Help a Newbie

[Nitrohell]

Hello guys, new member here looking for some help.

I've been wanting to go back to Skyrim for a while now, stopped playing 1 year or so ago when my desktop started having some problems and haven't played it ever since.

Today I started looking for some mods, I'm not very interested in the complete overhaul mods that give a new game experience, I didn't finish my first playthrough before, but even ruling these out, there are so many mods to choose from it's a bit overwhelming, until I found this project.

 

This is a truly amazing work you guys have here, having a detailed list of mods that are compatible with each other and have been tested by countless members will provide many new modders, like myself, an amazing Skyrim experience with relative ease.

 

Even though this helps alot, I'm still having some doubts, hence why I created this thread.

For starters here's my spec:

 

Windows 7 Pro 64 bit

Intel i7-2600 3.4GHz

NVidia GeForce GTX 650Ti 1GB

4GB RAM DDR3 1600MHz

Regular 7200 rpm Hard Drive

1920x1080 Monitor

 

I know it's not that good, especially the GFX, I used to have a GTX 460, which apparently runs Skyrim better than the one I have now, but it started having some problems and since it was still on warranty, I got this one in return. For what it's worth, my MoBo was also exchanged at the same time and the one I got have PCIe 3.0.

 

As you can see my specs are far from great, no Extreme STEP for me, but I was hoping this was enough to run at least a Baseline STEP installation.

 

But what does a Baseline installation means exactly?

In the guide the Baseline description says: "Core and non-Core mods; performance/quality and balanced options wherever possible.".

Does this mean, I should install all mods, Core and non-Core, following the instructions found on the Baseline and Notes?

Can I have a more or less smooth gameplay with all those mods installed, around 30+ fps, with the specs I've posted? 

 

Another, simpler, question, what are those "BCF Available" links on some mods?

I suppose they are meant to be used after the installation of the mod to replace some files, just want to be sure about it.

 

Final question, after installation, the recommended course of action is that I don't update my game, i.e new patches, nor update/remove my mods until I'm done with that particular save file, am I correct?

 

For now that's it.

I may need further help when I start installing, I've seen many things on the installation guide that I'm not familiarized with, but most of them also have guides and I haven't looked at those yet.

 

Thanks in advance for any answers you can provide.

[TeleToko]

Also, it isn't really necessary to unpack all your BSAs into loose files. It helps for testing purposes so you can see the conflicts in WB, but other than that the gains are minimal, in my opinion. I personally have nothing unpacked and simply use BSAopt to optimize my BSAs and call it good.

 

This is terrible advice. Loose files will always overwrite bsa's, so mixing loose files with bsa's will mess up your install order, results in unwanted textures overwriting the wanted ones and can cause all kinds of trouble if scripts are involved. You can do a search on the forums if you want to learn more on this.

 

It would be better to just advise people to follow the STEP guidelines. 

[Vond]

Also, it isn't really necessary to unpack all your BSAs into loose files. It helps for testing purposes so you can see the conflicts in WB, but other than that the gains are minimal, in my opinion. I personally have nothing unpacked and simply use BSAopt to optimize my BSAs and call it good.

 

This is terrible advice. Loose files will always overwrite bsa's, so mixing loose files with bsa's will mess up your install order, results in unwanted textures overwriting the wanted ones and can cause all kinds of trouble if scripts are involved. You can do a search on the forums if you want to learn more on this.

 

It would be better to just advise people to follow the STEP guidelines.

 

WB is implementing (experimental support in latest v304 on SVN that's also available as installer in the WB thread over on Beth) support to see conflicts inside BSA files as well. There are performance gains from using BSA over loose files, so using BSA when you're SURE it causes no conflicts is the way to go, but currently it's indeed best to just use loose files tbh

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 2

[TechAngel85]

 

Also it isn't really necessary to unpack all your BSAs into loose files. It helps for testing purposes so you can see the conflicts in WB, but other than that the gains are minimal, in my opinion. I personally have nothing unpacked and simply use BSAopt to optimize my BSAs and call it good.

This is terrible advice. Loose files will always overwrite bsa's, so mixing loose files with bsa's will mess up your install order, results in unwanted textures overwriting the wanted ones and can cause all kinds of trouble if scripts are involved. You can do a search on the forums if you want to learn more on this.

 

It would be better to just advise people to follow the STEP guidelines.

 

This is true, but I never said anything about mixing the two.  :O_o: You're reading between the lines when there is nothing to read there. I even said, "I personally have nothing unpacked". Loose files always take president over BSA files. BSAs are simply archived directory structures. The game will first look for the loose versions, if it's not found it will use the BSA. If it is found, the BSAs are simply ignored. So yes, you shouldn't mix the two or you'll end up with oddities and potential issues. The main reason most people extract the BSAs is to gain faster loading times; however, this is not always the case as some BSAs load faster than if they were loose files. It's been discussed and documented in the forums and wiki.

 

I was simply stating that it's not necessary to extract the BSAs and provided my solution; however, if you do...yes, extract every single last one from every single DLC and mod. I personally, find it an unnecessary step unless you're going to be testing as the gain vs the work involved is minimal. So long story short, if you're going to extract one BSA then extract them all. If not, save yourself some time and just use BSAopt and leave them all in their BSA formats as I do. Information about loose vs BSA can be found here: https://wiki.step-project.com/Guide:DDSopt_%26_Texture_Overhauls#tab=DDSopt_Optimization

 

PS: TeleToko, I have either written or had a hand in helping write most of the "STEP guides/guidelines" that are on the wiki for users to follow. :P

[TeleToko]

You seem to assume every mod downloaded from the Nexus comes as a bsa file but that is not true, so  mixing loose files with bsa's is inevitable if you don't unpack your bsa's.

 

The fact you have helped writing the guides makes it even more incomprehensible to me that you with the authority you have as a member of the STEP team are wrongly advising people to not follow the STEP guidelines in a thread called 'Help a newbie'.

[TechAngel85]

No where in the STEP Guide does it say to use loose over BSA or BSA over loose. The DDSopt Guide is an additional guide and is not a necessary part of the STEP process. If you extract the vanilla BSAs, then all BSAs from all DLCs/mods (if they have one) should also be extracted. If you don't extract the vanilla BSAs, then leave all DLCs/BSA intact.

 

The advice I gave is sound as it's working on my system with no issues...you're nit picking my every word. I'll send you a PM as to not get this forum off track. Please address me directly via PM. Thank you.

[TeleToko]

No where in the STEP Guide does it say to use loose over BSA or BSA over loose.

To achieve the best results, “Loose files†(non-BSA) versions of mods should be used. If a "loose files" version is not available, extract the BSA as described here.

 

Source.

 

I'll leave it at that so people can decide for themselves if it's there for a good reason or just for fluff.

[Nitrohell]

There is not really any point in using both DDSopt and Optimizer Textures as far as I know. DDSopt is the more advanced program and does everything the other does and more.

 

As for FPS gain for optimizing, then do not expect much in terms of FPS. What optimizing does is reduce the overall memory requirements, which only affects performance when you load in new cells. So you would only get a bit less stuttering when loading new cells.

 

The drop you see after altering the Driver settings is most likely due to the AA you have enabled. Do remember that if you use newer versions of ENB (higher then v.119) these needs to be disabled as they are not supported.

 

If you have 40+ FPS then you should be able to run with more details on no problem. Also the intro ride into helgen is a rather bad place to test FPS, since you do get alot of stuttering, because a lot of script, textures etc are loading during that ride. It is better to wait until after helgen when you run around yourself to measure overall FPS. The area between Riverwood to whiterun is one of the more detailed in the game, so it is a perfect spot to test performance etc.

Yup, it's because of the Antialiasing - Transparency Supersampling, if I leave that as default I don't get much of an FPS hit.

I'm not sure how to install ENB's, haven't got there yet, but I did take a look already and noticed I would have to disable AA, but since I'm trying to follow the guide as close as possible I activated it nonetheless and would go back to the inspector once I was ready to install the ENB. Although, I may skip the mod installation and go directly to the ENB, as it's said in the guide that I can do it as soon as I finish the .ini tweaks.

 

I know the intro scene is kinda bad, I used it because it will always look the same, so even if the FPS is slightly lower than it would be in another area, at least both tests will be exactly the same.

I'll probably do a FPS test between those areas as well, thanks for pointing that out.

 

 

Aiyen is right. You don't need to use DDSopt and OT together. If you're wanting to optimize your textures, just use DDSopt but be sure to grab the updated INI file from the wiki. Also, it isn't really necessary to unpack all your BSAs into loose files. It helps for testing purposes so you can see the conflicts in WB, but other than that the gains are minimal, in my opinion. I personally have nothing unpacked and simply use BSAopt to optimize my BSAs and call it good.

 

Also, if you're going to be using an ENB then you need to turn AA off in the drivers and on the launcher. The best AA solution with ENB is SMAA via injector which is discussed on the ENB Guide on the wiki.

So in your opinion I should skip the .bsa unpacking and just get BSAopt to optimize them instead, following this guide, then get either DDSopt or OT and use it to optimize the loose files that come with mods. Is that right?

I suppose I should go with DDSopt since, as Aiyen pointed out, it does everything the other does and more?

 

The optimization guide for BSAopt seems fairly easier than the one for DDSopt, at least it doesn't require that I extract, optimize and then repack the .bsa files as DDSopt does.

 

As I said, I'll probably take a look at the ENB installation next, I also saw something about that SMAA injector, but so far I've only read the main guide, only quick browsed through the utilities guides, I'll just have to read them more carefully to see how everything works.

 

No where in the STEP Guide does it say to use loose over BSA or BSA over loose.

To achieve the best results, “Loose files†(non-BSA) versions of mods should be used. If a "loose files" version is not available, extract the BSA as described here.

 

Source.

 

I'll leave it at that so people can decide for themselves if it's there for a good reason or just for fluff.

Yeah, it was because of that that I thought extracting the .bsa files was an important step of the STEP installation.

[TechAngel85]

It's not necessary. The wording indicates that it's not by saying, "for best results". I also want to point out that note is for mods only and not default files or DLCs which is what I was referring to.

 

Tele, let me apologize. I was referring to vanilla and DLC files only I'm my posts. Not all mods.

 

Nitro, if you want to optimize textures you have to use DDSopt. If not, there's no reason to use it for simple extractions. BSAopt can do those and is much less complicated. I personally never extract anything and I have no issues. It's only done for small performance gains in loading files.

[TechAngel85]

Also, be careful when optimizing mod files. Many are already optimized by their authors and running DDSopt on these can cause issues.

[Nitrohell]

So let's see if I'm getting this right, in your opinion I should skip the DDSopt extraction and optimization process for, mods and Vanilla and DLC files, and instead use BSAopt, to optimize just the Vanilla and DLC ones.

I assume that the few 2k+ textures present in some mods won't be of much problem to my gameplay then.

 

Well, I guess I'll do that, at least it seems much less complicated. Hopefully the game will be playable once I've finished installing everything, but anyways, from what you're saying, it doesn't seem that the optimization is what would decide if the game is playable or not in the end.

 

Again, thanks for your help guys.

[TechAngel85]

You're welcome and that exactly why I mentioned my method, because it's so much less complicated and the less you have to do means the less you potentially have issues with down the road. The gains from DDSopting textures is minimal on most systems and I only recommend it if you're running really low on VRAM or will be using high resolutions on 2GB of VRAM or less.. I have 1GB VRAM on a ASUS G7 laptop and have no issues at my maximum resolution of 1600x900. Game is smooth and stable. The only thing you don't want to BSAopt is the sound related BSAs because optimizing those has been known to cause weird issues that, oddly enough, have nothing to do with sound most of the time.

 

All in all, you do what you want to do. If you want to optimize your textures, then go for it! If you don't want to deal with the hassle of DDSopt, then just use BSAopt as I do and call it good.

[Nitrohell]

Yeah I saw that about the audio files in the BSAopt guide.

 

I guess I'll go with the easier way for now, if someday I get bored enough I may try doing the full optimization thing with DDSopt, just to see if there's any noticeable improvements.

 

Once again, many thanks to you all.

[Nitrohell]

Sorry for double post, I misclicked when i was trying to go to the full editor and apparently I can't delete the post.

[Nitrohell]

Okay I'm back again.

It wasn't long until I had my first problem, unfortunately.

So I started by installing the utilities and the Script extender, then I decided to optimize my vanilla .bsa.

I downloaded BSAopt, as you suggested, and followed the guide here.

It wasn't hard, I started converting the first .bsa, animations, the program finished the conversion without any errors so I thought everything was fine, I was mistaken.

 

The problem is in the output files, similar to this guy, I'm getting files that are smaller than 1MB after conversion, my animations optimized bsa have the exact same size as the one he described, 339KB. Apparently he didn't manage to find a solution and used DDSopt instead.

 

Anyone knows why this is happening and how to fix it?

The guys from that thread apparently couldn't find a way to fix it and ended up using DDSopt instead.

 

I tried using both the 32 and 64 bit versions, changing the game to Skyrim, uncheck all the settings, change the compression to a lower number, but no matter what I do, the output file is always the same size.

[TechAngel85]

You using the beta or normal version? I'm at work and can't check so I don't even know if there is a beta, but that's the first thing that comes to mind.