FEEDBACK v2.2.0 - Feedback & Bug Reports

[druisiuil]

12 hours ago, aktillum said:

Oh okay, so basically the NPCs are only using vanilla shadows for awareness? If that's the case it's no big deal. I thought it was breaking all shadow-based detection in the game, vanilla or modded.

That is my understanding from what I have read on it - vanilla shadows and lights count for awareness, the shadows added by EVLaS and lights added by ENB do not count.  I'm not a mod author so my knowledge of how the game engine works is somewhat limited. Other mods likely have similar issues depending on how their effects were accomplished. I think there is a chart in one of RAID's screenshots that lists how friendly various mods are to the stealth system.

[z929669]

16 hours ago, aktillum said:

Oh okay, so basically the NPCs are only using vanilla shadows for awareness? If that's the case it's no big deal. I thought it was breaking all shadow-based detection in the game, vanilla or modded.

EVLaS doesn't 'break' anything with AI detection. AI detection is simply not aware of anything that EVLaS and post-processing do in terms of lighting. So if a shadowed area looks really dark to you, it may not look that dark to the game. To get an idea of what a low-light area is, you can toggle ENB using Shift+F12. EVLaS will only impact outdoors, and really only very early or very late in the day.

These issues are similarly complicated by your weather and lighting mods. Step is configured to minimize those impacts though, so your main obfuscations are EVLaS (exteriors) and ENB (exteriors and interiors).

[aktillum]

Cathedral Landscapes adds 3D leaves to Riften area. Many are aware of a "floating leaves" problem which has a fix: Cathedral Landscapes - No Floating Ash Leaves

However I want to note another possible problem, which is the performance impact combined with ENB.

It seems like ENB treats these 3D leaves as individual objects, giving them shadows. You can see in my screenshot 1) The floating leaves problem, 2) Each 3D leaf is receiving a shadow from ENB.

ENB adding shadows to literally hundreds of 3D mesh leaves doesn't sound very performance-friendly. Any ideas for a solution beyond "disable ENB in low-performance Riften areas"?

The ENB setting "DetailedShadow" controls this, which is also responsible for shadows on grass. Disabling it only gives a 2FPS boost and removes shadows from ALL grass, so its not as big an issue as I thought.

Edited March 21, 2023 by aktillum

[z929669]

3 hours ago, aktillum said:

Cathedral Landscapes adds 3D leaves to Riften area. Many are aware of a "floating leaves" problem which has a fix: Cathedral Landscapes - No Floating Ash Leaves

However I want to note another possible problem, which is the performance impact combined with ENB.

It seems like ENB treats these 3D leaves as individual objects, giving them shadows. You can see in my screenshot 1) The floating leaves problem, 2) Each 3D leaf is receiving a shadow from ENB.

ENB adding shadows to literally hundreds of 3D mesh leaves doesn't sound very performance-friendly. Any ideas for a solution beyond "disable ENB in low-performance Riften areas"?

The ENB setting "DetailedShadow" controls this, which is also responsible for shadows on grass. Disabling it only gives a 2FPS boost and removes shadows from ALL grass, so its not as big an issue as I thought.

Performance in Riften is always a bit more taxing than most other places because of Aspens Ablaze. The big ones have lots of triangles.

[aktillum]

9 hours ago, z929669 said:

Performance in Riften is always a bit more taxing than most other places because of Aspens Ablaze. The big ones have lots of triangles.

Yeah of course, Riften is performance hungry. Was more curious about the 3D leaves from Cathedral's, and ENB shadow effect. But it seems ENB's shadow effect, even though its making the floating leaves problem much more obvious, doesn't actually reduce performance with those meshes.

Speaking of ENB performance, maybe you can help me figure something out. Using STEP guide's "Light" preset for ENB.

Enabling/disabling ENB water effect can make a 15 - 20 FPS difference in certain areas (e.g. Lake Illinalta). However, none of the ENB water effects by themselves seem to impact performance. For example these screenshots https://imgur.com/a/PQi0sSS

• ENB water on = 9 FPS
• ENB water off = 17 FPS
• ENB water on + all effects under [Water] disabled (distant reflection, shadows, displacement, etc) = 9 FPS

Any insight? It seems ENB water being enabled purely by itself is a massive FPS drop, regardless of the actual individual water effects enabled/disabled.

 

9 hours ago, aktillum said:

Any insight? It seems ENB water being enabled purely by itself is a massive FPS drop, regardless of the actual individual water effects enabled/disabled.

To add to this, lowering resolution and setting screen space reflection dividers (in BethIni) from 2 to 4 made a HUGE improvement. Like from 10 FPS to 40+. What the actual f.....

 

8 hours ago, aktillum said:

To add to this, lowering resolution and setting screen space reflection dividers (in BethIni) from 2 to 4 made a HUGE improvement. Like from 10 FPS to 40+. What the actual f.....

Okay, sorry for multiple comments but there's no edit button here?

I'd made a mistake in ENB settings by enabling both parallax and tessellation for water. That was the source of my dramatic FPS drops around lakes. Huge no-no.

However while trying to fix it, I tried downscaling from 1080p to 1600x900, then Nvidia upscaling @ 85%. Now I'm running ENB Heavy preset with complex parallax and 4K textures at a solid 30 - 40 FPS outdoors....so my mistake led to a significant upgrade discovery.

[xbk123]

Hi. I noticed this https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/54680 is not on the list in STEP guide. Just curious what are the reasons. Not working well with something else from the guide? Thanks.

[ButchDiavolo]

21 minutes ago, xbk123 said:

Hi. I noticed this https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/54680 is not on the list in STEP guide. Just curious what are the reasons. Not working well with something else from the guide? Thanks.

It has been dropped in favour of Worldspace Transition Tweaks.

[xbk123]

7 minutes ago, ButchDiavolo said:

It has been dropped in favour of Worldspace Transition Tweaks.

Ok. Thought so. Thanks. 

[Thryann]

First things first: Thank you very much for all of this. Most probably I wouldn't be playing modded Skyrim SE AE if it wasn't for the STEP GUIDE!!!

I would like to try ENB so I followed all instructions up to point 20 (patches), installed the mods with the blue vertical bar as instructed for enb users and did also "Performance Tuning".

With point 21 (Post Processing) I have doubts: with "Step SkyrimSE ENB Preset" the guide says to download and instal the ENB preset and test again for performance. I did but had no differences with respect to the earlier Performace Tuning (without the ENB preset.....), both for visuals and for fps. Guess I did something wrong but the instructions are very clear and simple.

However in the post processing table reading the instructions for "ENB SERIES" I find once again instructions for loading the ENB Preset and a third time following instructions for the "Step patch - Post processing".

I haven't installed all the mods in point 21 and give it a try (I am sure I will only then see visuals/fps differences) but only wanted to point out that perhaps these instructions need to be updated/changed. My mother tongue is not English so I am sure it is just me but all of the above has confused me and the doubts....

Thank you very much and I apologize for the long post

[z929669]

1 hour ago, Thryann said:

First things first: Thank you very much for all of this. Most probably I wouldn't be playing modded Skyrim SE AE if it wasn't for the STEP GUIDE!!!

I would like to try ENB so I followed all instructions up to point 20 (patches), installed the mods with the blue vertical bar as instructed for enb users and did also "Performance Tuning".

With point 21 (Post Processing) I have doubts: with "Step SkyrimSE ENB Preset" the guide says to download and instal the ENB preset and test again for performance. I did but had no differences with respect to the earlier Performace Tuning (without the ENB preset.....), both for visuals and for fps. Guess I did something wrong but the instructions are very clear and simple.

However in the post processing table reading the instructions for "ENB SERIES" I find once again instructions for loading the ENB Preset and a third time following instructions for the "Step patch - Post processing".

I haven't installed all the mods in point 21 and give it a try (I am sure I will only then see visuals/fps differences) but only wanted to point out that perhaps these instructions need to be updated/changed. My mother tongue is not English so I am sure it is just me but all of the above has confused me and the doubts....

Thank you very much and I apologize for the long post

Good callout. There was definitely some confusing redundancy there. I've moved around the instructions a bit such that the ENB setup is now located with the ENBSeries mod instructions. I think this makes things clearer in addition to removing the redundancy.

You probably didn't see any performance impact with the ENB, because the ENBSeries binaries hadn't been installed yet (ENB requires the binaries to work).

Follow along again starting at 21-Post-Processing, and let us know if it's better.

[Thryann]

Thank you very much and I confirm it's  better now. I appreciate and keep up this outstanding guide

[Dova]

Hi guys!

First of all, thanks for this guide.
I played with the Neovalen guide in SKyrim LE.
And now, many years later, I decided once again to surf the vastness of Tamriel.
And your guidance makes a lot of things easier.

I just finished "09-Fixes" ModGroups. And I would like to clarify a few things.

64-bit render targets option in the BethINI Basic tab.
My GPU software prompts me to turn it off.
Is such a compromise justified in terms of Best Performance/Quality?
Or maybe we need it for other graphic mods/ENB to work properly.

There wasn't "Optimized" version for Embers XD. It should be "Lite" version in Baseline column, I guess.

Realistic Water Two SE installer auto-detects the patch for CC Myrwatch. But since the guide says, "Select Nothing", probably this will be covered by STEP Patch. But it might be nice to add a little note.

SPID for Footprints have Keyword Item Distributor as a requirement. Is it ok not to install it?

There were some other points that I wanted to clarify, but at the moment I can't remember.

Thanks again for the guide guys.
Have a good day.

[Mousetick]

1 hour ago, Dova said:

SPID for Footprints have Keyword Item Distributor as a requirement. Is it ok not to install it?

You should install it. Without KID (Keyword Item Distributor), the mod can't tell if human characters (player or NPCs) are wearing footwear or not, so it makes barefoot prints all the time, whether the character is wearing shoes/boots or not. When it works as intended, the mod actually uses differently shaped decals for barefoot vs. footwear prints.

The omission of KID from the guide is probably not intentional and is likely an oversight. I think the requirement for KID was added in some update to the SPID for Footprints mod, which may have been unnoticed.

You can install KID at any time, it's an SKSE plugin, but if you want to keep your mods organized consistently with the STEP guide, I guess you'd want to put it in the '03 - Resources' group.

[DoubleYou]

4 hours ago, Dova said:

Hi guys!

First of all, thanks for this guide.
I played with the Neovalen guide in SKyrim LE.
And now, many years later, I decided once again to surf the vastness of Tamriel.
And your guidance makes a lot of things easier.

I just finished "09-Fixes" ModGroups. And I would like to clarify a few things.

64-bit render targets option in the BethINI Basic tab.
My GPU software prompts me to turn it off.
Is such a compromise justified in terms of Best Performance/Quality?
Or maybe we need it for other graphic mods/ENB to work properly.

There wasn't "Optimized" version for Embers XD. It should be "Lite" version in Baseline column, I guess.

Realistic Water Two SE installer auto-detects the patch for CC Myrwatch. But since the guide says, "Select Nothing", probably this will be covered by STEP Patch. But it might be nice to add a little note.

SPID for Footprints have Keyword Item Distributor as a requirement. Is it ok not to install it?

There were some other points that I wanted to clarify, but at the moment I can't remember.

Thanks again for the guide guys.
Have a good day.

Do not untick 64 bit render targets. It actually makes significant visual difference. 

IIRC, optimized option for Embers XD is in the FOMOD installer, not the filename. 

Myrwatch patch is in the Step Patches.

I don't recall the KID being a requirement, so I think it must have been added in an update. It is fine to install it. 

[Dova]

13 hours ago, Mousetick said:

You should install it.

Thank you for the clarification.

9 hours ago, DoubleYou said:

Do not untick 64 bit render targets. It actually makes significant visual difference. 

Ok. I just hope it's worth it. And that my rig can handle it.

9 hours ago, DoubleYou said:

IIRC, optimized option for Embers XD is in the FOMOD installer, not the filename. 

There are two versions in the main files, so I'm a bit confused.

Also, I wanted to know if I can safely remove Relationship Dialogue Overhaul Lite as a master for the STEP CR Patch (since I'm on a non-English version of the game). And what is the best way? Can I still follow this method?

By the way, I don't mind making my own patches if there is something similar to this for STEP CR Patch.