SkyrimLE:2.2.1

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About STEP

A Forward

STEP is an extensive, STEP-by-STEP, guide to enhancing TESV Skyrim with the best mods, tweaks and settings. The focus is quality over quantity. STEP tries to stay as close to vanilla Skyrim as possible while improving visual quality and fixing game-play mechanics.

Created by TheCompiler, STEP is a collaborative project with input from the modding community, technical volunteers, and project administrators. The goal is to provide tested and validated methods for establishing and maintaining an enhanced modded Skyrim. Thus, the Guide provides detailed, well-tested build instructions for a solid modding template. New modders can follow STEP explicitly, or more experienced modders may use it as general guide.

The STEP team collects information from the modding community through detailed reviews, feedback, and suggestions exchanged on the STEP Community Forums. Posting rules apply, so be sure to read and follow them and enjoy a warm welcome and plenty of high-quality support from a large community of experienced STEPers. Check out the comparison screenshots on the Nexus. But remember: the only way to experience STEP ... is to actually experience STEP.

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

! Mod Name ! Baseline ! Performance Options ! DLC Required ! Notes

2.A

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2.B

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2.C

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2.D

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2.E

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2.F

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Benchmark

2.G

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2.H

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2.I

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2.J

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2.K

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2.L

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2.M

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Benchmark

Post-Installation Housekeeping

Once all mods have been installed and are ready to play, be certain to either:

• Start a brand new character, or
• load the save game generated just after character creation if it exists, or
• load an existing character after clean saving the relevant save game.

STEP 3

Tips & Troubleshooting Common Issues

3.A. Technical Tips

The following is a good place to begin, but be certain to also check the Troubleshooting Guide. Also, search the support & Troubleshooting forum on the STEP Boards,

3.A.1. Maximizing STEP

A heavily modded Skyrim can bring even a very powerful system to its knees. Maximum visual quality is highly dependent upon total on-card graphics-dedicated video memory (VRAM), the number of GPUs, and monitor resolution. The goal should be to maintain 32 or more FPS on average without any noticeable stuttering. Following are some enhancements that users with rather powerful systems might be able to take advantage of:

• Try using SSAO (using video driver settings) for better quality graphics and note the performance hit.
• Use one of the STEP-recommended ENB configurations.
• Make sure Skyrim.ini and SkyrimPrefs.ini are writable and, using the Skyrim Launcher, max out ...

1. • anti-aliasing
   • anisotropic filtering
   • view distances
   • shadow quality
   • texture quality

3.A.2. Fix game launch crash after installing STEP

For crashes to desktop (CTDs),

• Set the Skyrim executable "TESV.exe" to run as administrator (right click TESV.exe > Properties > Compatibility > Check Run this program as administrator).
• If using RCRN or any other FXAA-Injector/ENB mod, turn off any on-screen display programs and monitoring tools such as Fraps, ATI Tray Tools, MSI Afterburner, GPU-Z, etc.
• Get the latest DirectX runtime installed.

3.A.3. Defrag the Hard Drive

For hard drives (not SSDs), this is a very important task once most/all mods are installed. The Windows defrag utility may be used, but it is sub-standard. A couple of the best free utilities are Auslogics Disk Defrag and Puran Defrag Free Edition. Do NOT defrag an SSD as it will detrimentally affect its lifetime.

3.A.4. Semi-Invisible People & Misbehaving Walls

Be certain that ATI Antialiasing is set to Multi-Sample and NOT Adaptive. Also, remember to download the latest ATI drivers. Also be certain that bFloatPointRenderTarget=1 in the SkyrimPrefs.ini if using ENB.

3.A.5. Using Windowed Mode (ATI)

If having stuttering problems or CTDs in full screen mode, try "full screen" windowed mode by downloading Simple Borderless Window. The "Simple Borderless Window" launcher SBW.exe launches SKSE, so start the game through SBW.exe.

3.A.6. Increase Overall Performance

If after following the whole guide and installing the enhanced graphics, the game is unplayable due to low performance, try one or more of the following:

• Disable SSAO or Supersampling AA (or both) if enabled.
• Reduce shadow quality from the Skyrim Launcher.
• Install the performance-friendly versions of textures where applicable.
• Consider texture optimization.
• Reduce The [View Distance] settings in the game launcher (see 1.B.1).

3.A.7. Texture Shimmering, Etc.

Refer to the Z-Fighting Guide.

3.B. In-Game Tips

The console can be activated by pressing the tilde ([~]) key, often located just below [Escape], while in-game.

3.B.1. Optimize Field of View (FOV)

In the console enter the following using a number from 66-100, depending on resolution and screen ratio. Default is 65 (4:3 screens), but 70-75 works nicely for 16:10 screens and 75-80 works nicely for 16:9 screens:

FOV ##

This change will be permanent in the saved game. Other INI FOV tweaks don't require opening the console, but they don’t 'stick' and can corrupt the game. Also note that high FOV can cause a performance drop for some configurations.

3.B.2. BIG Frame Drops During Cell Loading

This is a likely indicator that VRAM is too often operating at or beyond capacity (see 3.A.6).

User Contributions

How YOU Can Help

STEP can only get bigger and better with help from the user community. Even simply maintaining the current STEP is too much work for the core STEP team to ensure that the highest quality is maintained. We need people to help us identify mods that are thought to improve Skyrim while adhering to the STEP Mandate. We also need ongoing reviews and updates on mods that may be causing problems or that stray from the STEP philosophy. Finally, we need help from the community in terms of testing, benchmarking and analysis. More detail is presented in the Mod Testing Guide.

In order to suggest a mod, visit the Mod Suggestions section of the STEP Forums.

Thank you for reading and enjoy the game!

Special Credits

The STEP administrators would sincerely like to thank (from the bottoms of our fuzzy little hearts):

• The authors of mods recommended in STEP
• The core STEP Community for feedback, suggestions and input
• The STEP beta testers ... for their good humor and rigorous analyses
• The Nexus community
• Bealdwine, EisDrache & MontyMM - site founders on indefinite leave (we hope you guys are well!)
• Outstanding v2.2.1 contributors - Techangel85, Neovalen, rpsgc, Besidilo, JudgementJay, torminater, Kelmych, Korentin & Mothergoose729
• Bethesda Softworks for Skyrim (and TES in general)

The core STEP team is:

• Farlo - Mediawiki developer & extraordinaire, Mod-list co-compiler, forums admin, site founder
• frihyland - Solutions developer (Thunderbolt), mod extraordinaire, site founder
• stoppingby4now - Main site developer, Semantic Mediawiki developer & extraordinaire, site founder
• TheCompiler - STEP creator, mod-list extraordinaire
• z929669 - Wiki & forums content editor, main site administrator, hosting maintenance, site founder
• EMPTY SLOTS WAITING TO BE FILLED BY ESTABLISHED & DEDICATED COMMUNITY MEMBERS!

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