STEP:A

About STEP

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Call for STEP Mod Testers

Seasoned mod users interested in becoming STEP testers, please contact one of the STEP Admin (Farlo, z929669 and/or stoppingby4now) via PM on the forums (Please register on the forums and see the very bottom of the Forum Team page).

Call for STEP Benchmarks

Users interested in helping out with the STEP Benchmarking Project, see our benchmarking guidelines and submit results on the forums (see link at upper left of site header bar).

Call for Forum Moderators

Regular STEP forum users interested in becoming moderators, please contact one of the STEP Admin (Farlo, z929669 and/or stoppingby4now) via PM on the forums (Please register on the forums and see the very bottom of the Forum Team page).

Visit the forums and provide feedback related to STEP. Assistance and feedback are what is needed in order for STEP to grow and improve. Also visit the STEP Facebook page maintained by TheCompiler (Daniel).

To support hosting and maintenance of the STEP Community Project, contributions are welcome.

STEP Mandate

A Commitment

Core STEP is about enhancing vanilla Skyrim for the PC ...

• Texture replacements at minimized performance cost and true to vanilla Skyrim
• Continuity of all in-game textures, reducing immersion-breaking variation in texture quality (i.e., comparable resolution and style across all armors, weapons, clutter, terrain, etc.)
• Graphical mods (ESPs) including new content that "fits" vanilla Skyrim
• Gameplay & sound mods that improve the consistency and the perceived intent of vanilla Skyrim
• Interface mods that improve the menus and UI.
• Fix mods that truly "fix" malfunctioning aspects of vanilla Skyrim.

STEP is NOT about ...

• Content mods that conflict with vanilla Skyrim and/or TES lore
• Mods that change the perceived intent of vanilla Skyrim
• Sex mods or female body replacement mods
• Music replacement mods
• Gameplay overhauls

Performance, Baseline & Extreme STEP

STEP provides an enhanced vanilla experience by utilizing a minimum or “Core” set of game enhancements adhering to the original vanilla feel of the game according to the STEP Mandate. All Core mods are considered essential to all STEP "versions". Non-Core mods are optional but highly recommended. STEP versions are delineated at three levels according to relative performance impacts:

Performance STEP: Core mods only; performance options wherever possible.

My poor box needs all of the mercy that I can spare it, but I must have STEP!

Baseline STEP: Core and non-Core mods; performance/quality and balanced options wherever possible.

My box is decent, but I hate even the tiniest FPS drops and stuttering!

Extreme STEP: Core and non-Core mods; highest-quality options wherever possible.

My box is omnipotent!

STEP 1

Pre-Installation Setup

Requirements

• Official Patch v1.8
• Patience and attention to detail

Baseline System

The STEP Guide is written with the following system (or comparable) in mind:

• Windows 7
• Intel i5/i7 quad core
• 4+ GB system RAM
• GPU 1+ GB VRAM (DDR5)
• Resolution: 1680x1050

1.A. Install Steam & Skyrim

This guide assumes that the reader has installed Steam as recommended by the Skyrim Installation Guide (SIG). Please take some time to properly set up and configure Steam as recommended by the guide before continuing. Likewise, please refer to the Skyrim installation section of the SIG to establish the recommended Skyrim installation for STEP.

It is very important to begin by reverting to a clean Vanilla Skyrim installation.

1.B. Skyrim Launcher Options

1.B.1. Launcher Settings

1. Launch Skyrim from Steam and click on [Options]. This will establish the INI file configurations according to the detected hardware. It will also establish the registry entries necessary for utilities and applications used downstream.
2. Click the [Ultra] button.
3. Under Antialiasing, select 4 Samples, as the difference between 4 Samples and 8 Samples is very subtle and not worth the performance loss (per Tweakguides). Drop down to 2 Samples as a last-resort to improve performance. NOTE: If using SMAA, set this value to zero.
4. Under Anisotropic Filtering, select 16 Samples (use 8 Samples for a very slight performance gain).
5. Click the [Advanced] button and make sure FXAA is UN-checked. FXAA reduces the Anisotropic Filter effect as well as overall texture detail. It is a huge performance improvement over AA, but comes with a quality cost. For more information on FXAA, and to see if it is right for you, see this post. NOTE: SMAA is a superior alternative to FXAA.
   • Consider setting shadow detail to 'High' rather than 'Ultra' for video cards with less than 1 GB VRAM (Performance STEP), or leave at 'Ultra' for Extreme STEP:
   • Under [View Distance], make sure Object Detail Fade is UN-checked and adjust grass to 100% with all other settings around 50%.NOTE: High-end systems can handle max view distances just fine.
6. Exit and click Play from the Skyrim Launcher. This will create the necessary configuration files, and registry settings required by downstream applications (contrary to popular belief, the INI files are created immediately, and the game does not need to launch).

1.C. Display & Video Card Settings

1.C.1. Nvidia Users

1. Download and install the latest Nvidia drivers (beta if available).
2. Download Nvidia Inspector.
3. Due to the variability of Nvidia configurations, Inspector settings are not recommended here, but see the Tom's Hardware article for helpful tips and links to relevant guides. Be certain to filter the potential options to accommodate the correct STEP configuration.

1.C.2. ATI Users

1. Download and install the latest AMD drivers (beta if available).
2. Open Catalyst Control Center, and click on the [Preferences] button in the upper right. Select Advanced View.
3. Under the Gaming section on the left select 3D Application Settings.
   • Mirror the anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering values set using the Skyrim Launcher above.
   • Set [Tessellation] to {{fc|#E6B69E|AMD Optimized"
   • Set [Catalyst A.I.] to highest texture quality and tick Enable Surface Format Optimization
   • Set [Wait for vertical refresh] to Quality
   • Set [Anti-Aliasing Mode] to Multi-sample AA
   • Tick Triple buffering under [OpenGL Settings]

1.C.3. Display

Configure the monitor's display settings using Windows Display configuration utility (Control Panel > Display > Calibrate Color).

• First use the monitor's built-in configuration to attempt to complete the wizard. (ignore the ClearType tuner process)
• Repeat the calibration wizard using the GPU's driver configuration settings.
• For each run, be certain to execute all calibrators with particular attention to gamma, brightness and contrast. Most users' monitor output will be significantly darker and slightly more color-saturated.

1.D. Performance Benchmarking

The following procedure is very important in determining baseline performance and ultimately helps the STEP team to assess performance variation across a wide range of computer configurations. This ultimately allows the accurate prediction of performance requirements for the various versions of STEP to come. User contributions in this regard are highly valued and much appreciated! Even more importantly, this routine should be used to assess the performance of the strict STEP versions as described above. Database-comparison benchmarks will be available as sufficient numbers of user-submitted data accumulate.

At this point ...

• There should be a clean install of both Steam and Skyrim as recommended by the SIG (see above),
• the baseline INI settings should be configured (via the Skyrim Launcher), and
• the monitor and video-driver configurations should be optimized.

This is a perfect point to collect some baseline performance data, as all tweaks after this section are manual and could have significant performance impact on some systems. A baseline benchmark provides valuable information about the setup and the gaming environment. Detecting driver issues, software incompatibilities, hardware problems or other issues is essential while the build is simple, as these kinds of problems are much more difficult to diagnose and solve as the build becomes more complex. It is recommended that users execute the following process again after the INI edits following are applied and after each sequence of potentially-impactful changes is introduced.

Points during setup that benchmarking is suggested will be indicated by:

Benchmark

Use the following checklist to calculate the standard STEP benchmark:

1. Identify any unnecessary background programs that may be running. Most importantly, determine if it is possible to set any anti-virus/spyware to low priority or "game mode". Any running background processes will consume some proportion of resources that Skyrim could otherwise use and increase the chances for instability. It is fine to have processes running in the background, but it is a good idea to be aware of what they are for troubleshooting in case there are problems.
2. Launch Fraps or another light benchmarking utility in order to measure FPS. Set to output FPS to a log file.
3. Launch GPU-z in order to measure GPU and system memory-usage statistics. Set GPU-z to output the following to the log file (Sensors > Log to File; each variable log can be toggled by selecting the corresponding drop-downs):
   • GPU Core Clock (MHz)
   • GPU Load (%)
   • Memory Usage (Dedicated) - This is on-card-VRAM
   • Memory Usage (Dynamic) - This is the amount of VRAM transferred to much-slower system RAM
4. Launch Skyrim, and start a new game. Let the game progress through character creation, and then save.
5. Proceed through the Unbound quest (i.e., following Ralof through the Imperial Fort/dungeon).
6. Upon exiting the dungeon and obtaining the "Before the Storm" quest, save the game again and stand (don't move the mouse at all) at the cave exit for 60 seconds to capture some more performance data (this is a GPU-demanding area of the game).
7. Quit the game and go to the GPU-z log. Identify the point in the log where the GPU Core Clock first maxes out and stays consistently maxed after the point where the Dedicated Memory spikes (it should be around 10-30 rows from the top of the file). Note this row number and delete all preceding rows (keep the header row!).
8. Move down to the end of the file and locate the point at which the GPU Core Clock and Dedicated Memory begin to recede. Count the number of rows from this point to the end of the file, record that number and delete the rows of data. Save and quit.
9. Open the Fraps FPS log and delete the same number of rows from the top and bottom of the file, matching the numbers noted in the GPU-z log. The remaining records in each file are the in-game performance data, and the STEP team would very much like to collect this data in addition to the related system specs system specs of each system used to obtain it (See format above).