STEP Performance question and other small things

[Alister]

So i'm in the process of downloading step, i've chosen to go step baseline mostly because i don't wanna spend all that time getting files, to have an unplayable game. My system has a AMD Phenom II X2 555 Processor × 2 at 3.2 ghz, SAPPHIRE FLEX HD 6970 2GB GDDR5 BF3 Edition at 930mhz, Corsair xms3 4gb 1333mhz ram stick, and a 120gb SSD can't remember the brand i think its 250 reading writting not 500

I'm thinking of possibly two, Corsair XMS3 memory module 8GB kit (2x4GB) 1600MHz to replace it. What quality could this system likely handle stable with the ram upgrade. I hear the game can be unstable at 4 gb and may need 6 or higher. Forgot to mention i'm partial to using 1920x1080 res

 

So far i've mostly downloaded only 1024 textures, with one exception been Skyrim High Resolution Texture Pack Update. It's like 4 gb on the wiki where it has detailed instuctions, it says if you have 1.5gb or greater download HRDLC, is this new texture pack recommended to use over the old ones that don't have the updates for all the supported dlc textures and will my system handle it.

 

One thing confusing me are the BCF Available download files on the wiki, i grabbed them all and the main file from the site but what are they? Admittedly i haven't read everything to do with installing step yet, because it's such a lengthly process just getting all the files.

 

Appreciate any answers reguarding this.

[Farlo]

So i'm in the process of downloading step, i've chosen to go step baseline mostly because i don't wanna spend all that time getting files, to have an unplayable game. My system has a AMD Phenom II X2 555 Processor × 2 at 3.2 ghz, SAPPHIRE FLEX HD 6970 2GB GDDR5 BF3 Edition at 930mhz, Corsair xms3 4gb 1333mhz ram stick, and a 120gb SSD can't remember the brand i think its 250 reading writting not 500

I'm thinking of possibly two, Corsair XMS3 memory module 8GB kit (2x4GB) 1600MHz to replace it. What quality could this system likely handle stable with the ram upgrade. I hear the game can be unstable at 4 gb and may need 6 or higher. Forgot to mention i'm partial to using 1920x1080 res

I run everything at 1024 with a 6870 1GB and get 30-45 FPS outside, so you should have no problems using higher resolutions for some of the bigger landscape mods (section F and G).  Since Skyrim's a 32-bit program it can only use ~3.2GB of RAM, you just need that plus whatever overhead your OS needs (a couple GB to be safe).  8GB is plenty for Skyrim, although from what I've seen a single stick is generally faster than 2. 

So far i've mostly downloaded only 1024 textures with one exception been Skyrim High Resolution Texture Pack Update. It's like 4 gb on the wiki where it has detailed instuctions, it says if you have 1.5gb or greater download HRDLC, is this new texture pack recommended to use over the old ones that don't have the updates for all the supported dlc textures and will my system handle it.

If your system can handle the old HRDLC it can handle the new one.  You should be using it no matter what, those instructions are meant to say that if you have more than 1.5GB of VRAM you can ignore the HRDLC Optimized.

One thing confusing me are the BCF Available download files on the wiki, i grabbed them all and the main file from the site but what are they? Admittedly i haven't read everything to do with installing step yet, because it's such a lengthly process just getting all the files.

 

Appreciate any answers reguarding this.

If you're using MO then BCFs are useless to you.  BCFs are used in WB to automatically format a mod in a specific format.  Drop the BCF in "\Skyrim Mods\Bash Installers\Bain Converters\", right-click the mod in the Installers tab, go to Conversions -> Apply and select the matching option.

[Alister]

Well thanks for that the bfc i was speculating more recently it was to do with WB, as one of the files i downloaded had bain written which i had read somewhere before. Well as far as i knew, when it came to ram having ram sticks in dual channel doubled the input speeds. Do you mean specifically for skyrim, and not other things? for the life of me, i swore i read several articles claiming dual slots of ram work faster. Without more then 4gb with step skyrim get's more frquent CTD, is that correct i read you can't stop them all together just minimize chances. If i set the game up and want to slowly integrate higher res textures, is that possible with WB and that program that monitors vram usage without stuffing up the installation so to speak.

 

Obviously when downloading step, i couldn't just download all the highest res textures and expect an installation to work. I think that's the only way to push the game as far as possible, but finding the balance and stability with the system that's the main thing i'm wondering how to accomplish. I don't expect you to talk me through it i just wanna no, if all the required step setup reading and installation guides cover it. I no there ddsopt or whatever texture optimizations so i would assume so.

[Farlo]

I could be wrong about the RAM, that's just what I remember when I was looking at buying some for a friend, there are others around here much more knowledgeable in that department than I. Unfortunately with Skyrim you're unlikely to ever stop all the CTDs, but you can minimize them pretty well.

 

WB is perfect for testing different versions of a mod, just install one at a time and test your performance with each one to find a balance. For monitoring I suggest either MSI Afterburner or Skyrim Performance Monitor (Google them, too lazy to grab links).

 

STEP provides a ton of documentation to help you understand the best choices for your rig, but ultimately it's too variable for us to offer one boilerplate solution for everybody.

[Alister]

Yeah that's alright about the ram, your intention was good all the same. So basicially your suggesting, when setting the game up to install one or two packs at a time play the game ad some more. So on and so on watching fps till i eventually, find a balance that works? instead of installing just all 1024 and opening, the game for the first time then going back for other textures. I've heard of both the programs yeah google's my friend sometimes haha no worries there thanks.

[Farlo]

Actually starting out with everything installed might give you a better representation of how one mod will affect your overall FPS once everything's installed. Using this method it's just a matter of keeping track of which mods have different resolution options and decided which textures you'd rather sacrifice for others.

[Nshell]

Farlo  32bit application can have more than 3Gb Ram reserved if the OS is 64Bit.

If the OS is 32bit theres no way it will read more than 4 GB Ram for all System and APPs.

 

Physical Memory Limits:

 

Limits on physical memory for Windows 7.

VersionLimit on X86Limit   on X64Windows 7 Ultimate

                         4 GB                  192 GB

Limits on physical memory for Windows XP.

VersionLimit on X86    Limit on X64

Windows XP     4 GB      128 GB 

 

Important Note:

 

Quote:PAE allows a 32-bit OS to use more RAM, that is, more physical memory. This has nothing whatsoever to do with the 4GB virtual address space limitation that 32-bit OSes have.A 32-bit OS uses 32-bit virtual addresses. That limits it to 4GB of addressable virtual memory at any one time. If a 32-bit OS also uses 32-bit physical addresses, it is limited to 4GB of physical memory as well. PAE allows a 32-bit OS to use 36-bit physical addresses, which raises the limit to 64GB.Note that memory on our graphics cards DOES NOT COUNT towards the physical memory limit because it does not occupy address space as seen by the CPU. However, hardware mappings do. A graphics card with 2GB of memory on it will probably not have more than 256MB of mappings if the BIOS has memory remapping disabled (which it should for a 32-bit OS). That's why the physical memory limit is typically around 3.5GB, even if you have a graphics card with 1GB -- hardware mappings seldom exceed 768MB.

 

A 32-bit process is always limited to at most 4GB of virtual memory. However, there is no limit on how much physical memory a 32-bit process can use -- it can use every single byte of RAM that the operating system can support. One way to do this is with AWE, but there are others.

 

Edit: any way its all complicated and skyrim might not be able to read more than 3 GB

 

quote:

There is a hardware support for page re-mapping, which basically gives your program a window of a few pages into a larger area of memory. This window is however, should be managed by the program itself and will not get support from memory manager.

 

Farlo Wrote

I run everything at 1024 with a 6870 1GB and get 30-45 FPS outside, so you should have no problems using higher resolutions for some of the bigger landscape mods (section F and G). Since Skyrim's a 32-bit program it can only use ~3.2GB of RAM, you just need that plus whatever overhead your OS needs (a couple GB to be safe). 8GB is plenty for Skyrim, although from what I've seen a single stick is generally faster than 2.

 

Ram in Dual Chanel is faster than in single slot. If Over Clock is applied to RAM it should be done to only 2 slots in Dual Chanel and NOT over the 4 slots in dual chanel

 

Alister Wrote

Well thanks for that the bfc i was speculating more recently it was to do with WB, as one of the files i downloaded had bain written which i had read somewhere before. Well as far as i knew, when it came to ram having ram sticks in dual channel doubled the input speeds. Do you mean specifically for skyrim, and not other things? for the life of me, i swore i read several articles claiming dual slots of ram work faster. Without more then 4gb with step skyrim get's more frquent CTD, is that correct i read you can't stop them all together just minimize chances. If i set the game up and want to slowly integrate higher res textures, is that possible with WB and that program that monitors vram usage without stuffing up the installation so to speak.

 

Ram in Dual Chanel is faster than in single slot.

[Alister]

Alright yeah makes sense, about everything been installed well thanks for your help. That covers everything i have to ask for now, i'm up to 2j probably aim at installing this within the week hopefully sooner.

[Farlo]

Farlo  32bit application can have more than 3Gb Ram reserved if the OS is 64Bit.

If the OS is 32bit theres no way it will read more than 4 GB Ram for all System and APPs.

 

Physical Memory Limits:

 

Limits on physical memory for Windows 7.

VersionLimit on X86Limit   on X64Windows 7 Ultimate

                         4 GB                  192 GB

Limits on physical memory for Windows XP.

VersionLimit on X86    Limit on X64

Windows XP     4 GB      128 GB 

 

Important Note:

 

Quote:PAE allows a 32-bit OS to use more RAM, that is, more physical memory. This has nothing whatsoever to do with the 4GB virtual address space limitation that 32-bit OSes have.A 32-bit OS uses 32-bit virtual addresses. That limits it to 4GB of addressable virtual memory at any one time. If a 32-bit OS also uses 32-bit physical addresses, it is limited to 4GB of physical memory as well. PAE allows a 32-bit OS to use 36-bit physical addresses, which raises the limit to 64GB.Note that memory on our graphics cards DOES NOT COUNT towards the physical memory limit because it does not occupy address space as seen by the CPU. However, hardware mappings do. A graphics card with 2GB of memory on it will probably not have more than 256MB of mappings if the BIOS has memory remapping disabled (which it should for a 32-bit OS). That's why the physical memory limit is typically around 3.5GB, even if you have a graphics card with 1GB -- hardware mappings seldom exceed 768MB.

 

A 32-bit process is always limited to at most 4GB of virtual memory. However, there is no limit on how much physical memory a 32-bit process can use -- it can use every single byte of RAM that the operating system can support. One way to do this is with AWE, but there are others.

Thanks for the clarification, I was basing that statement off of the "CTD at 3.1GB" thread (only skimmed the thread) and assumed it was something to do with the architecture.  Either way the point still applies, since Skyrim won't/can't use more than 3.1GB without crashing then the bare minimum you'd need is that plus whatever overhead your OS and other applications need. 

[Nshell]

yes but even in 64bit OS there are problems that the ram needs to be handled by the process it self and not by OS Ram manager.

 

its complicated to define a line of stability over 3G ram in 32bit process.