how long untill your STEPs game is stable

[Snowelf12]

how many hours would you say untill you can classy your game as stable?

i had to restart a new game as i installed phinix Natral ENB it added a mod i repatched and got a freeze a 1 hour in

so ive took it off re patched everything and redone all the INI's now im a 1 hour in in white run all seems good

and wow the ENB is GPU heavy 

 

[Harpalus]

There's no useful time recommendation here, because games can be unstable in many ways. If you can play for an hour or two of normal gameplay then you might be fine, but there's plenty of situations that might give you problems that won't manifest until you run into that situation. Some examples of what I mean, in relation to scripts:

 

You can have too many combat scripts, and everything might appear fine until you get into a large battle. (Civil War Overhaul and Immersive Patrols come to mind).

You can have excessively script load that only manifests in certain situations. For example, Fire and Ice Overhaul, Deadly Spell Impacts, and Burn Freeze Shock Effects together might cause problems in battles with many mages or dragons, even if things seem stable up until that point and each mod is great on its own.

 

Textures are usually easy to diagnose: if you've been consistently using the same texture size (say, 2048x2048) for most textures, then you'll probably be able to handle Dwemer ruins if you've been running around Whiterun and Windhelm for an hour. Small objects need smaller textures, but my point is that if you've put some thought into what your video card can handle while installing mods and avoided silliness like 8K tree bark, then you should be fine.

 

The FPS counter feature on your ENB is very useful (I would consider it critical) during testing. I don't use Convenient Horses, but it has a very useful script lag test that I use. (I just install the mod for the duration of my test).

 

To try to be more helpful, I posted a series of quick tests that were added to the Modular Morrowloot Overhaul. Personally, I would consider your load order fairly stable if you pass all of them with a playable framerate. At the very least, it might help diagnose problems in your load order. They won't be for everyone, but they test some specific situations that have presented me with problems in the past. Not every test is useful, however. One "test" is to simply fly around using the console for a while and see if the game crashes. Not particularly useful information, because not only is the engine not built for it, but you won't be flying around in your game anyways. (Presumably).

 

Don't forget about mod conflicts. I don't consider a load order stable, personally, until I've examined everything in TES5Edit and removed any obvious conflicts. (You don't need to be obsessive about this: just thoughtful).

 

Finally, of course, don't uninstall any mods during a playthrough, use ENBoost and the SKSE memory patch, avoid unnecessarily large textures, avoid meshes with unnecessarily high vertex counts (hard to avoid though, because they rarely mention it), and remember that script limitations are a thing.

Edited April 29, 2015 by Harpalus

[Snowelf12]

thanks big helpful reply, ive installed steps extended nothing els, i want to make sure this is stable then maybe add some stuff

i would of liked to add one of the packs but i think im  best off waiting untill i get this stable 

well i just spawned 5 dragons in whiterun for 10 min

 

then i done 130 bandit chief's added 10 dragons as they was fighting done 60 imperial guards frame rate whent done at that point to 20fps WITH 1 TITAN X i had SLI off

all in that was about 20 min thanks big helpful reply, ive installed steps extended nothing els, i want to make sure this is stable then maybe add some stuff 

i would of liked to add one of the packs but i think im  best off waiting untill i get this stable 

well i just spawned 5 dragons in whiterun for 10 min

[spoiler/]

then i done 130 bandit chief's added 10 dragons as they was fighting done 60 imperial guards frame rate whent done at that point to 20fps WITH 1 TITAN X i had SLI off

all in that was about 20 min 

 

 

so i would think my game is okay then 

 

hmm in still a noob i just followed STEPS tbh

 

do you think it would be a bad idear to add a pack?

 

so i would think my game is okay then 

 

hmm in still a noob i just followed STEPS tbh

 

do you think it would be a bad idear to add a pack?

[Harpalus]

You're getting a better framerate than I get under those conditions (with my own set of mods), so I think that everything looks stable. You can definitely afford to bring in a Pack or some more mods, from the looks of things.

 

If you only installed STEP Core or Extended, then your game should be stable already. Whether you install a pack or not is up to you. I recommend it, but if you just want to play "almost vanilla Skyrim", then you should be fine as you are. There's no need to check in TES5Edit if you're running pure STEP, or running only STEP with a Pack installed: I was operating under the assumption that you had mods added to your load order in addition to what STEP recommends.

 

It's not a bad idea to install a Pack. It's just different. Packs exist because they deviate from how Skyrim plays or feels in various ways. Core/Extended STEP sticks close to Skyrim's look and gameplay, Packs often do not. How far you want to take Skyrim is up to you. I use almost-vanilla perk trees lately because of this excellent character building site.

Edited April 30, 2015 by Harpalus

[Snowelf12]

yeah its the GPU its a beast lol, i could of run SLI but did not 

i was thinking of adding war ensemble, companions as i done that all ready, explorers guild but that seems abit big but adds lots of nice stuff to the citys ex.

 

what do you think i should do

[Harpalus]

It's really up to you, but the Explorer's Guide is good and offers a lot of new content. I hadn't noticed the Companions pack before, but it's just one mod and is likely to be compatible with the Explorer's Guide. You'll need to check it after to make sure.

 

Packs aren't guaranteed to be compatible with each other, and I'm not certain how much of the War Ensemble will work with the Explorer's Guide. I've never had a problem with Civil War Overhaul, but lots of people seem wary of it, particularly in large load orders. Your milage may vary, but it's a fantastic mod. Immersive Patrols is a good match for it if you prefer combat to exploration when you're wandering around Skyrim on foot. (I never fast travel and tend to avoid mods that add random encounters in the wild). I'm not familiar with the others. I would have recommended Civil War Aftermath, but its not available anymore. Check for conflicts with TES5Edit afterwards, as I don't know how well they work with the Explorer's Guide.

 

The Explorer's Guide is very large: if you install the entire thing you may want to hold off on adding in much more, because there's bound to be compatibility issues with many mods.

Edited April 30, 2015 by Harpalus

[Snowelf12]

so do you think my game is stable and i should install some packs? and run them test again?

could i make a copy of my MO folder incase i want to revert back to normal steps ?

[Nozzer66]

The answer to the first is more do YOU think it's stable? If yes then fine, try a pack or two. test again.

 

And yes definitely make a copy if you're happy you're stable enough.