GUIDE Mythic Dawn: 2015 Update Discussion & Changelog

[SynthetikHD]

Mythic Dawn: Oblivion Modding Guide

 

Edit: 8/25/15

The Mythic Dawn guide has now finally been updated.

 

This thread will serve as a discussion board about potential changes to the modding aspect of the guide and any feedback about the changes.

This post will serve as a changelog to keep track of the changes that have been made.

 

You can compare the old version to the reworked version, and see that it looks a lot less messy and more like STEP.

Feedback is appreciated.

 

 

 

Changelog: (Updated 8/25)

• INI Tweak section has been completely redone and changed in so many ways
• DR6 and UVIII have been removed from the guide due to being buggy and unsupported for a long time
• Let the People Drink has been removed from the guide due to it being integrated into Better Cities
• Real Lava has been removed from the guide due to it no longer being useful and overwritten by OR
• Sounds of Cyrodiil has been removed from the guide due to it being a terrible mod
• WTF I'm a Missing Mesh has been removed from the guide due to it being integrated into the UOP
• Added seven mods to the guide
• Reorganized some mods that needed to be installed in a specific order and put them under a "Advanced Mods" section
• Changed the "Atmosphe, Sound & Lighting" section to just "Sound"

 

To-do List for hishutup:

1. Remove empty vanilla columns from UI section (I tried but couldn't get it to format correctly when removing them)
2. Do BCF related things
3. Check what mods still need userrule/masterlist stuff for LOOT
4. Install and test AEVWD
5. Integrate RAM Disk into the guide
6. Test shadeMe and other mods

 

Potential Textures & Mods to Add:

• Landscape retexture
• Fort Ruins retexture
• Bruma retexture
• Cheydinhal retexture
• HiRez Clutter - Silverware
• Oblivion Trees Overhaul - (Author of Oblivion Grass Overhaul)
• Atmospheres v3 - Seems to be the authors more recent version of The Imperial Firmament.
• shadeMe - Add dynamic shadows.
• CTD and Memory Patch - Include after OR 3.0 update
• The Natural World

 

Added mods:

• AFK_PrayerIdles - Adds prayer animations to priests, seems pretty cool for immersion.
• Combat Taunts Removed - "THIS IS THE PART WHERE YOU FALL DOWN AND BLEEEEEED TO DEATH!!!"
• Skyrimesque Counts and Countesses - Makes the royalty wear more luxurious clothes.
• Better Cities Aristocrat - UL Patch
• Downpour
• Improved Fruits, Vegetables, and Meat
• Improved Amulets and Rings

Edited September 12, 2015 by SynthetikHD

[darkside]

From the guide "It should be noted that this guide is incompatible with SLI/Crossfire configurations and if you are a multi-card user you should create a custom graphics profile and set it as needed for this guide."

Which mods are not compatible with SLI/Crossfire? Thank you very much for a great guide.

[SynthetikHD]

Oblivion Reloaded messes up with multi-card configurations (or at least the old version of the mod did, I would assume the same for the current version). But Oblivion in general doesn't handle multi-cards well.

[hishutup]

Oblivion just doesnt use them, if it does then the fps is even worse which says a lot.

[SynthetikHD]

@hishutup

You haven't commented about the new look for the guide, hope you like it?

Anyways, still working through the guide and have some questions for things, so I'll try to do the easy ones first.

 

1. Does Landscape LOD Generator need to be run every time the load order is changed and TES4LODGen is ran? I have been running it every time, and I imagine doing so can't hurt anything, but is it necessary?

 

2. The mod page for Landscape LOD Generator says the following:

 

In Oblivion, the LOD meshes can be replaced quad-by-quad only. If one has a lot of landscape changes (like UL), the following problems may appear:
 

• The quad meshes do not fit at their borders, because they were created independently
• "Wall-like" steps between the normal grid and the LOD meshes
• Floating objects (trees, buildings)

 

You think this might not be worth running if UL is installed?

 

3. When I asked you about the iPreloadSizeLimit memory tweak you said:

"I dont know how valid this still is with OR being a thing."

 

You think this tweak might not be necessary anymore or cause more harm than good now?

[hishutup]

@hishutup

You haven't commented about the new look for the guide, hope you like it?

Yes but I still need to make that template so that the css page is no longer needed.

Anyways, still working through the guide and have some questions for things, so I'll try to do the easy ones first.

 

1. Does Landscape LOD Generator need to be run every time the load order is changed and TES4LODGen is ran? I have been running it every time, and I imagine doing so can't hurt anything, but is it necessary?

No, its not required at all but if one installs/uninstalls a landscape mod, such as UL then it should be run.

 

2. The mod page for Landscape LOD Generator says the following:

 

In Oblivion, the LOD meshes can be replaced quad-by-quad only. If one has a lot of landscape changes (like UL), the following problems may appear:

 

• The quad meshes do not fit at their borders, because they were created independently
• "Wall-like" steps between the normal grid and the LOD meshes
• Floating objects (trees, buildings)

 

You think this might not be worth running if UL is installed?

I was positive that this generator is actually supposed to fix these issues. I think that may be the effects of not running it, except the "Floating objects" part, I believed this is fixed with TES4LODGen

 

3. When I asked you about the iPreloadSizeLimit memory tweak you said:

"I dont know how valid this still is with OR being a thing."

 

You think this tweak might not be necessary anymore or cause more harm than good now?

I remember there being massive stutter without this tweak when one used a lot of mods. If the stutter no longer exists with a full LO then comment it out.

 

I'll pop in later, I have various other things I need to finish.

[SynthetikHD]

No, its not required at all but if one installs/uninstalls a landscape mod, such as UL then it should be run.

Okay I will add that to the tool notes and instructions for it at the end of the guide.

 

I was positive that this generator is actually supposed to fix these issues.

Actually yeah I think you are right.

 

I remember there being massive stutter without this tweak when one used a lot of mods. If the stutter no longer exists with a full LO then comment it out.

I'll try deleting it from my INI and see how it goes.

Will post the next batch of questions when I write them all up.

[SynthetikHD]

Holy ****, this is completely unexpected...but after deleting iPreloadSizeLimit from my INI my fps has nearly doubled in all exterior places!

I was using the # that you had which was a 7 in the formula, as I was using most of the mods from the guide but not all.

 

Here is roughly my fps according to HUD Alive:

 

Interiors: (1 room/small houses)

Before -> 60fps

After -> 60fps

 

Interiors: (Large)

Before -> 50fps

After -> 50fps

 

Cities: (w/ Better Cities)

Before: 10-15fps

After: 25-40fps !!!

 

Wilderness/Roads: (Away from cities)

Before -> 35-45fps

After -> 45-60fps

 

Combat: (Exterior w/ wolves)

Before -> 15-40fps (stuttered a lot)

After -> 25-45fps (still stutters some)

[Sh0dan]

Maybe worth mentioning that on the OR mod page they actually say the following;

 

RECOMMENDED SETTINGS (for the Oblivion.ini)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
iPostProcessMillisecondsLoadingQueuedPriority=100
iPostProcessMilliseconds=25
uGridDistantCount=50
uGridDistantTreeRange=30
bUseWaterReflectionsTrees=1
iShadowMapResolution=512
iPreloadSizeLimit=104857600
bUseRefractionShader=0
fJumpAnimDelay=0.2500
fHorseRunGravity=5.0000
iTreeClonesAllowed=10
fLODTreeMipMapLODBias=-0.5000
fLocalTreeMipMapLODBias=0.0000

 

Not sure if because they actually tested that config or if just because it's a known tweak.

Edited August 12, 2015 by Sh0dan

[SynthetikHD]

Ah, thank you. I saw that OR had that but I hadn't actually looked at it or any of the values. I know that most of the tweaks hishutup lists are pretty old and from Tweaks Guide which is very dated.

I'll just have to do a lot of testing with the tweaks as that was what I was planning on doing next.

 

Did you use the tweaks from the guide or the ones listed in OR Sh0dan?

 

Some things to note from OR .ini:

uGridDistantCount=50 - This is twice that of the ultra default and my current setting

iShadowMapResolution=512 - Tweaks Guide I believe said this could be put to 1024 and that guide is very old, so putting this higher probably won't hurt much

iPreloadSizeLimit=104857600 - A a bit more than half of hishutup's setting

Edited August 12, 2015 by SynthetikHD

[hishutup]

hmm, weird... well after class tomorrow I'll redo my install and see if I have the energy to confirm or refute synthetik's findings. 

[SynthetikHD]

Well after hours and hours of researching tweak settings and wiki-editing, I finally did the first "important" change to the guide and updated the changelog in my original post.

All changes have been made according to the OR recommended settings and other recommendations by the author.

 

hmm, weird... well after class tomorrow I'll redo my install and see if I have the energy to confirm or refute synthetik's findings. 

Cool beans. I will do some testing with the updated tweak settings with the recommended OR iPreloadSizeLimit # in a bit.

[SynthetikHD]

@hishutup

 

Man, so many things have been changed it's kind of hard to keep track to mention it all. If you saw the new INI section from this morning, well it's been completely re-done once again after talking to the author of Oblivion Reloaded and comparing a bunch of different INI's myself. Long story short of testing the recent Tweak settings, my fps has improved even more and a lot of stutter no longer exists. Just a lot of good news and results compared to the dated INI tweaks.

 

I also added another section in the guide after the launcher settings that changes the in-game settings. Since the way you did it was having the INI checked as read only, none of the in-game options were set high at all and never got changed, like Item Fade Distance was at 3% before. :P Setting the launcher mode as ultra didn't give true ultra settings and you have to go into the video options in Oblivion and set everything even higher to get it maxed out.

 

After messing with OR, it appears that MSAA can be enabled in the in-game menu along with HDR. So this probably means that the INI tweaks section will have to go after the OR installation and then the INI should be checked read only after that and not before.

[hishutup]

I believe I bring good news, BCFs actually work in Wrye's beta. 

Im thinking about using it for the guide because BCFs will help out with some installs like the dreaded QTP3.

 

For OR's RAMDisk, I think it would need to be a sub guide for advanced users.

Basically short and to the point.

Its not that hard to setup but can be a pain when closing.

[SynthetikHD]

I believe I bring good news, BCFs actually work in Wrye's beta. 

Im thinking about using it for the guide because BCFs will help out with some installs like the dreaded QTP3.

Not quite sure what this means as I've only ever heard the term BCF a couple times but I'm assuming it has something to do with LOOT since it has replaced BOSS.

 

 

I also saw the other edits you made and have a question about one. In the OR.ini you put:

EnableSMAA = 1 ;Consider disabling and using MSAA via drivers

 

But in the Oblivion.ini you added:

iMultiSample=8

;Set to 0 if using SMAA.

 

First off OR says, "-YOU MUST NOT FORCE ANYTHING IN THE VIDEO CONTROL PANEL (USE APPLICATIONS SETTINGS)", but why would you say setting MSAA with video drivers if OR has the function? Second I think MSAA is the better of the two right, so should the EnabledSMAA in the OR.ini just be taken taken out of the guide and left at 0?

And what does EnableBloodLens = 1 in OR.ini do as there was no description in the OR html doc?

 

 

Also for the Archive Invalidation section, is the Archive .ini line edit done automatically or is this something that has to be put in the INI manually?

Edited August 13, 2015 by SynthetikHD