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I tried to do the Valerica test run on my 1900 mod build... it didn't go so well

gregaaz

Entry posted by gregaaz in Miscellaneous

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Hi folks, I was planning to use my giant 1900 mod build to run a test of the controversial Valerica romance mod. Unfortunately, it didn't go quite the way I expected. I've rolled up this fellow for the quest, and we'll start by traveling to Fort Dawnguard and joining their ranks.

 

image.png.42674e621a63cb0ff0b597bbfbdcf5d5.png

 

This session will be running on a very slightly updated version of my main build, using 1906 mods. It's not perfectly up to date as many elements have been updated while I was off playing Fallout 4, but it should be more or less stable and suitable for a narrow playthrough.

 

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I departed Helgen through the east gate and started up into the mountains on the road to Riften. Shortly thereafter, my wimpy 1st level self was running back to Helgen with a bandit gang hot on my heels. The Imperial Legion saved my bacon and I helped myself to some of the bandits' gear to give myself a little early game power bump. Less fragile, I was able to fight my way through the lawless stretch of land and then down into the more peaceful regions of the Rift.

 

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By late afternoon I'd reached Cocksmen Village, and I was officially back in civilized lands. I considered stopping over for a drink, but I really wanted to reach Riften before nightfall.

 

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I had to get a little sneaky past Cocksmen, because there was a well organized and tough bandit group lurking in the hills, but despite my low level I was able to make it through... after a few tries.

 

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One thing I am noticing here is that game performance, while great indoors, is unacceptably degraded in the open world. This is a pretty strong vote in favor of me starting a new build this summer when I put some serious time into Skyrim, with a much greater emphasis on maximizing stability and performance. I have stability with this huge setup, but it clearly has untenable performance problems. I suspect that a big factor in that is too many NPCs in the world, something that was already on my list of things to be much pickier about in the future.

 

Shortly after I reached that conclusion, I started to get more serious performance problems, including race condition freezes. Basically, the game wasn't playable. So I decided to pull the plug at this point and instead either do a 'bare metal' type setup or download a Wabbajack list for playing with that mod. It won't exactly be my new build in either event, which is going to have a lot more bugfixing in it, but it'll get me playing in a reasonable amount of time. So stay tuned!  

 

In the meanwhile, Settlement Tour part 4 should be up soon, to tide everyone over :) 

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Miauzi

Um - crap ... well I just wrote today that my installation is finished and not a single mod will change that for the next 1/2 year ...


...and then you come and tell me something about a new Valerica mod (it will probably be this one)

 

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/89474?tab=description

 

I'll fire up my WoWS now and destroy the "Bismark" and the "Yamato"... to consider breaking my own promise... and still installing this mod.


Although - that would only come into play in the 3rd part of my story anyway ... and I have to install "Maids 2" in late summer anyway.

?

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gregaaz

In my next build, I'm going to be making three changes to my technical approach intended to reduce potential performance issues.

 

  1. Greatly reduce the number of NPC population mods. Hydragorgon will probably survive, as will the specific Populated Skyrim module for the prisons, but the other mods that put a lot of NPCs in the exterior worldspaces are going to be dramatically thinned out.
  2. Cut back on and/or experiment with alternatives to, mods that have high overhead for relatively low contribution. That probably means, despite my preference for RND, that I'll be going with Sunhelm in the new build for survival gameplay; likewise, I'm inclined to try out Prison Alternative instead of Prison Overhaul. Those are just a few examples, but several mods stood out while I was going through the MCMs today.
  3. Heavily cut back on mods that make substantial edits to the exterior world - landscape improvements, towns and settlements, things like that. Some will survive if they add genuinely useful content, but the goal is to reduce the complexity of the exterior world. This probably also means that mods like Heart of Skyrim will never be part of the new build, as much as I appreciate their artistic value.

The new build will also be getting a full overhaul of its weather, lighting, and other components, and will use an ENB designed specifically to work with the visual package. 

 

Based on my experience with the 1900 build, in addition to normal stability testing, I'll be monitoring and tracking FPS in certain area of Skyrim (the main roads in the Rift and in the Reach) as well as in the Riften and Solitude worldspaces. These need to be consistently giving at least 30 FPS for the new build.

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gregaaz
5 minutes ago, Miauzi said:

Um - crap ... well I just wrote today that my installation is finished and not a single mod will change that for the next 1/2 year ...


...and then you come and tell me something about a new Valerica mod (it will probably be this one)

 

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/89474?tab=description

 

I'll fire up my WoWS now and destroy the "Bismark" and the "Yamato"... to consider breaking my own promise... and still installing this mod.


Although - that would only come into play in the 3rd part of my story anyway ... and I have to install "Maids 2" in late summer anyway.

?

 

The good news is that the Valerica mod is pretty lightweight. It had no conflicts on my setup and appears to strictly just install new dialogue trees and the associated voice files. I doubt it would have any performance impact or need any integration work other than just installing it.

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Miauzi
Vor 9 Minuten sagte gregaaz:

 

Die gute Nachricht ist, dass der Valerica-Mod ziemlich leicht ist. Es hatte keine Konflikte bei meinem Setup und scheint nur neue Dialogbäume und die zugehörigen Sprachdateien zu installieren. Ich bezweifle, dass es Auswirkungen auf die Leistung haben würde oder andere Integrationsarbeiten erforderlich wären, als es nur zu installieren.

It's less the performance - there's room for improvement - it's the use of "Vortex" as a mod organizer for me... I can't handle MO2 and I'm really out of my mind (quite tedious) to learn.

And my "Vortex" tends to mess up the loading order of the "plugins" when installing mods... and then the installation doesn't work anymore.


People with significantly more expertise (like you) can handle this - but I'm just a "little light" here.

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gregaaz

image.png.aad3cd7789217d0e011e303786bdaaa5.png

 

Well, here's goes nothing... let's see if AE has matured enough to be a good modding platform. On paper, the answer appears to be "yes" but you never know for sure till you experience it in game.

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Talesien
1 hour ago, gregaaz said:

image.png.aad3cd7789217d0e011e303786bdaaa5.png

 

Well, here's goes nothing... let's see if AE has matured enough to be a good modding platform. On paper, the answer appears to be "yes" but you never know for sure till you experience it in game.

I made the transition about 2-3 months ago, worked pretty well. Only pain is finding outdated dll's, only way for that is the logs. I thought SKSE would simply tell me, but no, it does that only for outdated 1.6x plugins, if the plugin is still for 1.597 it fails silently. After that was sorted out it's been pretty smooth sailing.
You are using 1.6x or actual AE? Cause one thing I disliked are some of the AE Mods occupying a regular slot. If we have to use them all, Bethesda could at least have bashed them together. But no, don't invest any time in reselling a 10 year old game at a (almost) modern triple A title price point.

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gregaaz
42 minutes ago, Talesien said:

I made the transition about 2-3 months ago, worked pretty well. Only pain is finding outdated dll's, only way for that is the logs. I thought SKSE would simply tell me, but no, it does that only for outdated 1.6x plugins, if the plugin is still for 1.597 it fails silently. After that was sorted out it's been pretty smooth sailing.

 

Yeah, that's part of why I waited until I was ready to start a new build. I'll pull some elements from the 1900, especially parts of the texture blend, but everything will be highly scrutinized including DLL versioning.

 

42 minutes ago, Talesien said:


You are using 1.6x or actual AE? Cause one thing I disliked are some of the AE Mods occupying a regular slot. If we have to use them all, Bethesda could at least have bashed them together. But no, don't invest any time in reselling a 10 year old game at a (almost) modern triple A title price point.

 

Full AE install. I agree it would have been nice if they merged everything into one big DLC file for the AE release but I gotta work with what they give me. Even though a lot of the AE stuff is low priority for me in terms of value, it's rather get it in there and then tailor it if necessary than get smacked with a missing master or something deeper into the build. 

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