Pre-Install Question

[twiztedmongoloid]

yeah i dont know where you are in the guide but it will most definitely have you over your VRAM limit no matter what you do. 

 

I am reinstalling and just finished the vanilla item retextures and tweaks section. 

 

Again i reduced texture sizes wherever possible (all 1k for landscape and most clutter) - (2k -1k for clothes and armor) and i just tested with SPM and my VRAM peaked around 2900 and averaged 2400 or so. 

 

Again thats with optimized textures and choosing 1k instead of 2k

 

Your best bet is to just use the guides as a guideline and or reference and pick and choose what you want to lighten VRAM load. 

 

From my testing so far BY FAR the mod with the biggest VRAM hit is skyrim flora overhaul.

 

It increased my VRAM usage by around 400mb. 

Edited September 5, 2016 by twiztedmongoloid

[richardo11]

My advice will be, NO-no to any 2k texture, as told above, just it is nice and improves the game a lot, but 1K also does it, SMIM i believe is quite demanding too and depend which post you read, any Parallax is quite demanding too.

 

With a 2G video card you can improve quite a lot the basic Skyrim, really, a lot. One of what can be a thing to keep an eye on, is at the number of mods loaded. This guide is probably too much for it.

 

You have the core STEP 2.2.9.2, I think it wold a very good point to start for you, and after see if you can load (surely than yes) some other packs, like STEP Extended or survival pack (but do not load 2k textures), you video card can surely take it, and CPU wise, you are well served with that 6700.

 

My first advice would be to invest in a SSD drive for the game. Also seems that the game runs better in Windows 7, make a dual boot and play Skyrim in windows 7

[Badfrog88]

OK. I will look into core STEP 2.2.9.2.  

 

Is is still possible to get Windows 7? That is something I would be willing to consider and I will research the dual boot today. I'll also check into getting an SSD.  How large does it need to be? I'm not a heavy gamer, I only have Skyrim now, and I played EVE Online last year.

 

What about ENB?  Does that cause a large VRAM hit?  I may have done something wrong when I installed that, as it is running when I tried running Skyrim Vanilla from Steam.

[paul666root]

I only have 2 256gb SSD. No additional hdds and its enough for me

[twiztedmongoloid]

I only have one 240gb SSD. If skyrim is all you play and have installed it will be fine. Depending on how many mods you install you can even have 2-3 other games installed as well. 

 

Its really all user dependant. Everyone has different uses for their PC. I dont store pictures or videos or have any other games installed at the moment so space isnt a concern for me. 

 

If you have the disc rolling back to windows 7 is easy. Just ignore the forced update to windows 10. 

 

To really benefit from windows 7 tho you need a card with 4GB or more of VRAM. Otherwise its a waste of time. You wont notice the difference. 

[Badfrog88]

OK.  I bit the bullet and ordered a Samgsung 850 EVO 250 GB SSD and an EVGA GeForce GTX 970 with 4GB GDDR5.  

 

I don't have a Windows 7 disk, so I think I'll just stick with Window 10. This is a fairly new PC, but it wasn't purchased with gaming in mind.  I've already replaced the power supply because the original didn't have enough power cables. 

 

I'm guessing it would be best to wait until I get the new hardware installed before I attempt a new install?  I'm tempted to try just the STEP Core while I wait to see what happens and give me some more experience with installing mods. When I get the SSD, I'm planning on doing a clean install with it anyway rather than try to migrate the data from one drive to another.

 

I really appreciate the help that has been offered so far. 

[paul666root]

if you dont own a video card that has more than 4gb vram switching to windows 7 is pointless. When i had the 4gb card i had windows 10 and felt no difference switching to 7. This is only needed for more hat 4gb

Edited September 5, 2016 by paul666root