pack A Real Explorer's Guide to Skyrim

[Teabag86]

Haha. I had forgotten about "create food and water" Oh those were the days. LOL. Now I'm showing my full 86 years. Yes, you got me out of the survival mods and I haven't looked back. I do like HB because it isn't so much survival as immersion.

 

My mouse finger wavered over FNV for a considerable time during the steam sales. But having played it recently on PS3 I couldn't justify the time I knew it would suck away from everything else. Not to even mention the modding addiction! I've decided I am not going to mod any other game other than Skyrim! I spend more time modding than playing. It's like OCD. I read today on ETaC that Noobzor has ditched all his hires texture mods. I couldn't imagine it. I look at something, anything, and think that's not right, there must be a mod that can fix / change the colour / enhance it, etc. Sure enough there always is....

[redirishlord]

Your years have given you wisdom, I could not restrain my mousefinger & now own both FNV & FO3 in hopes of modding Tale of Two Wastelands (the Capital & the Mojave using the FNV engine? yes please, may I have some more?). Curse you Steam and your $5 summer sale.

So I worked my FNIS-fu and have ambulatory horses, only to find the collision fixed corpse of what's-his-name preventing me from taking my place at the headsman's block. I imagine the walk to your execution is the longest you take, but this is ridiculous, I'm like Sisyphus trying to push this headless bastard out of my way.

[Teabag86]

Glad to hear you have sorted out one problem but only to encounter another. Well I think that guy was "as fearless in death as he was in life" so it seems he is not willing to give up too easily. Good luck

[Muladhara86]

I see that Cutting Room Floor was updated recently.  How is the update going to interact with REGS' CRF patch?

[EssArrBee]

Any recommendations on what to optimize? I'm thinking the stuff from ETaC might be 2k and I'm already getting pretty bad performance because I can't stop adding gameplay mods. Might have to drop it down to get some FPS back because who really likes dropping mods, am I right?

[Nearox]

Hey, here's our answer to incompatibility (from Inns & Taverns page);

Known incompatible mods:-Hroldan Nightgate and Sawmill Villages-Anga's Mill Enhanced-Become A Bard (Will not conflict, but new inns do not give options for singing)-Tes Arena - Skyrim Frontier Fortress-Immersive Settlements (Immersive Shors stone.esp)

 

So, I assume a patch for the future ETaC/IS will be forthcoming? As for the other two mentioned today, I'll cut Hroldan from my line up for duplication of effort & the fact that it adds a soul gem mine (I need some reason to go to black reach). I'm going to track TES Arena Frontier, and perhaps attempt a patch at some point if needed (love the old school lore expansion/inclusion). Saw the response from The Vigil's author, looks promising, good job.

As mentioned, I really wouldn't worry about ETaC/IS patching. If anything, the combination of those works and the fact that awesome missjennabee + master patcher/fixer CJ will mean that a large amount of settlements are going go to be covered and you won't need a 3rd mod for them. 

 

 

nd maybe the hroldan villages may not be worth it, since ETaC already adds a considerable size to all the villages, adding even more small settlements seems overkill to me (but to be sure I'd have to actually go and check everything but I simply do not have the patience xD), while the fortresses seem to be well made, at least on the exterior. And if they are indeed well made and lore-friendly, maybe replacing that old granite hall (let's face it, 13oranges work was great at the time, but it's getting old) and a patch for inns & taverns won't be hard to make, RIGHT CJ?

 

Hroldan Villages was briefly considered during early REGS development, but we also concluded that it was overkill and that it adds too much generic stuff that has little or no meaning in the world except aesthatics (whcih weren't all that great either). Sometimes less = more.

 

TES Arena Fortress has beatiful exteriors however the project is not finished by a long stretch. A mod of that size should not just add exteriors/interiors but also meaningful and interactive NPCs with quests or some kind of objectives/intersting shops etc. Also note that it conflicts with some of 13Oranges mods that are included in REGS, though if TES Arena ever finished it would be a contender to take their spot imo. 

I see that Cutting Room Floor was updated recently.  How is the update going to interact with REGS' CRF patch?

REGS is already updated for CRF 1.07

 

Any recommendations on what to optimize? I'm thinking the stuff from ETaC might be 2k and I'm already getting pretty bad performance because I can't stop adding gameplay mods. Might have to drop it down to get some FPS back because who really likes dropping mods, am I right?

I think if you use the new ETaC town-specific textures, almost all of them are 1k in size. If you choose to use the vanilla textures, then you're probably using SRO textures etc most of which are also 1k in size. 

 

You will likely have to look for optimizations elsewhere. SRB are you using SRLE or STEP as a base? I know I've had to extensively DDSopt all of the armor retextures (to 1k DXTx) and skin/body mods (mostly reducing *_msn.dds to 1k uncompressed) to get SRLE + REGS to work smooth on my old HD6950 2GB vram card. The problem with these mod categories is that at first glance one may think they do not add that much gpu load/vram use to the game but in actuality they do. Take Better Males, it adds a whopping 300MB VRAM in any town that has the 8 or 9 different males appear - which is basically any town. If you DDSopt those textures then it only adds 100mb or so while the quality difference is unnoticable (check the Better Males thread as we discussed it there some time ago). Same goes for aMidianborn Book of Silence ane EOtW textures. DDSopt (only reduce size, don't change format) to 1k max will save you huge amount of VRAM in any situation where a lot of different actors appear. Persoanlly I barely notice the difference. And if you add REGS to your game, a lot of different actors will indeed appear everywhere :)

 

Hope that helps. If you need specific DDSopt info about a mod do ask, as I said I've managed to run SRLE + REGS (including Vividian ENB) on my i5 2500k + HD6950 2GB system so I can give you some more tips if you like.

[thaiusmle]

@Nearox

I have used DDSopt before.

Can you give a more specific info to reduced size of aMidianborn and EOtW?

 

Any other mods that will get good benefit from DDSopt in SRLE + REGS?

 

I optimized Better Males based on your recommendation.

 

Also Thanks for the SRLE + REGS conflict resolution guide.

[Nearox]

@NearoxI have used DDSopt before.Can you give a more specific info to reduced size of aMidianborn and EOtW?Any other mods that will get good benefit from DDSopt in SRLE + REGS?I optimized Better Males based on your recommendation.Also Thanks for the SRLE + REGS conflict resolution guide.

Actually I'll write up a small guide for it soon :)

[thaiusmle]

Actually I'll write up a small guide for it soon :)

Looking forward to the guide. 

[redirishlord]

Actually I'll write up a small guide for it soon :)

Ditto on the DDSopt guide "thanks in advance", I'll be hoping to use that &/or the F&L DDSopt guide S tutorials to learn the process. If SRB has gameplay mod "trouble" than I'm in full blown addiction, hopefully texture optimizing to 1k max can make me a "functioning modder" ("Hi, my name is Red & I'm a modder, it's been 2 days since my last mod.").

[Nearox]

I'm working on it, you can follow the development here https://wiki.step-project.com/Pack:Guide_to_Run_SRLE_with_REGS_on_Medium_Systems 

[redirishlord]

I'm working on it, you can follow the development here https://wiki.step-project.com/Pack:Guide_to_Run_SRLE_with_REGS_on_Medium_Systems 

Great suggestions there, I'll put many of them in play once I'm home. I'm a bit of a rogue here, as I treated SR:LE /REGS as a buffet, but we have a lot of mods in common. I'm using Serenity with ELE & Relighting Skyrim, but reading your Vividian ini tweaks was informative and will help me tune for my desired beauty/performance mix.

[EssArrBee]

With SMIM even if you follow STEP and use the custom install, you can choose half size textures at the end of the installer.

[Nearox]

That's true, but SRLE doesnt use the custom install hence I haven't mentioned it :)

[EssArrBee]

I've reduced the textures of SRO, Better Males, AMB BoS, and Alt Navetsea with pretty good results, and install SMIM half sized textures. It was pretty unbearable before getting FPS in the low 10s and after those mods, and now I'm getting in the high 20s. Still not good enough to escape a crash after 30 minutes, but better than it happening after about 5 minutes.

 

I'll do another 3-4 mods and see if I can get back another 10 frames. Maybe mess with the install order since I just started sticking stuff between 2.M and 2.N in my STEP Extended build.