pack A Real Explorer's Guide to Skyrim

[shambamosori]

Thank you again for your time I will try that as soon as possible.

Do you have any ideas for what the cause of the missing guard gate in Morthal is? In your game is there also a ladder, brazier and moss floating where a gatehouse building should be at the entrance to Morthal?

I also found some floating chickens nests and wood cutting stations at Stonehills (only at waist height but still floating)

Are these minor bugs normal for the REGS pack?

[Kelmych]

The patches for ETaC have not always been updated for the latest ETaC changes, so there can be floating items. There is no current development effort on ETaC, so the developers themself are not updating the patches. When CJ was working on REGS he was updating some of the ETaC patches for problems like this, but I am unable to use the Creation Kit to make such changes myself. It would be great if someone would make these changes, but I don't know who would be willing to do it. None of these small errors can affect the ETaC LOD, so I can't see how they can cause any DynDOLOD errors by the way. I have never had a CTD in Morthal with the mods I am using including all of the REGS location mods and DynDOLOD.

[shambamosori]

Would it be possible for DynDOLOD to cause errors due to a missing gatehouse though? Because that isn’t an internal part of Morthal it’s an actual ‘building’ that DynDOLOD would render from afar right?

The floating textures in mine are due to an entirely missing building.

Could the problem potentially be solved by not installing the Morthal update?

[shambamosori]

You have been very helpful so far. If you don't mind I have a few other unrelated questions that I had when installing but I didn't know I would have the author themselves available to ask! :)
1) If I use your REGS-3NPC patch option in the FOMOD should I also install the Clothing Clutter Fix - Interesting NPCs patch from the CCF page or is this already included?

2) I am having trouble understanding the instructions on using JK and Dawn of Skyrim together - it says in the instructions delete the Navi. Is this from both JK and DoS or just one? It also says rebuild the Navi by 'Open TES5Edit selecting only the merged plugin'? Does this mean I should merge the JK and DoS superlite plugins? I presumed as much but wasn't 100% sure as I can't see where it says to merge the plugins explicitly.

3) The second option in the FOMOD for your patch says JK's skyrim +interesting NPCs but the description says it is for Dawn of Riften - so should I only check that option if I am using JK AND Dawn of Skyrim or even with JK on its own? I left out DoS previously because I wasn't 100% sure as to the instructions as I mentioned in 2)

[shambamosori]

Ok having done even more testing I am now almost certain it is somehow related to the missing textures. 
I have reinstalled DynDOLOD with the lowest texture settings on TexGen (64) and Low on DynDOLOD. 
Every single area that should stress my the game doesn't cause any CTDs.

However, Morthal and Dawnstar ALWAYS cause a CTD with DynDOLOD activated. When it isn't activated and I go to these towns there are significant structures clearly missing with floating items above where they should be.

Furthermore, when the CTD occurs just after coc'ing to the area Performance monitor actually says the RAM load is lower than it often is during normal gameplay (again well below my PCs limits).

I would be most grateful if I could get assistance in fixing the floating items and missing buildings in Dawnstar and Morthal (and other small issues in other ETaC areas).
I mean Dawnstar is such a mess it is immersion breaking even if I don't run DynDOLOD and get the CTDs, there are purple textures and even characters floating high up where I presume a tower of some form should be.

[Kelmych]

Would it be possible for DynDOLOD to cause errors due to a missing gatehouse though? Because that isn’t an internal part of Morthal it’s an actual ‘building’ that DynDOLOD would render from afar right?

The floating textures in mine are due to an entirely missing building.

Could the problem potentially be solved by not installing the Morthal update?

With ETaC DynDOLOD recomputes the LOD based on what is present in a town/settlement (as noted in the DynDOLOD documentation), but note that DynDOLOD only works with large items. It never looks at small floating items.

 

Since REGS uses the modular version of ETaC so you can always eliminate any individual updated settlement such as Dawnstar and/or Morthal during the installation of ETaC. For each settlement it's all or nothing; you get the full vanilla settlement or the full ETaC version of the settlement.

[Kelmych]

You have been very helpful so far. If you don't mind I have a few other unrelated questions that I had when installing but I didn't know I would have the author themselves available to ask! :)

1) If I use your REGS-3NPC patch option in the FOMOD should I also install the Clothing Clutter Fix - Interesting NPCs patch from the CCF page or is this already included? I'm not sure whether you need it. I'll post on this in the REGS thread when I look into this.

2) I am having trouble understanding the instructions on using JK and Dawn of Skyrim together - it says in the instructions delete the Navi. Is this from both JK and DoS or just one? It also says rebuild the Navi by 'Open TES5Edit selecting only the merged plugin'? Does this mean I should merge the JK and DoS superlite plugins? I presumed as much but wasn't 100% sure as I can't see where it says to merge the plugins explicitly.

The plugins are separate and are kept separate. The instructions say "If the DawnofSkyrim-AllMajorCities.esp plugin is used also remove the Navigation Mesh Info Map (NAVI) record.". The JK Skyrim LITE plugins doesn't have a NAVI record; only the DawnofSkyrim plugin does.

3) The second option in the FOMOD for your patch says JK's skyrim +interesting NPCs but the description says it is for Dawn of Riften - so should I only check that option if I am using JK AND Dawn of Skyrim or even with JK on its own? I left out DoS previously because I wasn't 100% sure as to the instructions as I mentioned in 2)

I don't understand the question. The FOMOD for JK Skyrim LITE and SuperLITE doesn't mention Interesting NPCs

[Kelmych]

Ok having done even more testing I am now almost certain it is somehow related to the missing textures. 

I have reinstalled DynDOLOD with the lowest texture settings on TexGen (64) and Low on DynDOLOD. 

Every single area that should stress my the game doesn't cause any CTDs.

 

However, Morthal and Dawnstar ALWAYS cause a CTD with DynDOLOD activated. When it isn't activated and I go to these towns there are significant structures clearly missing with floating items above where they should be.

You could always install ETaC without Morthal and/or Dawnstar. I don't have any performance problems (low FPS or CTDs) in Morthal or Dawnstar with ETaC installed (I did with the previous graphics card I used) so I don't know how to help you with this. I do have some floating items due to inconsistencies between the most recent ETaC and some of the patches.

 

Furthermore, when the CTD occurs just after coc'ing to the area Performance monitor actually says the RAM load is lower than it often is during normal gameplay (again well below my PCs limits).

In Skyrim RAM limits are rarely an issue. Generally the problems occur with GPU load and VRAM limits.

 

I would be most grateful if I could get assistance in fixing the floating items and missing buildings in Dawnstar and Morthal (and other small issues in other ETaC areas).

I mean Dawnstar is such a mess it is immersion breaking even if I don't run DynDOLOD and get the CTDs, there are purple textures and even characters floating high up where I presume a tower of some form should be.

I don't see any of this in my game; for example I certainly don't have any purple textures. Have you used MFG console to try to identify which mod owns the texture? Since I can't duplicate the errors you see it's hard for me to help.

The few floating items I see such as floating lanterns are annoying but not immersion breaking for me. Fixing these requires editing the ETaC plugin or the ETaC patch plugin with the Creation Kit;you find the item in the worldspace with the CK then move it to the proper place or remove it. This requires significant experience with the CK which I don't have.

[shambamosori]

1)  The file available at the Nexus page for ETaC states it is version 14.0 although the update is file '14.2.10'.  The REGS instructions mention installing version 14.2 Modular.  Since I can only install version 14.0 this may be the cause of the issue?


2)  "3) The second option in the FOMOD for your patch says JK's skyrim +interesting NPCs but the description says it is for Dawn of Riften - so should I only check that option if I am using JK AND Dawn of Skyrim or even with JK on its own? I left out DoS previously because I wasn't 100% sure as to the instructions as I mentioned in 2)

I don't understand the question. The FOMOD for JK Skyrim LITE and SuperLITE doesn't mention Interesting NPCs"

I meant within the REGS patch FOMOD itself, the description in the left hand panel and the name of the option I find confusing as I am not sure whether it is required only if the Dawn of Skyrim option is used with JK or whether it is needed for JK on its own as well.

 

3)  I also was wondering whether a few of the esp's such as Blackreach Overhaul need the 15 ITMs to be cleaned. This isn't mentioned in the guide (it doesn't have a cleaning icon next to it) so they may be intentional but the mod page itself doesn't mention anything along the lines of 'don't clean this mod' so I wanted to confirm.


4) How critical is the REGS-STEP patch? I am going to try a profile without it and see if this resolves the problem but judging by the master esp's REGS-STEP patches I suspect it will introduce several other issues?

[shambamosori]

Ok thank you for the MFG console tip.

Using that I can see the purple textures are all due to ETaC Complete.esp (the merged plugin we make during the installation of the modular plugins).
There is a purple texture in Winterhold as well but as this is a minor texture within the town there are no CTDs.


Dawnstar and Morthal are both missing guardtowers/gatehouses so I don't think this can be a coincidence as to the cause of the DynDOLOD CTDs which ONLY occur in these areas.


Ah I have spent so much time putting together these packs and trying to be so careful this is frustrating. I know you said you can't Kelmych but I would be very grateful if someone could update the patch. Considering the move to Skyrim SE I suspect most Oldrim mods will change less so a 'final' REGS-STEP patch could conceivably be made and enjoyed by any people in future using the mod.


Kelymch please could you check whether the guide meant to say 14.2 ETaC and then updated to 14.2.10 ONLY for Morthal as this may be the cause of my issue (due to the nexus only having 14.0 ETaC)
Also is the guide meant to say ONLY update Morthal rather than the other applicable updates to the modules we pick?

[baronaatista]

If you have purple textures or missing meshes and they're coming from a merged plugin... almost certain the merge didn't copy assets properly. Try activating the merged mods in MOs left pane, but hiding the .esp's

[shambamosori]

Ok from testing without the REGS-STEP patch the issue of missing Morthal and Dawnstar buildings (without DynDOLOD and CTD with) is still there so it is NOT due to the REGS-STEP patch.

I now suspect you meant it was the patches for ETaC that we merge in the pack (not specifically REGS patches) but the 'ETaC modular patches' from the ETaC page that are version 4.2.8.


Since the update is 4.2.10 and the base main files are 4.0 I can't see a way of getting consistency in the patches and main files unless someone has ETaC version 4.2/4.2.8 main files?
Perhaps they could be provided as a google drive document in the REGS patch since others installing the pack now will encounter the same issue?

[shambamosori]

IT WORKS!!

Baronaatista! Thank you so much! And to you to Kelymch for putting up with all my questions!
I checked the ETaC main file and put all the esp's in optional and now the textures are back AND there are no longer any CTDs.
I am not sure why this happened as I checked the box for 'Copy general assets' but perhaps something went wrong outside of my control.  I cannot express how happy I am! It has been a month of adding mods and I may finally be able to play some Skyrim!

I would be grateful if you could still answer some of my other questions if possible including whether I should use the Clothing Clutter Fixes - 3DNPC patch,  the question regarding the JKs + Interesting NPC REGS patch and whether it was intended for ONLY the Morthal update to be downloaded for the pack and not the other relevant ones (eg Dawnstar etc)
 

[baronaatista]

Might be worth going over your install of Merge Plugins.  This is a fairly common issue - the folks at SRLEXLOTD seem to have issues with this regularly, but I've never had a problem.  Regardless, most of the time there's nothing wrong with letting MP just merge the .esp's and leaving the mods associated with them active for the assets.

 

You do indeed want to use the CCF 3DNPC patch, though it's only for consistency and not necessary at all.  Can't speak to the JK/REGS patches as I don't use.

[Kelmych]

 

1)  The file available at the Nexus page for ETaC states it is version 14.0 although the update is file '14.2.10'.  The REGS instructions mention installing version 14.2 Modular.  Since I can only install version 14.0 this may be the cause of the issue?

The guide should have said to use version 14.0 modular, the only choice there is (as you mentioed)

 

2)  "3) The second option in the FOMOD for your patch says JK's skyrim +interesting NPCs but the description says it is for Dawn of Riften - so should I only check that option if I am using JK AND Dawn of Skyrim or even with JK on its own? I left out DoS previously because I wasn't 100% sure as to the instructions as I mentioned in 2)

I don't understand the question. The FOMOD for JK Skyrim LITE and SuperLITE doesn't mention Interesting NPCs"

I meant within the REGS patch FOMOD itself, the description in the left hand panel and the name of the option I find confusing as I am not sure whether it is required only if the Dawn of Skyrim option is used with JK or whether it is needed for JK on its own as well.

That file is for JK's Skyrim which is no longer part of the REGS guide, so it isn't used. That will be made clearer in the guide.

 

3)  I also was wondering whether a few of the esp's such as Blackreach Overhaul need the 15 ITMs to be cleaned. This isn't mentioned in the guide (it doesn't have a cleaning icon next to it) so they may be intentional but the mod page itself doesn't mention anything along the lines of 'don't clean this mod' so I wanted to confirm.

I'm not sure with several of the mods like Blackreach Overhaul whether the ITMs are intentional or not. I'd be surprised if the author of that mod would have included them if they weren't intentional. Some mods do use ITMs purposely. I expect they can probably be removed, but I left them in until I had more information.

 

4) How critical is the REGS-STEP patch? I am going to try a profile without it and see if this resolves the problem but judging by the master esp's REGS-STEP patches I suspect it will introduce several other issues?

The REGS pack and REGS-STEP patch is intended to work with STEP Extended mods and the compatibility patch it provides. If a different mix of mods is used then you'll have to use TES5Edit to decide for yourself which patch records to use or not use from the REGS-STEP and STEP Extended patches. This isn't as big an issue for SRLE Extended LOTD users since the Conflict Resolution patch for that guide includes all the patch records needed.