Send me a card when it works!

[krossbonzz]

Edited December 24, 2015 by krossbonzz

[Nebulous112]

This is one of the main reasons I haven't attempted to benchmark, yet.

 

I assume one would have to disable any plugins needing missing masters, etc. to run benchmarks before the whole list is done. Not sure with regard to the patches section, as I know that certain things will not work without the patches section, but I don't know whether they would cause immediate CTDs. And of course always run LOOT if load order changes.

 

What I have always done (for 2.2.9.1 when I started using STEP, and 2.2.9.2) is just install the whole thing top to bottom, and then test.

 

Also, I have never watched the videos...but I have heard they are out of date, so they may show you conflicting information from the text. I have always just followed the text, and by the end it does work, unless something was missed.

 

Installing 2.2.9.1 I had no issues. 2.2.9.2 I started fresh on a brand new SSD setup, and I forgot one main thing - when I created the skse.ini, I forgot to create the SKSE folder first! So it was in the wrong spot. It wouldn't even let me create a new game (30 min loading screen followed by CTD with no log errors). After creating the folder and putting the .ini in there, I had no issues.

 

Once you have a solid base (no missing masters, LOOT ran, patches section completed, etc.), I would suggest what Greg always suggests - Sheson's Memory Blocks Log. This will confirm for you that your SKSE memory patch settings are correct (and in the right spot, which mine wasn't).

Edited December 13, 2015 by Nebulous112

[Greg]

Thanks, but I'm just following the lead set by Hishtup who put in all the effort. Memory Blocks Log is a great tool for ensuring a stable base memory configuration and confirming that SKSE is configured properly, though.

[elwaps]

@krossbonzz

I've ran benchmarks after each and every section during STEP 2.2.9.2 installation. I don't remember exactly which files I had deactivated at which point of time. However, if any missing master was reported I just deactivated the whining esp for the benchmark run. Don't be mad at me if you already know this, which is probable, but they're in the right pane of MO and got a warning sign. Hovering over this sign exactly shows which master files are missing.

After finishing my benchmark and putting the results into my sheet I continued installing the next section and when finished, I right clicked in the right pane and activated ALL esps. Some of the warning sign ones would be happy by now as their missing master(s) were added with the current section, the rest with warnings again gets deactivated for the next benchmark run. The only esps that were deactivated all the time were those with a brush icon, meaning their esps aren't needed as long as their package (BSA) was checked in the Archive tab on the right side.

 

Another point is, that after installing one section of mods, I ALWAYS ran the entire patch stuff. Every time. Meaning, depending on the section you've just installed, (1) applying custom LOOT rules for the section, write down those not possible yet (in case the "load after" mod isn't installed yet). (2) running LOOT and apply its result, (3) creating a Bashed Patch and (as I activated all esps before) let it deactivate those it can or already has merged and put the output in its folder. (4) running Dual Sheath Redux and put the output in its folder. (5) running FNIS and put the output in its folder. (6) replace the DnyDOLOD.esp with a backup and put it at the bottom of the load order on the right, (7) run the first DynDOLOD script through TES5Edit, zip the output and install it via MO and replace the former output folder with it, (8) deactivate Birds and Flocks in the left pane and run the second DynDOLOD script through TES5Edit, this time with pressing Shift while loading all mods (I don't know why but it seems to be important) and again with installing it and replacing the existing folder with it. (9) Finally reactivating Birds and Flocks and running LOOT again to put it back into the right place. Hope I didn't forget anything.

One thing that can possibly cause issues in section 2I, by the way, is that the Bashed Patch MUST be created after this section when using the Content Addon of Blade of Woe. I think its just a note in a blue box on that mod's "detailed instructions" page but I guess its pretty important.

 

I haven't had even ONE crash during the entire benchmarking/installation. The very only problems I had experienced were spinning horses and flipping carriages that went wild together with the entire physics engine due to too high framerates when testing without mods (after STEP 1B) on low/medium launcher settings.

 

As my 2.2.9.2 installation wasn't too long ago, perhaps I can help you looking at your load order and mod order. A look into your enblocal.ini and the other inis could be helpful too. I'm anything but a pro but as said, I just recently did the same you're doing now. The best way to upload Mod and Load Order aswell as the Skyrim inis should be modwat.ch. You can go to that site, download the tool, tell the tool where exactly your Mod Organizer profile path is, click upload and share your results online. I'm not sure if you need to create an account or something but its convenient as hell. You can see mine when you click on "My Modlist" in my signature but I think I haven't uploaded my very recent additions.

[Nebulous112]

Fantastic information, elwaps. This is basically how I assumed the benchmarking was done, but I wasn't 100%.

 

**** it all, now I really have no excuse to put off my own STEP benchmarking. ;-)

 

@Tech, Ess and / or DY - This info would be a great addition in the Performance Benchmarking guide. I certainly don't claim to be a genius, but even after hanging around the STEP forums pretty regularly for a few months, I was still only 75% sure that I would need to do my benchmarks the way elwaps stated. :-/

[krossbonzz]

Ahhh OK. Good info. Well once the toothaches gone I won't be so hasty to throw or kill stuff and will give it another run lol Thanks for the assistance and I will start over tomorrow morning by loading the whole crate of eggs and stay calm. Oh by the way are any of you running AMD as I have noticed many issues regarding ENB and AMD mixed... Thank you again

[elwaps]

Good luck guys.

 

Nope, I'm using a GTX 680 4GB. I'm not sure about AMD & ENB, all I more or less remember is someone else from this forum doing a full 2.2.9.1 or 2 with AMD and it worked. Perhaps you'll need to roll back your driver or something (pure guessing, I honestly don't know), who knows, but I guess the STEP team also tested with AMD so it SHOULD go well without such issues.

 

By the way, before my current installation I've installed 2.2.9.1. I did benchmark it too (no major difference to 9.2 if I remember correctly) but I wasn't as structured as I'm now. STEP itself was stable but when adding stuff on top of it I did almost no testing, didn't note patches for STEP mods I could need later, didn't properly name my mods in MO and ended up with frequent freezes and casual CTDs and no chance to track them down. Back then I didn't know about Memory Block Log, Papyrus Logs and so on and I think I messed something up with the Bashed Patch or one of the other patchers. Its all a learning process and this somewhat failed installation aswell as reading alot of stuff in the forum greatly added to my knowledge, tho I'm probably still on the noob side in this forum.

 

This time, if you look at the thread I've linked in my signature (Benchmark blah), I'm trying to do everything as repeatable and detailed as possible so I got a better chance to know where potential issues arise from. But don't let me make you doubt about STEP itself, before I've added anything to 2.2.9.2 it was rock stable.

 

All of this may sound pretty time consuming (if you should ever decide to somehow more or less follow my efforts) but I'm in no rush and plan to get an installation I can use for a long time. Also, this modding stuff makes fun in my eyes.

[elwaps]

Adding to the above guide with the (1) ... (9) numbers:

 

I remember the Dual Sheath Redux (or, if planning to install it, the SkyRe/PerMa/ASIS?) patcher sometimes complaining about DynDOLOD.esp having missing masters. This happens when removing a mod that is used by DynDOLOD. In this case, the first (instead of the 6th) thing I do is replacing the DnyDOLOD.esp with a backup. That way it is "cleaned" of its master dependencies (as it is a fresh file that hasn't been changed yet) and DSR doesn't complain anymore when patching. Basically it doesn't matter when you replace DynDOLOD.esp, it only gets needed and changed when doing the second DynDOLOD (Worlds) run. This is the point all the masters are saved into the esp, to be exact it happens when you exit TES5Edit after the script run and allow it to safe changes to the file.

 

Also, it may very well be that I have done (and still do) some unneccessary steps (like putting the Docs folder after running the Bashed Patch into the output folder, no idea if this is needed at all) and I surely know that running DynDOLOD after each and every section is not needed. But I just try to go the safe way to prevent all those "Do my issues perhaps come from not running DynDOLOD/Bashed/DSR/... this time? Great, now its try and error time to find the reason." moments from happening.

 

Also, how did that giant star thing get into my post above?  :O_o:

 

/edit

One last helpful advice, that is even more helpful when you plan to add mods on top of STEP: download everything directly in MO. Do not delete anything from the downloads tab after installing it. That way, when you later need to change something (adding patches for new mods, reinstalling with other options,...) you just go to your downloads tab, you will quickly find the file you're looking for as they're (mostly) in the same order as your left pane mod order and you'll just doubleclick it and thats it. You WILL adapt to this behaviour once you need to redownload a >1GB mod because of a 10kB patch only available inside the mod installer.

 

Also, and again especially when planning to install tons of mods on top of STEP, give the folders in the left pane of MO proper, recognizable names. That way MO is a perfectly clear and comprehensible overview of your installation. You can see what I mean when clicking on "My Modlist" below and then on the "Modlist" tab.

 

[sTEP 2D14] Name, where 2D stands for the category and 14 for the position the mod got inside that category.

[REGS 41120] Name, where 41120 stands for the section/number of the mod inside the REGS (which is an outdated pack for STEP) guide

[bSaR 2 PARALLAX] Name, where BSaR stands for Beyond STEP and REGS and 2 for the category I've made up myself

For adding stuff on top, I collected ideas during STEP/REGS installation and combined mods I wanted to install into my own little "packs" after each I do my patching routine and benchmark and some hours of testing. BSaR 1 was Vividian ENB and a ton of weather mods, 2 was parallax textures only, 3 was sounds and landscapes (that's what I'm currently testing) and so on.

 

Between sections of STEP, I've added spacers by going into the Skyrim\Mod Organizer\Mods\ folder, creating a new folder inside, naming it for example [sTEP 2N], restarting mod organizer and pull that empty folder between STEP 2M and 2N.

 

All of this isn't needed but helps me to not get confused.

Edited December 14, 2015 by elwaps

[Nebulous112]

Not sure about the giant star thingey, could be because it is the highest upvoted post in the thread, or due to multiple upvotes happening quickly. Or rated "best answer", but I think that throws the post at the very top highlighted in all green. Not totally sure.

 

It probably just means you're a star for helping. Lol

 

And sorry krossbonzz, I am an Nvidia user as well (970m in my gaming laptop).

[krossbonzz]

New to forums so I didn't see that I could give you guys a thumbs up so I did lol

 

On Nexus the ENB preset I'm running is Organic ENB and it does work with a vanilla Skyrim when I install it manually. But as soon as I tick my DLC in the right pane in plugins (MO) then ctd. If I add even one mod I get a ctd too at the Bethesda symbol screen. Even with setting ini's to step specifications and even if I clean the esm's per LOOT I get a ctd. I got banned by Boris for asking if AMD wasn't good enough for him because he stated screw amd due to bugs or something.. I'm old n cranky but pc savy lol (my first was an Apple 2E) but new to this and terminology caan confuse me due to inexperience. Such as "a new save" where to save as in once indoors the first building in Helgen? Like I said I'm witty but just don't know all the Varts of the Vuzzle yet. And being ex military 3rd Generation, I'm overly anal about stuff I shouldn't be! rofl Thanks again guys and I will check out the list and benchmarks plus that logmod.

 

 

*downloaded the lists and mods I didn't have yet and that memlog tool

Edited December 14, 2015 by krossbonzz

[elwaps]

Modding Skyrim often feels like trying to build a 500hp car out of matches, paper and glue. Sometimes you will fail (but also learn) but when it finally works, its just as awesome as it can get! 

 

Well, I've never tried your ENB (as I think Vividian is the perfect mixture of eye candy, performance and, when choosing the vanilla preset, also lore friendlyness while being popular and having a good guide) but such things shouldn't happen with any preset. What do you mean by setting your INIs to STEP specifications? Do you mean the ENBoost settings (which disable any graphics features of ENB) in the beginning of the guide or that extra ENB section telling you what to set when using an actual ENB?

 

This is the page I'm talking about

 

Basically, these are the important parts, given you've already successfully installed/configured ENBoost according to STEP:

- Set your video driver to "application controlled" when it comes to VSync, Anisotropic Filtering and Anti Aliasing (given your ENB got some good AA like SMAA)

- Set your skyrimprefs.ini to the following to let your ENB control all of the settings

[Display] iMaxAnisotropy=0 iMultiSample=0 bFloatPointRenderTarget=1

- Prepare your enblocal.ini for an actual ENB preset with the following. The first setting is basically a switch between "only use the stability and performance improvements of the ENB framework and ignore all fancy stuff coming from presets and other settings" (true) and "allow using all kinds of stuff your preset offers, leading to eye candy and framerate drop" (false). 

[GLOBAL] UsePatchSpeedhackWithoutGraphics=false UseDefferedRendering=true

- Do not copy the ENBs enblocal.ini over your already existing one as many ENBs got weird settings included in their ini. Only change the following sections of your enblocal.ini, my game for example just crashed when I replaced my STEP enblocal.ini with the ENB one:

• [PROXY]
  • Copy all settings
• [GLOBAL]
  • Copy all settings
• [ENGINE]
  • ForceLodBias=
  • LodBias=
• [FIX]
  • Copy all settings

- Check your memory settings in your enblocal.ini, VideoMemorySizeMb should be set according to this memory test tool linked in the STEP guide somewhere (probably in the beginning in the ENBoost settings). This is important as many other guides often recommend formulas outputting way too high numbers. Especially as there's a dumb limitation within Windows 10. Following the usual formulas I get 10240 MB for that setting. But as Windows 10 somehow restricts DirectX9 memory usage, my actual setting coming from the tool is 4064 MB. Be sure to run the DX9 and not the DX11 one as Skyrim is DX9.

- For everything else, stick absolutely to every detail in the description of your ENB (usually on Nexus). I don't know about Organic but the Vividian settings are very, very detailed

- Often ENBs will conflict with certain mods that alter lightning (ELE,...) and similar things, often there's patches for these mods for ENB, weather and so on. Again, use them according to your ENBs description

 

The "good thing" with your problem is, that you get you CTD at the Bethesda Symbol and not randomly after 348 hours ingame. So checking if your recent changes fixed it isn't really time consuming. However, what a DLC could contribute to let your ENB crash is beyond my knowledge.

 

Finally, I hope you've cleaned your esms with TES5Edit, not with LOOT. 

While saying that, one thing came to my mind about your DLC issue. Dawnguard needs to be cleaned TWICE. I think I overlooked this in my installation first and due to that had some issues (tho I don't remember what kind of issues but dirty plugins always tend to raise your CTD rate). You REALLY ACTUALLY need to clean it twice. No idea why, no idea who found this out but its true.

 

Dawnguard is a special case. It must be cleaned twice. Repeat steps 2 through 9.

 

/edit
Here's someone with an AMD card whose ENBoost was crashing all the time on Win10. He needed to reload DirectX9 as the AMD drivers did strange things and apparently tried to use DX12.

Edited December 14, 2015 by elwaps

[krossbonzz]

I went by what was on this https://wiki.step-project.com/Guide:Skyrim_Configuration_Settings but I didn't do any of the "harmfull" settings and Yes for the same ENB page for those settings. For my video drivers I have tried the latest Crimson drivers, older 15.71 & 13.12 drivers but if I go too old then BF4 and some of my newer games get weird too. I am back to Win7 64b after trying W10 since my friends' kids and relatives have W10 on their new laptops etc so for troubleshooting I was running it. I also noticed last night in downloading what I didn't have from yuour list of Mod's that like 6 are in Steams workshop. How does that work as for moving them or extracting them to Mod Organizer? When running the Vram size tool I get about 6880 I think it was. My system runs an i5-2500k @4.2 with 16Gb 2133 Ram and my XFX Black Edition HD7950 3Gb... that's before I deduct the 170. And 2 Mushkin DX SSD's (120&240Gb) with 2 spinners for mp3's/movies/backup's etc Skyrim is loaded onto my second SSD (the 240) away from Windows like the Guide said. And I will try the Vividian preset since I'm going to try running your full step+ super duper extended version Mod list :) Easier to tell you what's going on when something arrises after install. Also Yes for TES5Edit: "Dawnguard needs to be cleaned TWICE" I cleaned once then exited via the red X then reopened Dawnguard, cleaned (usually says like 57 navmeshes couldnt be cleaned?) again, then clicked ok w/backup checked, then like the others when done "create new mod" for the dlc/update esm's like the text and videos stated. or for Dawnguard do you not exit and just run twice while still in the program unlike what the video's say?? Sometimes the conflicting details are what gets me due to my knowledge barrier. Funny thing is I'm doing all this for an old Visio 19" 720p tv/monitor that I was given for free. If that sounds weird it's because I'm an unemployed homeless Veteran living in my ex coworkers basement room lol even my roccat keyboard has the letter "p" out so I'm always cut-n-paste just to type stuff, really sux rofl

 

Thanks man

 

* After reading that post about DX9 & ENB,,, I have dx9c to install from issues in the recent past. Would it be wise to just install it now with Vanilla Skyrim before adding any mods that way I know the stuffs right?

Edited December 14, 2015 by krossbonzz

[krossbonzz]

I assume you omitted some of the mods from the Guide list (2.2.9.1) due to your added mods? Thanks again

[Nebulous112]

Hey Kross, was that just a typo, or are you using the 2.2.9.1 guide instead of the 2.2.9.2? It makes a big difference...I don't think the old patches are even available for 2.2.9.1 anymore.

[Nebulous112]

Also, just to add...if I were you, I would try to just get a standard STEP install done first, with only ENBoost and not a graphical ENB.

 

Add the graphical ENB and adjust the enblocal.ini to fit a graphical ENB after you confirm that the STEP install is working. Might have to install a couple things with different options later for ENB, but it might be easier to troubleshoot if it's a problem with ENB or the STEP install.

 

Six of one, half a dozen of the other, I suppose. Both ways have drawbacks.

[elwaps]

All I've read sounds good so far except for the AMD drivers, I really don't know much about AMD at all since I quit my job at a computer store two years ago so I can't say anything about it.

 

But just as Nebulous said, are you doing 2.2.9.1 or 2.2.9.2?

 

For my detailed mod setup, I think initially I left out only two mods: Dragons shout with Voices (I like the monster like sound better) and Oblivion Gates (hate the textures, conflicts with a cool house mod). Every change other than that can be found on my benchmark page (see signature link). I've separated my "installation log" into sections, each post is one section so it starts with STEP, followed by REGS (see changes compared to original REGS guide), followed by Vividian & Weather (see changes to REGS) and so on.

 

But be warned, "even" I still get CTDs. So following my "guide" isn't a perfect solution at the moment. I'm pretty sure they're script related but I'm too noob to interpret Papyrus logs.

 

Also, be warned looking at your video card. It was a cool card back then but definitely weaker (20%+ specifically in Skyrim) than my GTX 680 4GB. And I got freaking 25-40 fps where I am right now. And my installation isn't even finished yet. You WILL be looking at a slideshow if you do everything I did.

 

Finally, I know how it is playing with equipment like that. I was a student for a long time. When being rich like a student, you even try to bake (yeah, it works (for a short time)) your failing video card.