Skyrim Revisited Pre-Release Feedback

[Wanderer]

RLO updated... :)

[statmonster]

When I used Another Life to start at Breezehome and left Whiterun I noticed the giant was lying dead on the ground in the farm and the Companions were nowhere to be seen. Is this an error with Alternate Start - Live Another Life when you start at Breezehome?

 

CTD when running up the road to the Ritual stone as it curves right after going up the hill from the bridge. (I assume this is the location many people are experiencing issues with.)

 

This run-through used all of Skyrim Revisited except AV and associated mods.

 

Previously, when I started at the house in Markarth and ran past Whiterun the battle with the giant was going on when I got there. Alea and Ria had the dark face bug; Farkas (or Vilkas?) did not. Game froze up (major slow down and then froze, not CTD) when I was attacked by a wolf just after I crossed the bridge going towards the Ritual Stone. I had been getting some skipping as the run from Markarth to Whiterun progressed. This run-through used everything except AV and Bashed Patch.

[jasonstory44]

Ok, back on track and everything is working again. Must have screwed up the patch for Bring out Your dead. I just installed Automatic variants. I'm trying to add the .jar as an executable thru MO. I right click on it and add as an executable in the data tab. I'm then presented with a menu to find the binary .exe? I know it used to be in the data folder under skyproc patchers before I used MO. Can anyone help me find it? Greatly appreciated

[Aiyen]

Jason:

It wants the java binary.. on my computer it is C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre7\bin\javaw.exe

If that is not the case I do not really know what the problem seems to be as my install autofill all the entries after I select add as executable.

 

 

Statmonster: The ritual stone CTD is a common feature for some people even in a vanilla game, and there is no real fix other then save frequently when in that area.

As for Another life.. what you describe is just one of many small "bugs" that come from using that mod.. live with them or play without it.

 

The dark face bug most likely is due to whatever hair and facial textures you are using. I personally never had it with the SR texture choices. If you are using that then it is most likely because you are running low on RAM and the game is not loading in face tints etc.

 

The game frozeup at that specific spot I have had, and it was mainly because the game needed to clear the RAM. Try to save just before you go over there, quit to menu and reload the game and play on. That should sort out any memory related issues unless you are pressing your setup to the limit and need to reduce texture size on some outdoor mods. (I assume you have half sized your normals by now!)

 

All in all it sounds like you need to optimize your game!

[statmonster]

Maybe delete the AV mod and reinstall?

 

It should be in ...\skyrim\Mod Organizer\mods\Automatic Variants\SkyProc Patchers\Automatic Variants

[statmonster]

Aiyen - I suspect you are right. I have not done anything with DDSopt other than what was included in Skyrim_Revisited - Optimizing The Bethesda Textures. Time to try and figure out how to half size normals... any tips?

 

EDIT -

 

Well - apparently I did not run DDSOpt with administrative privileges as none of my settings were preserved... Grrr.... I assume this means I have to redo "Optimizing The Bethesda Textures"...

 

Speaking of the DDSOpt Configuration Main Menu Settings - why is the Resolution Limit for Uncompressed and Compressed set to 8192 x 8192 ... that seems really high... is this the setting that one needs to change to reduce normal maps to 1/2 size? (Which I assume would be around 2048 x 1024 or 1024 x 1024.)

[Wanderer]

is it possible someone of you has downloaded Papyrus log parser as the tool is hidden at nexus now... and would you mind to share it please? :)

[jasonstory44]

Thanks for the suggestion Aiyen....That certainly seemed to work well.. Although the automatic variants .jar should be in my MO exectuables tab now right? cause it isn't. Is it definately javaw.exe its looking for because I have a number of different java executables in my java folder.

[Aiyen]

Statmonster: The guide on the step WIKI is a good place to start for ddsopt. Other then that there have been many posts about it in this thread... just go back to about 60 and skim forward. As for the size... 8k x 8k is just to make sure that it never alters the size of textures. If you put it lower then the size of a texture it will downsize it. But yes 2k x 2k normal maps needs to be reduced to 1k x 1k as a rule of thumb.

Also yeh if you did not run as admin then you most likely have done something wrong with the official textures.

The most vital mods to optimize is SRO, and the other outdoor mods. However do not touch AOF mountains and WATER!

 

Jason: This is most likely because you have multiple versions of java installed because oracle is a crap company that cannot even manage to make sure that the old version is uninstalled when they update version numbers... You only need the newest version 7 something. Also all the other settings can just be input manually in the box that pops out when you create an executable. Just put in the correct paths if it cannot manage on its own.

[statmonster]

Thanks Aiyen. I will try DDSOpting the three big "Foundation" mods and reducing the normals on those ones plus the Bethesda ones.

 

Is the preferred technique when a mod is DDSOpted to place the resulting texture file in another folder in MO's Mods folder like was done with the Bethesda ESMs when they were optimized?

[statmonster]

When I start in Honeyside home in Riften using Live Another Life, the alchemy and enchanting table are enabled but the clutter (cobwebs, old furniture, bales of hay etc.) is still there - for example the enchanting table is resting partially on a hay bale. Is the code to remove clutter for the enchanting table being executed? I remember there was an issue with this with Hearth fire that the Unofficial patch corrected - but I think this mod may not be forwarding that correction.

[Neovalen]

Thanks Aiyen. I will try DDSOpting the three big "Foundation" mods and reducing the normals on those ones plus the Bethesda ones.

 

Is the preferred technique when a mod is DDSOpted to place the resulting texture file in another folder in MO's Mods folder like was done with the Bethesda ESMs when they were optimized?

 

That's what I do. All my half size normals are in a separate folder directly below the original mod.

[statmonster]

Thanks. Using DDSOpt and then 1024 normals on on the 3X HRDLC and Skyrim HD, Serious HD and Skyrim Realistic Overhaul seems to prevent the CTDs approaching the Ritual Stone (or elsewhere on the run from Whiterun to Windhelm via Valtheim Towers), though there was quite a bit of stuttering throughout.

 

The GPU remained pretty cool - much cooler than it did using your guide (STEP + your personal mods plus a few more) last fall when I did not have stuttering. I wonder if this is due to not using an ENB this time.

 

What's the correct procedure to DDSOpt the files in AV? Do you run it on them before you run AV or after? If before, how do you get AV to recognize the optimized files? Copy over what is already in the various folders AV will process?

[Aiyen]

You make a new folder named "Textures" put all the AV folders inside it, then ddsopt on that folder or you will have my problem where it does not touch the files.

 

The stuttering is because you are still loading in a lot of stuff and you most likely do not have a fast enough communication between RAM and CPU to load in and out all the stuff... but this is almost unavoidable on any setup with this many mods that alter visual stuff.

 

Also the GPU does alot more operations when you use an ENB (depending on settings) so it would almost always have a temperature raise.

[Aiyen]

In relation to optimizing AV, then I found out that some of the textures just do not like if you perform any sort of DDSopt on them. Especially the wolves. If I replace with halfsized normal maps they never show. It is the same with the Mammoths and perhaps a few other...

If I do not do anything to them they show fine.

 

Anybody got a clue why certain AV textures are sensitive to this and only on certain textures?