need professional STEP guidance

[rothbardian]

I've been poking around here for quite a while and am truly amazed at the depth of knowledge and support of the STEP community.

 

I've held off jumping into STEP because for people like me who don't have prior modding experience, the learning curve for getting up to speed on the tools and then implementing the entire STEP guide from scratch can be a 25-35 hour proposition. I have a very heavy work schedule and can't afford that kind of time commitment. But, I'm determined to play STEP in all its glory!

 

Though a stunning amount of knowledge is shared here freely and generously, I'd like to compensate somebody to help me dramatically reduce my STEP install time. In other words, I'd like to pay somebody to be my "STEP sherpa" -- meaning, somebody who could bundle up and send me the STEP assets with a short list of install steps to follow.

 

A benefit of working a lot is I can save money. I just took delivery of an extremely capable gaming rig (see sig) that takes the need for performance tuning off the table. That should save time and simplify a lot of performance vs quality decision making.

 

If you're interested in helping me out, please send me a message. Thanks.

[rothbardian]

Just watched the Vividian install video on its Nexus page (30 mins!) and the narrator says here that his frame rate in his demo footage sucks because Skyrim 'doesn't like' SLI. Does that mean I should disable one of the 980Ti's when running Skyrim?

[viper37]

My advice is to first follow the STEP guide, make sure everything is working allright, start your game just past the intro, once you're out of the cave, on a hill.  Save there, keep this save.

Then go and install Vividian following their instructions.  Load your save, see if it works for you, by walking around.  If it doesn't, exit, disable SLI, restart Skyrim and reload your clean save game.

Check the colors of the environment, the colors of your clothe, etc, make sure it's all to your liking, then play, or add some other mods.

One non graphic mod I really like is: Functional homes.  Does not fall into STEP mandate, but worth it, I think, as it links some containers from your various homes (if you have a home in Solitude and one in Riften, containers from both are linked).

There are other mods too, that you could try, but it takes time, wich you don't have.

[phazer11]

Don't know who that video is by. Anyways... you should get improved framerates with SLi in skyrim not less, there are a few graphical bugs like with water but I hear they're minor.

[TechAngel85]

Relighting Skyrim (RS) and ELE are in the STEP Guide.

[rothbardian]

That sounds like great advice -- thanks Viper. Vividian has so many setup options, wow. Which of the 5 depth of field choices do you guys recommend for pretty but functional gameplay (as opposed to screen archery)? The options are Photographic, Light, Medium, Medium with no sky blurring, and Heavy. Also curious if there's a consensus on "ENB sharpening options": soften, sharpen, or default? Lastly, SMAA antialiasing...if I enable it and want to turn it off later, does it require a full uninstall and reinstall of Vividian?

Edited July 28, 2015 by rothbardian

[rothbardian]

An Nvidia question regarding Inspector in the STEP guide: I noticed under Manage 3D Settings -> Program Settings in my graphics card properties that I can set all these variables on an application basis as well. So is Inspector still necessary, and if so, do I need to go into Program Settings anyway and mirror the settings that go in Inspector?

 

Also, do I need PapyrusUtils for doing a gameplay-only install?  I ask because it's labeled as Core but says it's for modding.

[n0mad23]

The STEP Guide has a link to the Nvidia guide (seriously dated by the way) which has both Inspector and Nvidia Control Panel settings.  I personally don't use Inspector and have gone the control panel route without problems.

 

Taking full advantage of that machine that you have, I suspect you'll want to possibly deviate from the STEP mandates and try Expanded Towns and Villages, or some other mods that change the landscape.  DynDoLOD will be worth learning at that point so your LODs will correspond to your setup.  In my own heretical deviations I've used Simply Bigger Trees (yes the needles are too big, but they look more like spruce than pines anyway) and DynDOLOD's use prevents my modified trees from suddenly growing as I approach them.  Very nice.  I've been testing ETaV over the last day and if I decide to keep it I'll certainly be running DnyDOLOD again immediately after making that decision.

 

I'm only using ENBoost myself, but you'll definitely want to take advantage of ENBoost with Vividian.  The key to stability.

[Kesta]

About SLI : Skyrim by itself is fine AFAIK, however I believe it's not working as good as it could with enbseries binaries. Though I don't have technical background, nor the hardware to make experiments about that. But I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that SLI should be "disabled" when using enbseries (might have been fixed in more recent banaries though).

[oqhansoloqo]

 

Taking full advantage of that machine that you have, I suspect you'll want to possibly deviate from the STEP mandates and try Expanded Towns and Villages, or some other mods that change the landscape.  DynDoLOD will be worth learning at that point so your LODs will correspond to your setup.  In my own heretical deviations I've used Simply Bigger Trees (yes the needles are too big, but they look more like spruce than pines anyway) and DynDOLOD's use prevents my modified trees from suddenly growing as I approach them.  Very nice.  I've been testing ETaV over the last day and if I decide to keep it I'll certainly be running DnyDOLOD again immediately after making that decision.

 

Mods that alter landscape layout (especially around populated areas) will require often a lot of extra compatibility patches typically to get them to work properly with other mods.  This can potentially be a lot of extra work on your part outside of the guide, keep in mind.

[TechAngel85]

That sounds like great advice -- thanks Viper. Vividian has so many setup options, wow. Which of the 5 depth of field choices do you guys recommend for pretty but functional gameplay (as opposed to screen archery)? The options are Photographic, Light, Medium, Medium with no sky blurring, and Heavy. Also curious if there's a consensus on "ENB sharpening options": soften, sharpen, or default? Lastly, SMAA antialiasing...if I enable it and want to turn it off later, does it require a full uninstall and reinstall of Vividian?

I use the defaults for each. I also use SMAA. It's nice. You don't have to do a reinstall if you want it gone later, but since ENB doesn't support driver AA, you'll be wanting SMAA. You can open the injector.ini file that's included with it to change the setting. You could probably handle one of the higher settings for it.

 

An Nvidia question regarding Inspector in the STEP guide: I noticed under Manage 3D Settings -> Program Settings in my graphics card properties that I can set all these variables on an application basis as well. So is Inspector still necessary, and if so, do I need to go into Program Settings anyway and mirror the settings that go in Inspector?

 

Also, do I need PapyrusUtils for doing a gameplay-only install?  I ask because it's labeled as Core but says it's for modding.

The Inspector Guide is here: https://wiki.step-project.com/Guide:NVIDIA_Inspector

 

The STEP Guide has a link to the Nvidia guide (seriously dated by the way) which has both Inspector and Nvidia Control Panel settings.

Hey now! I just updated that not too long ago so it's fairly current! (June 18th)

[n0mad23]

@TechAngel85 - the actual Nvidia guide, not your wonderful STEP work.  I don't think the GTX 900 series was out when Nvidia posted its official tweak guide for Skyrim.

 

You guys are awesome - no doubt.  I only started modding Skyrim seven months ago, and I began by studying and following the Guide.  Where the guide has left me with questions, I've readily either found the answer here in the forums, or I've posted my query and had resolution post haste.  I've got 66 plugins and 146 mods currently running in MO and haven't had a crash in well over 30+ hours on a MSI laptop - I know this is only possible because of the testing done by the crew before being included, and in the solid technical writing exhibited continually in the Guide.  Even where I've departed from the mandates, it's entirely educated by the STEP guide itself.  Well done.

 

While Rothbardian may not get the "ready made" STEP Extended "mix-down" he was hoping for, he most certainly is looking in the right place.  If it looks this good on my GTX 970M with 6 gigs of Vram, I think he's in for eye candy treat time by the time he's installed STEP 2.G.  I can't help but be a little jealous.

 

My advice parrots those above - take the time to figure stuff out.  STEP is solid and the time you invest in following it and learning the principles in the process will be rewarded.  

 

Kudos gang!

[rothbardian]

Thanks for all the replies. I'm still a little fuzzy...

 

- Does Inspector do anything extra that setting prefs in Manage 3D Settings -> Program Settings doesn't do? Unless it adds extra needed functionality I'll skip it to simplify the already large number of programs to manage.

 

- Can I skip Papyrus Utils since I'm not creating mods?

 

- How do I test the various Vividian install settings for depth of field, sharpening, etc. without having to keep reinstalling from scratch?

[TechAngel85]

Thanks for all the replies. I'm still a little fuzzy...

 

- Does Inspector do anything extra that setting prefs in Manage 3D Settings -> Program Settings doesn't do? Unless it adds extra needed functionality I'll skip it to simplify the already large number of programs to manage.

 

- Can I skip Papyrus Utils since I'm not creating mods?

 

- How do I test the various Vividian install settings for depth of field, sharpening, etc. without having to keep reinstalling from scratch?

You can skip Inspector. It does reveal extra settings that aren't found in the CP most of the time.

 

You can't skip Papyrus Utils because it's needed for DynDOLOD.

 

You can't. You'll have to re-run the installer every time you want to use a different one. Or you can extract the archive and copy and paste the files from the folder...Same difference.

[rothbardian]

Based on the warning that DynDOLOD is a bit complex for newbies, I'm going to skip it, so it's great to know I can cross Papyrus off the list too.

[oqhansoloqo]

Yeah, but it's worth it... Especially if you have a strong rig.