SE/AE Compatibility - Grass Cache Pregen

[burnersaurus]

Hi

So I made a backup of my Skyrim main directory and used the Unofficial Skyrim Special Edition Downgrade Patcher, to "downgrade" to SSE 1.5.97, I also installed the correct version of the SSE Engine Fixes in MO2 (when prompted).. but now I'm getting this error message (see attached image) when trying to run Precache Grass, and I just don´t know what to do about it.

Any suggestions?
 

[Greg]

It sounds as if you may still have a DLL installed for SkyrimSE 1.6. When you run NGIO it's just running SkyrimSE and telling it to generate the grass files so SKSE and all other extenders should be for SkyrimSE 1.5.97 when you generate the grass cache. Once all the grass cache is generated, you can switch everything back to the SkyrimSE 1.6 versions.

[burnersaurus]

  On 1/14/2022 at 4:34 PM, Greg said:

It sounds as if you may still have a DLL installed for SkyrimSE 1.6. When you run NGIO it's just running SkyrimSE and telling it to generate the grass files so SKSE and all other extenders should be for SkyrimSE 1.5.97 when you generate the grass cache. Once all the grass cache is generated, you can switch everything back to the SkyrimSE 1.6 versions.

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That makes sense, though how do I figure out which extensions are causing the issue? The error refers to EngineFixes.dll, but I already installed the old version of that.. could it be the Address Library ?

Edd.
That was definitely part of it! got as far as the loading screen this time, but then it hard crashes.
Is there an errorlog I can refer to, or do I need to go through all off my mods one by one?

Edited January 14, 2022 by burnersaurus

[DoubleYou]

Just disable all other extensions. They won't be needed for generating the grass cache. 

[z929669]

  On 1/14/2022 at 3:49 PM, burnersaurus said:

Hi

So I made a backup of my Skyrim main directory and used the Unofficial Skyrim Special Edition Downgrade Patcher, to "downgrade" to SSE 1.5.97, I also installed the correct version of the SSE Engine Fixes in MO2 (when prompted).. but now I'm getting this error message (see attached image) when trying to run Precache Grass, and I just don´t know what to do about it.

Any suggestions?
 

Expand  

Looks like you need to install the version of SSE Engine Fixes for 1.5.97

[burnersaurus]

  On 1/14/2022 at 4:52 PM, DoubleYou said:

Just disable all other extensions. They won't be needed for generating the grass cache. 

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Won't mods that add objects to the world space be needed for the raytracing part?

[burnersaurus]

  On 1/14/2022 at 6:18 PM, z929669 said:

Looks like you need to install the version of SSE Engine Fixes for 1.5.97

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Yeah I did that already, found a few others that could/should be updated (or rather downgraded) to 1.5.97, and did that.
Finally got the game running (sort of, by disabling a LOT of unnecessary mods), but when I run the PreCache Grass plugin in MO2, the game starts and then.. nothing happens.
It just sits there in the titlescreen as normal. I can load a savegame, but that still dosn't do anything..

This is breaking my puny brain. I really appreciate all the help and suggestions, but at this point, I just can't for the life of me figure out what the next step should be.

Edited January 14, 2022 by burnersaurus

[z929669]

  On 1/14/2022 at 6:59 PM, burnersaurus said:

Yeah I did that already, found a few others that could/should be updated (or rather downgraded) to 1.5.97, and did that.
Finally got the game running (sort of, by disabling a LOT og unnecessary mods), but when I run the PreCache Grass plugin in MO2, the game starts and then.. nothing happens.
It just sits there in the titlescreen as normal. I can load a savegame, but that still dosn't do anything..

This is breaking my puny brain. I really appreciate all the help and suggestions, but at this point, I just can't for the life of me figure out what the next step should be.

Expand  

Savegame could be an issue with such big changes. Try starting a new game to see if it loads. You likely still have something in the mod list that is not jiving. In that case, begin disabling blocks of mods and sort with LOOT paying attention to any LO errors in LOOD and MO.

You just need to get the game loaded with all of your environment/landscape mods active to precache grass.

[burnersaurus]

  On 1/14/2022 at 7:16 PM, z929669 said:

Savegame could be an issue with such big changes. Try starting a new game to see if it loads. You likely still have something in the mod list that is not jiving. In that case, begin disabling blocks of mods and sort with LOOT paying attention to any LO errors in LOOD and MO.

You just need to get the game loaded with all of your environment/landscape mods active to precache grass.

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Yes that was my first thought too.. Made a brand new savegame and played as far as the interior of Helgen keep (just to find a stabel place to save the game).
I've also disabled all mods except:
- Unofficial Skyrim Special Edition Patch - SE
- Folkvangr - Grass and Landscape Overhaul
- ULTRAWIDE UI FIX (32 to 9 aspect ratio) (because I'm using a samsung odyssey and the menues doesn't work without)
- .NET Script Framework
- Origins Of Forest - 3D Forest Grass
- No Grass In Objects
- SSE Engine Fixes (skse64 plugin) - SE
- Address Library for SKSE Plugins - SE
- PapyrusUtil SE - Modders Scripting Utility Functions - SE

I've also run Loot, and autocleaned the masterfiles.. and it still doesn't work.
Even tryed opening the console, to se it the Precache was running in the background, which ofcause it wasn't.

[z929669]

  On 1/14/2022 at 7:51 PM, burnersaurus said:

Yes that was my first thought too.. Made a brand new savegame and played as far as the interior of Helgen keep (just to find a stabel place to save the game).
I've also disabled all mods except:
- Unofficial Skyrim Special Edition Patch - SE
- Folkvangr - Grass and Landscape Overhaul
- ULTRAWIDE UI FIX (32 to 9 aspect ratio) (because I'm using a samsung odyssey and the menues doesn't work without)
- .NET Script Framework
- Origins Of Forest - 3D Forest Grass
- No Grass In Objects
- SSE Engine Fixes (skse64 plugin) - SE
- Address Library for SKSE Plugins - SE
- PapyrusUtil SE - Modders Scripting Utility Functions - SE

I've also run Loot, and autocleaned the masterfiles.. and it still doesn't work.
Even tryed opening the console, to se it the Precache was running in the background, which ofcause it wasn't.

Expand  

You should check your .NET FW log (inside that mod or in SKSE/overwrite possibly) to see what is recorded there (and/or get/install Crash Log SE, but that may or may not play nicely with .NET). Check your game file version (right click skyrim.exe > properies > Details), validate files, and ensure you have no lingering DLLs or other stuff in your SSE root folder.

Cleaning the vanilla masters is unnecessary and no longer advised by us.

Not sure if you are trying to launch a savegame or not, but if that Helgen save is from a different LO, please try launching a brand new game. That's the actual test. Enable Alternate Start mod as well if you use it to make this simpler. I always choose "I own property" > Breezehome.

Once you figure out what is causing the crash problems, I also recommend installing all other mods accept for those you know don't touch or contribute anything to the outdoors. Obviously this is more work, but you don't want to gen grass where NGIO excludes it (I think NGIO excludes grass from the cache where it's not wanted/needed, but not sure ... DoubleYou would know for sure).

When you gen grass, you should also consider not doing so for unnecessary worlspaces. This script speeds up the process 3x for me (YMMV). or have a look at our grass LOD guide for more tips.

[DoubleYou]

First, this is an extremely difficult thing to accomplish for most people. I do not recommend this process to anyone who doesn't fully understand what they are doing, as they could easily screw up their installation. This is why I have done my best to not publicize this process very much, as providing support for this will be nightmarish. I highly recommend you to just wait for the relevant mods to update instead of doing this.

How to run grass cache for other game version (AE or VR)

1. Your setup should now be your final setup for whatever game version you are using with all associated mods.
2. Temporarily remove all SKSE plugin mods (they will not work because wrong game version, and do not need to work for grass cache generation). There may be many methods to do this. Simplest is to hide the Data\SKSE directory in the Data tab of MO2.
3. Make a backup of your current base game folder files (where the game executable is located). Backup of folders should not be necessary.
4. Remove Engine Fixes (all of it, including game directory)
5. Remove SKSE for the current game version (remove from game directory and the scripts)
6. Remove ENB
7. Remove any other mods you have added to the base game directory
8. Download and install DLL Plugin Loader binkw64.dll to the game directory.
9. Copy binkw64.dll from 1.5.97.0 version to the game directory, but rename it binkw64_.dll (add a _ to the end of the filename). 
10. Copy SkyrimSE.exe runtime 1.5.97.0 to the game directory.
11. For Skyrim VR only, create a txt file in the game directory called steam_appid.txt with 489830 in it (this may be unnecessary, but it will not hurt).
12. Install the Legacy SE build 2.0.20 of Skyrim Script extender to the game directory
13. Follow the Grass LOD Guide Quick Start section steps 1 through 6
14. If the Precache Grass plugin fails to generate the grass cache, create an empty PrecacheGrass.txt file in the game directory and launch SKSE to generate the grass cache without using the plugin. You will need to relaunch SKSE any time the game crashes during grass cache generation until the "Grass generation finished successfully!" error message appears.
15.  If this still fails to generate the grass cache, you did something wrong and probably shouldn't be attempting this. If you insist on trying to continue to fix this, go over all these steps and try and figure out what is going wrong, but there are a lot of necessary steps, and all of them have to be exactly right for this to work.
16. You should now have a successfully generated grass cache.
17. Revert step 1.
18. Delete all files added to the game directory (see steps 7 through 10) and restore it to how it was in the backup you made in step 2.
19. Ensure you now have the correct version of SKSE installed and its scripts.
20. Your setup should now be your final setup for whatever game version you are using with all associated mods, but now with the added grass cache files. If there were any other changes you had made in order to create the grass cache, you should change them to how they need to be now.
21. Complete steps 7 through 9 of the Grass LOD Guide Quick Start. Ensure that you use Mode 1 for grass LOD in DynDOLOD.
22. Optionally, add Grass Cache Fixes and follow its Usage instructions (but you can skip step 5 since you already just did it).
23. Profit.

Hopefully I didn't miss anything.

[burnersaurus]

  On 1/14/2022 at 8:30 PM, z929669 said:

You should check your .NET FW log (inside that mod or in SKSE/overwrite possibly) to see what is recorded there (and/or get/install Crash Log SE, but that may or may not play nicely with .NET). Check your game file version (right click skyrim.exe > properies > Details), validate files, and ensure you have no lingering DLLs or other stuff in your SSE root folder.

Cleaning the vanilla masters is unnecessary and no longer advised by us.

Not sure if you are trying to launch a savegame or not, but if that Helgen save is from a different LO, please try launching a brand new game. That's the actual test. Enable Alternate Start mod as well if you use it to make this simpler. I always choose "I own property" > Breezehome.

Once you figure out what is causing the crash problems, I also recommend installing all other mods accept for those you know don't touch or contribute anything to the outdoors. Obviously this is more work, but you don't want to gen grass where NGIO excludes it (I think NGIO excludes grass from the cache where it's not wanted/needed, but not sure ... DoubleYou would know for sure).

When you gen grass, you should also consider not doing so for unnecessary worlspaces. This script speeds up the process 3x for me (YMMV). or have a look at our grass LOD guide for more tips.

Expand  

Thank you so much for helping out!

So, I found a NetScriptFramework.log.txt in the mod subfolder, but that was completely empty.
Checked that the game file version was stil 1.5.97.
Checking for lingering DDl's however might have turned up something! There's the d3d11.ddl and d3dcompiler_46e.dll, which I are both from ENBseries and i suspect fine. But then there's d3dx9_42.ddl from SSE Engine Fixes, AND binkw64.dll / binkw64_.dll for DDL Plugin Loader. .Net Script Framework requires one, OR the other, but not both!
I tryed turning of SSE Engine Fixes and removing d3dx9_42.ddl from the SE folder, and... still not working :/ but perhaps a step closer?

I'm not running Alt start yet, though I intent to. just didn't want to flood my LO with mods that dont affect the worldspace before I had DynDOLOD up and running.
I also intented to run all mods that affect the world space, when I get it running. Turning everything off was mostly for troubleshooting, I think what's left is the bare essentials, but, well... that only showed, that apparently it wasn't the other mods, that prevented Precache Grass for executing.

I've also looked at Script for speeding up the process, and your excelent grass LOD guide. The instructions for running the script was a bit advanced for me, but the guide was quite helpful.. just need to get that damn Precache running first..

[z929669]

  On 1/14/2022 at 11:00 PM, burnersaurus said:

Thank you so much for helping out!

So, I found a NetScriptFramework.log.txt in the mod subfolder, but that was completely empty.
Checked that the game file version was stil 1.5.97.
Checking for lingering DDl's however might have turned up something! There's the d3d11.ddl and d3dcompiler_46e.dll, which I are both from ENBseries and i suspect fine. But then there's d3dx9_42.ddl from SSE Engine Fixes, AND binkw64.dll / binkw64_.dll for DDL Plugin Loader. .Net Script Framework requires one, OR the other, but not both!
I tryed turning of SSE Engine Fixes and removing d3dx9_42.ddl from the SE folder, and... still not working :/ but perhaps a step closer?

I'm not running Alt start yet, though I intent to. just didn't want to flood my LO with mods that dont affect the worldspace before I had DynDOLOD up and running.
I also intented to run all mods that affect the world space, when I get it running. Turning everything off was mostly for troubleshooting, I think what's left is the bare essentials, but, well... that only showed, that apparently it wasn't the other mods, that prevented Precache Grass for executing.

I've also looked at Script for speeding up the process, and your excelent grass LOD guide. The instructions for running the script was a bit advanced for me, but the guide was quite helpful.. just need to get that damn Precache running first..

Expand  

 

For mod config instructions under 1.5.97, see this section of our guide as well as the resources and foundation sections to get mods you have configured (particularly with respect to extenders and the loader issue). Those with the "expand" link at right of the table, click this to see instructions for the mods you have.

[burnersaurus]

Hi
Just wanted to say thanks for the help again.

I manged to get it working by doing a clean reinstall of Skyrim, reverting it to the old version with the Unofficial Skyrim Special Edition Downgrade Patcher, and only adding the old version of SKSE and the DLL files for SSE Engine Fixes (which worked better than the DDl Plugin Loader for some reason) to the root folder.

So now I have the grasscache (I think), all thats left, is to revert to Skyrim AE, and run DynDOLOD

Cheers!