Skyrim: mods and tweaks

[Two Sheds]

On this "Optimization" thing: I'd be careful. From the RPS comments about this:

From what I’ve read on other forums this mod does improve performance, but at a cost. Primarily it wrecks most scripted events in-game; as in they just do not occur.

It increases my peformance alot in certain citys, by up to 7fps, but now some events dont happen as they should. Like the first fight at the beginning of the game.

I haven't confirmed this myself, but I'm staying away because I don't need the little FPS boost anyway. FYI.

Edit: Well, I don't know. I put the file in the folder so I assume it was working correctly, and then I loaded up my save at the very beginning of the game. All of the scripted stuff seemed to fire off okay through the dragon attack, but I didn't play any further than that. If people are reporting scripted events screwing up that can't be nothing, but I didn't see it in my (admittedly short) test run.

[Hammet]

Played for a total of five hours running it. Ran into two different random encounters I've never seen before which seemed to function as intended. Everything has worked as I expected it to, running the latest mod from the modders own page.

[Tom McNamara]

If i verify integrity will that remove any mods I dropped in?

The mod system used in the Elder Scrolls and Fallout titles does not customarily modify the game's files. Instead, mod installation puts new files and folders in the game's Data folder, and they override the files located within the game's BSA file archives. You just delete or rename the mods' folders to remove the behavior or cosmetics that they introduce. So integrity verification will ignore folders and files created from mod installation.

[Desslock]

There was an error in the initial release of the acceleration mod that mucked up some scripting - it's been caught and fixed, so if you're using it, download and use the new version instead. It's also now available at the Nexus.

[cliffski]

Is there a definitive answer to what happened here? It sounds like they just shipped the debug build of skyrims exe, because release build crashed. SURELY that isn't the case. All coders have days with release-build only crashes where we want to jump under a bus, but we fix them all in the end.
Please tell me this is misreported and a big budget PC game was not slapped together that poorly?

[billy7777]

Is there a definitive answer to what happened here? It sounds like they just shipped the debug build of skyrims exe, because release build crashed. SURELY that isn't the case. All coders have days with release-build only crashes where we want to jump under a bus, but we fix them all in the end.
Please tell me this is misreported and a big budget PC game was not slapped together that poorly?

The interesting thing here... is... it is not crashing for everyone. Some people get no errors or crashes.

[cliffski]

which sounds like a classic release mode only crash. I'd love to know the real story :D

[Joe M.]

And SkyUI 1.1 is definitely ready for primetime now. There's only one lingering issue I hope they fix but everything else appears to be sorted out. I love that they've retained the behavior of default UI since wasderTAB has become second nature and (god help me) I actually miss it when I play other games that expect me to use the mouse to poke around in their UI.

[Kunikos]

Anyone try that yet? Some users report almost no increase while a few had more than 50% increase in frame rate in particular trouble areas. I suppose how CPU limited you are depends on lot on your particular setup and graphic settings.

Posters on Rock Paper Shotgun warned it breaks game scripting.

[Desslock]

Posters on Rock Paper Shotgun warned it breaks game scripting.

There's an updated version that fixes that

[Pogo]

I'm pretty excited to try that optimization proggie, and since it uses SKSE then I suppose I'll go ahead and try out SkyUI.

Pretty excited to see if anything has changed with ENBSeries as well.

[Boojum]

So, I just got the game yesterday on the Steam sale, and this thread is 32 pages, which is a bit long to quickly catch up on. Is there a good starting point for mods and tweaks? I've heard that it's fairly quick and painless to make substantial improvements to the visuals on PC, and that the interface could use some tweaks.

I have a solid but not cutting edge system of Phenom II X4 955, 4GB RAM, and Radeon 5850, and my goal is to make sure my time with the game is as enjoyable as possible, but not to start a complete overhaul or do anything that needs lots of time experimenting to figure out. Thanks for any help.

[Sebmojo]

So, I just got the game yesterday on the Steam sale, and this thread is 32 pages, which is a bit long to quickly catch up on. Is there a good starting point for mods and tweaks? I've heard that it's fairly quick and painless to make substantial improvements to the visuals on PC, and that the interface could use some tweaks.

I have a solid but not cutting edge system of Phenom II X4 955, 4GB RAM, and Radeon 5850, and my goal is to make sure my time with the game is as enjoyable as possible, but not to start a complete overhaul or do anything that needs lots of time experimenting to figure out. Thanks for any help.

I did a summary post a while back, maybe search in this thread for that. Sorry, on a phone so can't help much more than that.

[Pogo]

There's a tweak guide on www.geforce.com (sorry don't have my bookmarks)

[Sebmojo]

Here you go.

[Boojum]

Thanks!

[Joe M.]

Triss armor from TW2 has been ported to Skyrim. I'll spoiler the next bit in the event anyone doesn't want to know certain item sets exist and can be obtained.

Spoiler: just in case!

Dark Brotherhood Armor replacer | Archmage Robe replacer

To summon the DB version via console:

Armor: player.additem 000E1F15 1
Boots: player.additem 000E1F14 1

I think the shrouded gloves and cowl from that set look decent with the modded Triss stuff (sorry for quality of screenshot). You can summon those with these codes:

Gloves: player.additem 000E1F16 1
Cowl: player.additem 000E1F17 1

To summon the AM version via console:

Robes: player.additem 0007C932 1
Boots: player.additem 0007c92e 1

Alternatively, you can just earn this stuff the old fashioned way.

Edit: hmph, seems the DB set has been hidden by the guy who posted the mod. I can re-upload it elsewhere at some point if anyone really wants it (it comes in three flavors: original red, black and dark brown)

[rei]

For the layman, I assume the +performance mod is like to the developer...say, not including MMX or SSE optimizations in their binary?

[Cormac]

For the layman, I assume the +performance mod is like to the developer...say, not including MMX or SSE optimizations in their binary?

?? a real layman wouldn't have a clue what that is!

[Rachel Brown]

Found the real reason my settings seem to get clobbered. Using the launcher will wipe out certain settings each time (ie., all those nice nice shadow settings), even if you don't make any config changes. Running from the .exe will prevent this.

Just started reading this thread. In preparation in case I may need to run the TESV.exe direct, I ran it to make sure that the launcher gets bypassed and it doesn't. WTF?

[Alistair]

That was patched out. You probably need to read more thread...

[Rachel Brown]

That was patched out. You probably need to read more thread...

Oh boy. I'm on page 4 at the moment. Give me a day or two. :P

[Rachel Brown]

Just making sure you are using a wired not wireless controller

(On page 6 now.)

Is that an issue? My Xbox 360 controller for Windows is wireless. I don't use it, but I'd still like to know. Wired works, wireless doesn't. Fuck?

Edit: Never mind, I kept reading:

I'm using a wireless, no problem at all so far.

[Rachel Brown]

Are the crazy physics problems within buildings (flying plates, books, etc.) due to VSYNC being off and FPS being greater than 60? Anyone NOT experience those glitches, and if so, do you have VSYNC off/on? I think they're due to VSYNC being off, but don't have enough experience to confirm.

(Page 8 now.)

I have Vsync on. My normal FPS is 120 as I'm using a 120Hz monitor. The noise those items make whilst being thrown about is slightly terrifying. No?

[pilonv1]

Glad others are getting those noises too. I presume this is also related to the in/out water flickering I get anytime I'm near a body of water?

[BDGE]

(On page 6 now.)

Is that an issue? My Xbox 360 controller for Windows is wireless. I don't use it, but I'd still like to know. Wired works, wireless doesn't. Fuck?

Edit: Never mind, I kept reading:

You need the wireless adapter to use a wireless 360 controller on your PC. Pictured below.



The USB charge cable you normally plug into your 360 to charge a wireless controller won't work on PC as a connector cable. A wired 360 controller does plug-and-play just fine on PC(windows recognizes it). But for wireless controllers the above pictured peripheral is needed.

[Pogo]

Glad others are getting those noises too. I presume this is also related to the in/out water flickering I get anytime I'm near a body of water?

Correct. Don't turn VSync off.

Or if you do turn it off for god knows whatever reason (3 fps?), use an FPS limiter.

[Rachel Brown]

@BDGE
I use a proper Windows Xbox 360 controller, so it comes with that - obviously. I guess some people try to connect the actual Xbox 360 controller?

Regarding setting the Skyrim executable to high priority. Would that make the cpu/gpu/case fans spin faster ergo more noisy?

Does the batch file Pogo made need Administrator privileges? I ran it but the tesv.exe was still running at normal. I Alt-tabbed and checked via the Task Manager.

[Rachel Brown]

(Page 26 now.)
I'm still posting things even though they may well have already been solved or answered.

I'm almost wondering if that dungeon was built under the assumption of uGrids=5.

Nope, running it at 9 with all game settings on Ultra and getting 120FPS.

[Alistair]

Which area is that? I couldn't see a post about it.