a vid that shows where its at and what it can do, also has my recomented settings. It may not be helpful though but you could connect the results with the colors by referencing the xEdit Guide

 

 

 

Regarding "Smash" are you referring to Mator Smash?

Indeed I am.

 

 

Some places my Wrye Bash install is called Wrye Smash so not sure which you mean... I've never tried Mator but don't mind early/beta software - is it recommended to switch yet?

Wrye Smash is the fallout fork.

The is one particular bug that make things a little confusing when you don't know it is missing. It the one about missing nodes or something rather.

[Oeolycos]

 

To be honest, the cpu will probably perform just as good as the 770. If you have 2GB Vram I'd max out at 1k and 2k special items(mountains, dragonbones, etc)

That sounds fine, about what I expected and was planning for. I realize I won't get a top-of-the-line experience but am okay with that. I'll start small and replace with 2k piecemeal after I get an idea of my frame rate. I'm not a stickler for 60fps or anything, I'm happy with ~40 or so.

 

 

Eh, if you are curious just install SRO followed by Vivid Landscapes AIO and lastly SFO. That will give you a general idea as for videos, SRLE is still quiet unique as it isnt considered a standard. So specific videos are rare unless some made one just for you. I dont have a full install of SRLE or I would let you view it through steam.

About what I thought, SR:LE seems more of a "specialty" collection for the serious player, which is what attracted me to it. I assume people are too busy either enjoying their setup or perfecting the collection to bother with screen-archery. ;-) Can't install those mods at the moment as I'm waiting for a new power supply for my gaming computer, just limping along with low-res Skyrim on my laptop until it arrives. I can wait.

 

 

Eh, it can still be overwhelming. Since you are color blind you may have to single out each type of conflict using xEdit's filter. Heres a vid that shows where its at and what it can do, also has my recomented settings. It may not be helpful though but you could connect the results with the colors by referencing the xEdit Guide

Well, truthfully I can differentiate between them but it requires squinting and putting my face up to the monitor, while constantly looking back-and-forth between the red and green. It's doable, just a total PITA that I prefer to avoid as much as possible. I'll check those links, thanks, I do need to put in more time with these tools. Just wish I could re-map text colors :sigh: :-D I am well-accustomed to tedious modding of this sort, I did a big mod for Europa Universalis 3 that was all script and text dissection. Different from this but not beyond my abilities, just something I'd rather avoid if the supplied "conflict resolution" patch is sufficient.

 

 

Wrye Smash is the fallout fork.

The is one particular bug that make things a little confusing when you don't know it is missing. It the one about missing nodes or something rather.

Ah I see, never been really clear on that. I'll start pouring through the post for Mator, seems like a great tool at first glance. Are folks replacing Wrye with it yet? I suppose I'll find out after reading further.

 

Cheers and thanks again for the input, it is much appreciated.

Edited April 28, 2016 by Oeolycos

[RonHiler]

2. Videos:

 

Are there any videos (YouTube, whatever) available? The only I've seen have been a 36 part (so far) install series that the fellow has been working on for six months (ugh!), he's half-way through and there is no gameplay so far. I would like to check-out the visuals/mechanics, although I'm going to install regardless and am familiar with the major mods. Any links? Searching returns too many results where the "revisited" is referring to the author "revisiting" Skyrim, not to SR:LE.

 

I suppose you are referring to my series. It was started in mid December, so actually it's only 4 months old. And I'm well over halfway. I hope to finish up in about a month (I only do two 20-ish minute episodes per week). Currently I'm a the end of section 4.8 (out of 4.12), and I expect to blow through section 5 pretty quickly.

 

At the end of each episode I do fire up the game and show the results (as much as I can) of the installed mods for that episode. So it's not like it's totally without gameplay results. Not gameplay as such, but at least you get to see what changed.

 

When the series is complete, it is my intent to begin a "Let's Play" of Skyrim using that installation, so you will eventually have quite a lot of gameplay vid to check out, albiet not for a while yet.

 

Sorry if my style is not to your taste. You can't please everyone :) I don't know you will find what you are looking for though. Any video that tries to compress an installation down into a single one hour video would be useless (in my opinion). True, mine do go pretty slow (they are really geared toward the total newbie), and maybe your looking for something that goes a bit faster? There are some more "official" videos that exist, but they're more just overviews rather than installation guides. Maybe that's what you're after? I can try to track down the links (if someone hasn't already provided them for you).

[Oeolycos]

I suppose you are referring to my series. It was started in mid December, so actually it's only 4 months old. And I'm well over halfway. I hope to finish up in about a month (I only do two 20-ish minute episodes per week). Currently I'm a the end of section 4.8 (out of 4.12), and I expect to blow through section 5 pretty quickly.

 

At the end of each episode I do fire up the game and show the results (as much as I can) of the installed mods for that episode. So it's not like it's totally without gameplay results. Not gameplay as such, but at least you get to see what changed.

 

When the series is complete, it is my intent to begin a "Let's Play" of Skyrim using that installation, so you will eventually have quite a lot of gameplay vid to check out, albiet not for a while yet.

 

Sorry if my style is not to your taste. You can't please everyone :) I don't know you will find what you are looking for though. Any video that tries to compress an installation down into a single one hour video would be useless (in my opinion). True, mine do go pretty slow (they are really geared toward the total newbie), and maybe your looking for something that goes a bit faster? There are some more "official" videos that exist, but they're more just overviews rather than installation guides. Maybe that's what you're after? I can try to track down the links (if someone hasn't already provided them for you).

LOL, okay Ron, thanks for the reply. I find your videos very thorough, just a bit long if one is looking for gameplay samples of a _completed_ installation. It was not my intention to slag your efforts... yes I was looking for (as noted) visuals and mechanics videos, _not_ how-to guides. No need for the links thanks, I will have my install done shortly and see for myself.

Edited May 1, 2016 by Oeolycos

[RonHiler]

It's all good :)  Not really what you were after, I get that.

 

Just as well you didn't want links. The vids I were thinking of were STEP vids, not SR:LE. You may be right, there might not be any "Finished Product" style vids out there. Which is odd. You'd think someone would have posted some, even just gameplay vids. Mine will be there eventually when I start my Let's Play, but yeah, that's still a good month off before those even begin (and even then, I won't have a fully vanilla SR:LE, I'm going to install LOTD and SkyComplete over the top of SR:LE).

 

Anyway, good luck with your install. Be vigilant with the "Optionals" stuff. For whatever reason, I've personally found those are easy to miss when you are cruising through an install.

[rolltide78]

Ron,

 

I built SRLE after watching your vids and following the guide.  However, I'm stuck around 25-45 fps outdoors and 60+ indoors at 1440p/980ti.    I've been hearing from some to switch from Windows 10 back to Windows 7.  I'm thinking of dual booting.  What do you think?  If I was consistently 40+ outdoors that'd be great but 50% of the time it seems less than 45.    I've done the two low FPS options at the bottom of the guide as well as tried 1080p to not much benefit. 

 

Thanks,

Gary

[RonHiler]

Switching to Win7 will help only under a specific circumstance, satisfied by two conditionals:

 

A) You must have >4GB VRAM (e.g. a gtx 1070 or 1080, or a titan, or something along those lines).

B) You must be hitting the 4GB VRAM limit (you can check this using SPM while going outdoors. If the graph is pegging at 4GB, you are hitting the texture limit).

 

If those both apply to you (they did to me), then yeah, switching to Win7 will allow you to use that VRAM that isn't currently being used under Win10, and will help your framerates.

 

[Note: You can also try dropping the texture sizes down a notch or two, e.g. use 2K instead of 4K textures, or use 1K instead of 2K, until you see that graph come down in the SPM below 4GB].

 

However, I have to stress, BOTH those things have to be true in order for Win7 to help you. If your video card has 4GB (or less) of memory, you aren't going to gain anything, you have already maxxed out the VRAM anyway. And if you are not hitting 4GB to begin with, then Win10 is not your problem (likely you are CPU bound).

Edited August 19, 2016 by RonHiler

[paul666root]

A) You must have >4GB VRAM (e.g. a gtx 1070 or 1080, or a titan, or something along those lines).

 

His 980ti also has 6gb vram. Not only 10 class.

 

Edit: anyway not only reaching the 4gb limit can make your fps drop. Can also be some unoptimized textures or even some lights from ele caused problems.

Edited August 19, 2016 by paul666root

[RonHiler]

His 980ti also has 6gb vram. Not only 10 class.

 

Edit: anyway not only reaching the 4gb limit can make your fps drop. Can also be some unoptimized textures or even some lights from ele caused problems.

Okay, so cool, he's got at least one of the two, now he just needs to determine if he's really hitting the limit.

 

And yeah, I'm aware there are other potential factors involved that could drop FPS. Trying to run a heavily modded skyrim at 1440p is probably gonna strain even the hardiest of graphics cards. That's the sort of thing the SPM will tell you (are you hitting 100% CPU or 100% GPU, RAM, etc).

 

From personal experience though I can tell you, hitting that 4GB limit is a big deal. Once you start swapping textures across the BUS every single frame just to render what you are looking at, your FPS will drop like a rock. I had CPU load at 30%, my two GPUs were sitting at 25% or so, my RAM and disk usage were fine, but I was hitting my VRAM limit (at the time, 3.5GB as I had a pair of gtx970s) and getting 25FPS in places, sometimes lower (1080p). So if your frame rate is low, that's the first thing I'd check and fix (if needed).

 

I've since replaced them with a gtx1070 (just one as I've decided SLI is a waste of money, hehe), and while I'm still locked at 4GB (because I don't want to dual boot to Win7) I'm am working on dropping the textures, and I'm getting notable increases in Frame Rate outdoors. I'm pretty sure if I can get it to just below that 4GB level, I ought to be hitting pretty optimal frame rates across the board (barring any issues as you point out like errant lighting or unoptimized textures, but those ought to be limited to specific locations I would think, right?).

[rolltide78]

Thanks all.   I found a 500 gb sata so in the process of just going ahead with the dualboot.   When I check the CPUs when playing they don't seem maxed out at all and I haven't checked SPM.  I figured what the heck.  

[rolltide78]

Apparently the drive had issues so I went forward with the SMP.  It doesn't appear that I am over 4gb ever but do get close a few times (3.9).  CPU and GPU seem ok as well.  Here are some 1080p and 1440p screens around Whiterun and Riverwood.  https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B63V-a1S8NAbNGtUdXhMVm03dW8 

[rolltide78]

I uploaded my geforce control panel settings, .inis, and mod organizer info here.  Disregard the one above.  If you guys don't mind taking a look to help me pinpoint an issue I'd greatly appreciate it.   Thanks.  Gary   

Edited August 20, 2016 by rolltide78