pack A Real Explorer's Guide to Skyrim

[hishutup]

If they're able to get me into the 30s or even 40 with just the base game the single mod then I wouldn't consider them light.

If Im unable to maintain 60 then other's performance will be worse.

I kind wish I can push this CPU faster but this cooler is a POS.

[TechAngel85]

Over time I've found Skyrim to be more GPU intensive than CPU. My i5 (stock) handles the game just fine. I've never once had the need to overclock it. When my FPS drops it's typically the GPU's fault. My GTX 760 still runs the game great, imo. I have ELEP installed with a few select effects enabled and Vivid Weathers as my weather mod. The game stays mostly around 60 FPS with some drops into the 40s in specific areas. If I remove those two mods, it's mainly mid 50s to 60 FPS at all times. With that said, I am looking into upgrading my video card in the Spring since it's a few generations old now but am still not completely decided on that yet.

[hishutup]

My 970 was able to outrun my proc most of the time which is clock for clock the same as the i5 as far as the game is concerned.

So maybe the 970 vs 6600k is the breaking point when comparing GPU vs CPU

Today, my 980ti just sits there most of the time, theres enough headroom to use ENB without any fps dip.

Im hoping that SKGE's shadow shader/engine alleviates some of the issues. Supposedly, the way skyrim's shadows works, is very unusual.

 

EDIT: I was going to run some tests with my old system but I sold the GPU and gave away the other components.

[Kelmych]

My experience is the same as Tech's. My i5 4790 never goes over about 60% CPU usage in Skyrim, and the RAM usage isn't very close to 4 Gb. I see occasional VRAM peaks of 3.6-3.9 Gb with my 4Gb R9 290X AMD card even though I do limit texture resolution to 2K, and the GPU is often at 100%.

[hishutup]

Vanilla no HDDLC with USLEEP a stroll around Markarth mostly looking at the ground and occasionally looking up
Vanilla

JK SuperLight

JK Light

JK


YUP totally limited by GPU even though it never exceeded 50%.
By my guess this is poor optimization on the engine side of things.
The only way I've been able to increase my framerate is to OC my processor. Sadly, an extra 300MHz is the only thing I could get until I get a proper waterloop.

 

EDIT: I should note I use something similar to a framerate limiter, adaptive Vsync so anything below 60 is no vsync and everything at 60 is enabled.

[TechAngel85]

What is around the 48 mark during your walk in Markarth? This dip is consistent across the board.

[nsibley]

Ok so Nernies cities and entrances and better city entrances need to go, I can do that.

 

I still use most of the mods in this pack along with STEP. including the STEP lighting choices and ICAIO. I found 3DNPC to be too script heavy for me so I don't use it. I haven't had to do much editing to make much of this pack work. Obviously Expanded Towns and Villages, as pointed out, needs to be installed using the modular version so 3 of the sites can be left out.

 

I like Inns and Taverns, especially when using Frostfall, so I installed it while removing one inn that causes problems. This was in REGS but removed because of that inn.

 

I did some of the patch editing for CJ, by the way, but the STEP compatibility patch isn't needed now.

 

Do you mind sharing which 3 sites you left out?  Also when you say removing one inn, could you share how you did that?  I really just want to make immersive citizens and expanded towns and cities work together.  I would like the other mods from regs, but I can live without them with the exception of ETaC.  I really love that mod.

Edited August 30, 2016 by nsibley

[TechAngel85]

Just out of curiosity I ran JK Lite around Markarth as well. Here are the results:

 

 

It was mainly a smooth 60FPS besides those couple dips. Around the 30 mark is where I coc into Markarth. The 3 dips, I believe, are from looking towards or at the smithing area. This is with:

• Vanilla
• HRDLC
• USLEEP
• STEP Optimized Textures

 

Having optimized textures (which I consider a basic need when modding much like USLEEP) looks as though it's making a difference since your graph is more up and down in the FPS. That or I just have a more optimized system.

[hishutup]

I highly doubt optimized textures do anything on modern hardware as long as you have the VRAM, which I do.

If you can find the most unoptimized textures you can for a specific area, I'll test this and I'm pretty sure the difference will be within the percentage of error caused by the random nature that is games. I would say +-5fps is that error.

 

As for the constant dips, I was looking at fairly heavy parts to show that it is NOT GPU but rather CPU as far fps is concerned.

[TechAngel85]

After you said that, I went back to look at the graphs closer and I would say it's pretty even between the CPU and GPU, but the GPU is working a bit harder. When you have dips, they both have a raise that is fairly even in most cases, however, the GPU generally stays higher than the CPU output.

[hishutup]

After you said that, I went back to look at the graphs closer and I would say it's pretty even between the CPU and GPU, but the GPU is working a bit harder. When you have dips, they both have a raise that is fairly even in most cases, however, the GPU generally stays higher than the CPU output.

You're kind of comparing apples to oranges with the usage.

If games were perfectly optimized and were able to use every ounce of performance then you might be able to compare the two, but Skyrim is definitely not one of these.

Also, I have 8 logical cores, but skyrim isn't really able to fully utilize anymore than two which makes my CPU numbers appear to be lower.

 

There is almost like a threshold where adding bigger GPUs doesnt make a difference. If I had my old 970 and used the same setup, I bet there would be a zero fps difference after accounting for percent error.

 

I've observed an even worse case in Enderal, when the fps is low, its in the 40s but with extremes of 20s and 60s, but is usually 60.

My GPU is actually downclocking(~1100MHz instead of ~1500MHz) itself because there is no reason to be at full boost or even base clock. During this time the cpu doesnt suddenly increase in load and peg every core, or even two for that matter(I will need to confirm this if needed).

 

If you upgrade your GPU, Im sure you'll see what I am saying as you'll definitely be about the sort of threshold.

 

Now we've been off topic for awhile, if what this discussion to continue it may be best to either split or pm me 

[Kelmych]

Ok so Nernies cities and entrances and better city entrances need to go, I can do that.

 

 

Do you mind sharing which 3 sites you left out?  Also when you say removing one inn, could you share how you did that?  I really just want to make immersive citizens and expanded towns and cities work together.  I would like the other mods from regs, but I can live without them with the exception of ETaC.  I really love that mod.

With Expanded Towns and Cities I currently eliminate Rorikstad, Falkreath, and Riverwood. I'm not sure this needs to be done any more; these are no longer mentioned as problems for ICAIO on the ETaC Nexus page. I still eliminate them because of the potential problems, and I'm not sure that they actually work properly with ICAIO.

 

I'll see which Inns and Taverns I think can cause cause problems. Several more have been added and I want to check these also. However, the mod author is currently working on a modular version that will allow using only the locations desired.

 

I also use JK Cities Lite and the lite version of Dawn of Skyrim included with it. I don't find these causing me any problems.

[Teabag86]

That's what I was trying to say. It's not a lot of work to get it working in mostly its current state. That's what I meant by it just needs a little love.

Here is my feedback from a relatively long term user. I still use REGS in pretty much its current form. Over time I have removed some of the location mods - mainly thirteen oranges - because they didn't quite fit into my sense of Skyrim. They made the world feel smaller by filling up the blank space. My preference nowadays is too expand existing locations with mods like Greater Saarthal and Old Hroldan Ruins. I've dropped most of the Enhancement section of REGS over time - simply because those things didn't bother me enough to need a mod to fix them. I also tend to toggle on and off the quest mods depending on the play through I am doing instead of leaving them permanently in my load order - that's no reflection on the mod selection - just how I like to do things and it gives more purpose to my character's story arc. I stopped using Interesting NPC's for a few reasons but keep the excellent Inconsequential NPC's permanently in my load order. Anyway, hope that helps as some feedback.

[TechAngel85]

@Hishy

Relativity. You're right, you can't compare the CPU and GPU apples to apples. They are completely different technologies. So as a technician, you have to use relativity when comparing. If the CPU is at 25% and the GPU is at 30%, which is working harder when comparing their individual work forces? The GPU is. This means the GPU is relatively working harder than the CPU is. This is tech basics 101 when you take classes.

 

@Teabag86

Thanks for the feedback!

[CJ2311]

Regarding all that's been posted here recently, I'd like to just say that I do not have any problem whatsoever with people taking over and changing the mods listed in the pack drastically, as long as it stays a mod pack curated for STEP. I have nothing against providing compatibility instructions/patches for other packs (I did my best to support SRLE as well as the STEP packs after all), but if REGS were to just become an expansion for an existing pack, then I'd rather see it remain dead.

 

Just a note though, people are saying IC is incompatible with Nernies, but is it also incompatible with the REGS version of the mod? Cause all the REGS version does is add a few, very small expansions to the city outskirts, where there was nothing at all in the first place. I don't own the game anymore (used to use Steam Family) so I can't even check how ICAO works in that scenario.