Skyrim Modding Guide

[zenna11]

Sorry, HDT magic is above my paygrade, I don't entirely know how that works, you're better off posting on the Nexus HDT site and see if anyone knows.

 

For the other, make sure you make your SKSE.ini and put in the numbers I said, much less crashes then. If you crash from main menu with 1024/365 try setting it down to 768/256 instead.

i crash after make new character in alternative start and use bed on loading scrrean 

[howls]

So, Sacremas, I think I figured it out what is messing with the saves... whenever I loaded an exterior save in which I was playing as a female that was far away from where I originally started which was the "Camping in the woods" option via LAL, it crashed. Doing the same process, as a male character, loaded just fine. it crashed. Now my mind is completely blank on why it would do that. I was told that it could be Alternate Start? Don't see why though...

 

Edit: I even tried loading VANILLA Skyrim and still crashed on exterior, female player saves.

[Sacremas]

Hum, okay that is kinda weird. You have all things like FNIS, skeleton, and the armors set up? Nothing else changes except you being female, you don't add any armor mods that could get applied to NPCs that crash as you get near them, you don't have mods that treat you differently for reactions to NPCs or approach from creatures or whatever when you're female? Crashing in exteriors will generally mean that your system is overloaded, which could be from a too high ugrids setup, and too many NPCs get caught by it at the same time and start their AI packages towards you, like approaching you for sex, commenting on your looks, setting up rapes, whatever you have. Most likely this is what's happening with you, and you're not seeing it in-doors because there's not enough NPCs available for the engine to be overloaded.

[zenna11]

looks like somethink i have or simulary do you use HDT ? or replace any new bodymesh or some editet armor ?

 my problem was HDT mostly i tink but im 100% sure my HDT didnt work with clothes boty replacer what i use and i have crash almost everytime when i use bed in alternative start 

do some testink maybe copy all your armor and clothes mesh folder somwhere to save location and delete thos what you use in data folder 

you can do same with you bodyreplace 

[howls]

Hum, okay that is kinda weird. You have all things like FNIS, skeleton, and the armors set up? Nothing else changes except you being female, you don't add any armor mods that could get applied to NPCs that crash as you get near them, you don't have mods that treat you differently for reactions to NPCs or approach from creatures or whatever when you're female? Crashing in exteriors will generally mean that your system is overloaded, which could be from a too high ugrids setup, and too many NPCs get caught by it at the same time and start their AI packages towards you, like approaching you for sex, commenting on your looks, setting up rapes, whatever you have. Most likely this is what's happening with you, and you're not seeing it in-doors because there's not enough NPCs available for the engine to be overloaded.

I see, well even when running Vanilla/ playing female it still happens. I'm testing if it happens due to LAL which I highly doubt.

[Sacremas]

Single most important thing to keep updated it turns out; TES5edit if you're using a merge patch. Just had a serious struggle on making my game run and had no idea what was going on, turns out that the new updated Weapon and Armor Fixes, Complete Crafting OVerhaul and Cuttign Room Floor that all were recently updated was made with the latest version of TES5Edit, and that caused an interface corruption if I tried to make a Merge patch with the previous version of the same program, resulting in CTD from main menu. Updated TES5Edit, redid my four merge patches (five counting FNIS) and no more CTD.

[zenna11]

i never try marge any mods yet its usefful ?

[Sacremas]

Yeah I describe why on the first page. I don't know how to properly merge ESPs so you don't need the proper esp, I'm using several made by Uglykidcid who's a genius with Wrye Bash, but I only know how to auto-merge them with Wrye Bash.

 

If you don't use a TES5Merged patch but you're using say an NPC overhaul mod like NPCs of Dibella or Bijin Warmaidens, and you're also using Unofficial Skyrim Patch, Immersive Armors that add an armor to the NPC, and Revenge of the Enemies that add an AI Package and various special attacks to the NPC, only the mod that you have installed last or is loaded last will be able to affect that NPC, none of the others will work. When you make a TES5Merged patch however, all of them work at once, you'll be able to tear people in two as a werewolf, see Adrianne walk around pregnant because she had sex with her husband, and so on.

 

Same goes with Wrye Bash, if you have multiple mods that edit your leveled lists, such as Immersive Armors, Immersive Weapons, Heavy Weaponry, Apocalypse Magic, and so on, only one of them is going to be able to put stuff in your treasure chests. If you're using Wrye Bash then it can both fix bugs in the game that no other mod can fix, and it can merge all of your leveled lists so items from all of your mods will be able to show up at the same time in treasure chests, on enemies and in shops.

My other merged patches are actually SkyProc Patches, I have one for Dual Sheath Redux that shows shields and staffs on my back if I have them in my inventory, and shows both weapons if have two weapons equipped but sheated, and the other is ASIS which gives spells from all my spell mods to NPCs, puts out more NPCs like bandits in areas you wouldn't expect, gives perks to all NPCs (normally only you have perks) and gives potions to NPCs that they can use (normally only you get potions).

[zenna11]

ah so its for reduce .esp file i do this manual  all armor what i download and convert it i just use texture and mesh and all put in my customarmor esp so if i got 2o custom armor still 1 esp same with wepon  so i never have more like 150 mods instaled  and what i read now marge like this can broke your game if you dont know exacly what you do 

[Sacremas]

Here's a mod from a Lover's Lab member that will replace SkyTweak in your load order, as it includes that and a lot of other things you are guaranteed to find very useful. UKC Utilities by the UKC - UglyKidCid merges Auto Unequip Ammo, A Matter of Time, Better Eagle Eye Redux, Grimy Utilities, Helmet Toggle, Jaxonz Archery Util, Diagnostics, Lights Please, SkyTweak and Timing is Everything in two ESPs. A Matter of TIme also includes a "less annoying" preset. Also make sure to get Immersive Hud so you can hide A Matter of Time's widget when you don't need to know the time.

 

Note that UglyKidCId only made the merger that combined all of these files, they're still the same mods that you can find on the Nexus if you search for their names. All questions on how they work should be directed towards their original authors.

[zenna11]

yes some mods come with multiplay .esp maybe i try but im afrey if i do wrong i can mess up my game  and i just manage to make it work perfect 

[Sacremas]

Some more stability tips, some of these will be obvious, some less so.

 

First off, when you're moving across the landscape, be it by horse, vaulting werewolf jumps, or dragon wings, use the Quicksave function often. Not because you want to reload that area, but because Quicksave (or saves in general, of which QS is the fastest) will cause your scripts to pick up and align themselves and cells to stabilizie around you, making it much less likely you'll actually need that quicksave. The more you save, the less you have to reload from CTDs. This is a bit why you CTD less with fast travel than going around the manual way yourself, because the act of fast traveling autosaves, and when you arrive it just loads a single contained cell, rather than a line of them as you move across the map. If you're CTDing a lot in open spaces, try to fast travel more, and use things like horse carriages to get to new places the first time. Use SkyTweak to turn down the time it takes to fast travel if you're normally going from Riften to Solitude in five minutes for whatever reason.

 

Don't put 500 items in one container, and for this purpose your inventory is one such container. This causes savegame bloat, and makes your saves harder to make, making it easier for you to to crash on loading a save or even opening that container/your inventory. Put 100 items in 5 containers instead. Even if you can carry them, like because you've given yourself 10.000 carry weight, or because it's all weightless objects like keys, you should carry around as few items as you can manage, and get a house (mod) with a lot of storage chests so you can categorize all your items and spread them around, somethingl like General Stores works very well here to both keep them in separate containers and easily reachable even on the other side of Skyrim in another home with General Stores enabled. Note that 500 ingots is just 1 item, same goes with 2 million gold, you want to make sure you don't have too many SEPERATE items.

 

Be careful with too many script mods, and this incldues mods that are harmless on their own. Frostfall is great, Wearable Lanterns is great, iNeed is great, Hunterborn is great, Harvest Overhaul ditto, and for sex you might want to add something like Arousal, Hormones and Pregnancy along with maybe STDs if you're going survival/realistic. Isolated by themselves these mods are fine, they don't cause any issues. Put too many of them together and expect to see frequent crashes even when following all the tips in these guides, and that goes even for a mod load out like that where the mods fit so well together, just because they fit well in-game doesn't mean your system can manage running them all at once. And by system I mean Skyrim, I don't care if you have the very latest 10.000 USD super-computer, there's a limit to how much the game engine itself can run that's independent of what the rest of your computer can run, you might be able to run three instances of Skyrim at once without noticing it, but strain one of them individually too much and it'll still crash.

 

Optimize your vanilla textures, unpack your BSAs and either use the STEP guide to optimize your textures on your own, or get pre-optimized packs from the Nexus. This even goes and especially goes if you're using Tamriel Reloaded or a similar mod that you think is replacing all your textures; I'm using that mod and the mod that contains my optimized textures still has over 18.000 files that no other mod touches, that's more than what all the other mods in my load order put together replaces. Your mod textures like TRHD 1k may be optimized and made to be stream-lined and work well with your system, but the vanilla Bethesda textures were made to be compliant on consoles and fitting one specific standard, now way outdated. This will be the main reason for your memory drain if you don't optimize them, expect to see a 20-30 FPS leap after optimizing your textures. If you're using Bethesda's High res packs, swap them for this mod; http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/9080/?

[trpd]

Thats one hell of a guide, Thanks for writing it all up. I plan on using it to reinstall skyrim soon so i will throw some questions if You don't mind :]

(i did read /eye it and hopefully i'm not asking about something that was already answered)

 

1. Custom races - avoid them ?

2. Dynamic Loot/ more interesting loot (post 31) - is the loot distribution cloak based ? (i did read that many cloak scripts = bad , so i will skip them if they do)

3. On post 27 You list your graphical mods - TR + vivid+SFO etc. Then on post 49 you suggest to not use TR with vivid / Official HD packs ... <confused>

 

When it comes to texture replacers what do You suggest?

I want to use parallax terrain so it needs textures that support it -> Tamriel reloaded HD

Then since official HD textures require patch & optimization - i would skip them and just use custom replaces - What is needed to supplement TR ?

mods that come to my mind: SIMM SFO aMidianBorn book fo silence.

If that doesn't cover it then maybe use Skyrim HD - 2k textures as base and then install TR at top of it?

 

 

(Bonus:  if you happen to know mod Everybody's different - is running multiple skin replaces with it impacting performance or just requires more Vram ?)

[Sacremas]

No, go ahead, asking questions is the number one sign of intelligence, and I always enjoy some intelligence!

 

1. I'm technically using nothing but custom races actually. My current two characters on two wildly separate profiles (one hardcore survival and realism, one balls-to-the-walls) is a NIngheim male barbarian, and the other is an Angelic Succubus using Uglykidcid's race mod here from Lover's Lab. When I'm not being a Ningheim or Succubus, I'm using Imperious by the author of Apocalypse Magic (acutally I*m using that regardless to give NPCs some more abilities to match up to my custom race ones), and that changes all the races so substantially that they might as well all be custom races. So go ahead, use them just fine, just make sure to use RaceCompatibility as well to fix custom races for Dawnguard vampires and werewolves, install RC after your choice of vampirism overhaul (my favorite is another Lover's Lab mod, Vampiric Thirst).

 

2. Dynamic Loot I'm not sure about actually. But I've been using it a lot since it came out on almost every playthrough, and I haven't seen any papyrus strain from DL, and I've had to severely cut back on mods affecting too much, DL seems very low-key and well done, as you'd expect from the Deadly Dragons/Forgotten Magic author. More Interesting Loot I know for a fact isn't using any such, it's just massively overhauling the level lists for specific chests (the big ones) as well as dragon inventories, so that's safe regardless.

 

3. TRHD is actually a new thing that I'd only found out about myself in the post where I do a feature on it, you'll see in the ENB section I'll mention installing HD Ivy and other mods I was using before, since then I've been experimenting to find the best combination, hence conflicting statements. As of now I'm only using Fire FX HD, Smoke and Embers, and Realistic Water Two plus it's add-ons as well as SkyFalls and SkyMills and Distant LOD overhauls. On my Ningheim he's a hunter and he's going to be a werewolf, so large bushy grass and a wild look to Skyrim was appropriate so I installed Verdant ontop of TRHD. My succubus however spends most of her time in cities and when she needs to do things outside she's flying around with her wings, so I want as low strain as possible while zooming across the landscape at massive speeds, so no Verdant for her. I'm also using Static Mesh Improvement Mod but I'm considering getting rid of it, most of it's assets are overwritten at this point.

 

More importantly with the help of uglykidcid I've learned (around when I post about it) that using both mods with loose files and mods with BSAs is not a good idea, Skyrim spends a ton of time extracting those BSAs and comparing to your textures. Say you got a texture that's affecting an area that's touched by not only base Skyrim, but also the Unofficial Skyrim Patch and one of Hearthfires or Dawnguard (Dragonborn is stand alone obviously). So what the game engine needs to do is to first take your texture and read it and compare it to Skyrim, then it reads the Unofficial patch's changes and apply that (also coming in a BSA) and in the process reads base SKyrim textures.bsa, then Dawnguard, then skyrim+uskp+dawnguard, then again for the Unofficial Dawnguard patch to figure out how they're all put together. This puts more strain on the system than if that texture you wanted to put in was at four times the resolution easily. But by unpacking your Textures.bsa, your expansions.bsa, and every single one of the mods that come with BSAs, it's just a a large jumble of individual textures pierced together and read once instead of multiple BSAs extracted again and again.  Further more Uglykidcid helped me with optimizing my textures after they were unpacked, both base skyrim and all the expansions, and the result is a massive FPS leap.

 

So as you can see the whole modding process isn't something you really get done with even if you've been at it as long as I have, you always learn new things and new techniques and find new ways to change your game for the better, maybe it's just experimenting with the FOV in your ini settings, maybe it's trying out all new tree landscape textures, but it's always a growing process as unlike say Fallout 3 (which is kinda dead by now, though FNV is still surprisingly active) people are still pumping out new mods and pushing the boundaries on Skyrim. Even with the same ENB just upgraded five generations and following the same mod list again upgraded again and again my game looks completely different now than it did six months ago visually, practically to the point of looking like it's sequel.

 

This should have answered most of your follow up questions as well hopefully (or I'm just ranting after being awake too long again). Not only do you want to use Tamriel Reloaded HD, you want to replace the remaining 18000ish textures that TRHD is not touching, you want to optimize them and make sure that they work the best for you. You don't want to go too high on quality overall on landscape textures, because you'll be having dragon fights in those landscapes and want to save some RAM capacity for that and for the scripts. Try to stick to some general overhaul mods. If you're using Bethesda's HD packs then take a look at the end of my previous post.

 

As for Everybody's Different, it's the same thing as when I'm using both my character (one skin type), Lydia with Bijin Warmaidens (another skin mod), Sofia with another skin mod and body mod (I'm using SeveNBase for her) and everyone else generally using SG skin, or Schlongs of SKyrim skin for bodies and vanilla for faces for men. That's quite a few skins, and these characters are almost always with me. Keep in mind Skyrim only spends RAM on things you're looking at, you're not loading all those skins at ocne unless characters using all those skins happen to be in your FOV at the same time. I'm not really seeing that much of an impact really, the game doesn't seem to care much if it's loading the same skin ten times or ten different skins unless those skins are uber-qualities as it's still technically loading those ten characters in your FOV individually, it's not loading SG skin then pasting on all your girls, it's loading it once for every girl you see, then applying specifics regarding her facegen and hair. So TL:DR don't worry about it. You'll be killing your RAM on a lot of other things than skin mods, just don't go uber-realistic with blood veins visible as the light strikes the skin in a special angle (totally possible), as that does put strain out. Try to keep to the same general resoluton on skins and muscle maps and you can load a seaparate one for every girl in Skyrim and not really see that much of a difference.

[trpd]

Thanks.

3. Well i understand why, problem is how .  I don't know if its ok to just unpack the bsa and delete them ? Or you keep the bsa too?

For now my idea is to unpack the offical textures (it is kinda mindblowing that i need unofficial for texture replacer !)  and work on that - add TR flora and whatever i will find  ( will take a look at suggestions provided with realvision). Do i then keep them lose or pack into bsa ? (no idea which is better)

Can you just extract skyrim - textures . do the replacing business and then pack it up ? Maybe even remove the textures from dawnguard/hearthfire bsa and make them part of skyrim - textures? (i kinda don't like the idea of keeping DLCs as lose files)

[Sacremas]

You want only loose files, unpack the following files and move the BSAs to a backup folder, put them back in the folders you took them from when you do the validate local file integrity thing to restore Skyrim if you need that.

Skyrim - Textures.bsa

Dawnguard.bsa

Dragonborn.bsa

Hearthfires.bsa

 

All of those you want unpacked, but none of the others, meshes because if one go missing it's a CTD, if a texture goes missing your game runs better (while looking less pretty), Voices because they for some reason become too low volume when unpacked, Animations and Update because FNIS can't read vanilla animations (LOL), and the others because they're too small and there's no gain in it. Optimize the textures you unpack.

Use the following guide to unpack bsas; http://wiki.step-project.com/Guide:BSA_Extraction_and_Optimization

 

Also unpack every single Mod BSA you find, Sexlab bsas, Nexus bsa's, everything, this is easy by setitng MO to auto-unpack BSAs when you install the mod. Do not optimize mod textures, or flaky results will occur with no real benefit.

[HounDog]

Sacremas, would you happen to know if there are potential savefile issues by using racemenu to change the PC's gender and appearance repeatedly? i know that changing races affects stats but I'm only changing gender/appearance.

 

I was testing some stuff with a custom race and realized that i may be messing up the savegame and/or making the tests pointless.

 

Thanks in advance

[Sacremas]

You can change race as well and keep your race by doing player.setrace console command instead of Racemenu, then switching heads with Racemenu. You can change sex the same way with the sexchange command, but then you have to use the preset slider to change head. As I've successfully changed from a Dunmer to a High Elf and kept my level 30ish stats clearly that's possible. I've also changed presets without losing stats, but this was by loading SKSE presets, not doing the preset slider.

[HounDog]

well im not really worried about the stats, im thinking of issues related to the way the game perceives you as male or female, for example, i remember a save from when dawnguard came out where i cured my lycanthropy but every guard kept telling me that i smelled like a wet dog, no other comments just the wet dog thing, and also i could not turn into a vampire, in another ocurrence, after changing races from khajit to a custom race, hostile argonians would keep calling me "cat" but only argonians.  

 

So i was thinking that changing sex repeatedly by console, preset, racemenu, spell, etc. could result in a similar situation but SPECIFIC to gender? you know, people calling you lady or viceversa, getting/removing devious stuff, SoS errors, failed quests, i don't know, the possibilities are many so i thought i would ask around. i also probably need to repost this in modding threads.

[Sacremas]

I don't know of any such incompatibilities, truth is there's relatively few dialogues that actually call on your sex in the game, not even marriages. The wet dog thing will happen on curing lycantrophy regardless even now. I think you can fix it by becoming a vampire lord in Dawnguard however.

 

I'm reasonably certain that Devious checks your body type when applying it rather than whatever sex you started out as, same with other sexlab things. I'm certain because one of my characters is a Futa character (girl with a penis + vagina) and I've used Sexlab Cumshot to define her as transgender to make all sexlab animations and things like shooting cum treat her as both male and female without any issues, except from Sex Slaves which refuses to see her as anything but female.

[trpd]

@gender - i wonder myself if gender changing can cause you problems. You surely don't want to change it during quests sensitive to it like slaves. Vanilla i think doesn't care for gender at all , so it is just mods.

 

Now i have started fresh moding and i'm already in deadlock lol!

It's ENB preset , want to get it out of the way first as they require some specific mods/replacers to be working as intended. Previously i had realvision but i dislike how skin becomes dirty in shadows (SG renewal).

For parallax i need 265+ , there arn't many pressets for 265+ that support CoT and ELFX (fully) , actually it is just RV -_-' .  The closest i found is project ENB , it supports ELFX just partially and is for 221 but looks good. Can i just use it with 266 binary ? i did try and seems to work but ....

Besides that it is either give up on CoT/ELFX or stick to RV

 

 

@MO - i love that it doesn't want to "download" to its own folder files that i already have on drive! And if i delete the file i just lose the ability to reinstall it - gives info file is gone and thats that. NMM not only forces you to put mods in its folder (and has no way of categorize mods by folder structure) but also if you remove the mod file, it goes drama and you either give him the file back or will uninstall the mod!!

[Sacremas]

ENB preset, you need a 265+ for parallax terrain, there's no going around that. Some ENBs as for something else than Climates of Tamriel and ELFX however, you're better off swapping those. An ENB you can try is Tamriel Reloaded ENB, another option is Kountervibe Northern Lights, the latter a lot of people who have problems with RV have found to be useful.

I've heard several people say that about RealVision but I've never seen it myself, Lydia using Bijin or my own character using Ningheim (SG Renewal) always looks just like they do in the Nexus pictures. Are you sure there's nothing else interfering?

 

Just had a bit of a wake-up call, I've been wrong all the time about what VRAM I have. My card may be massive but it's still jsut a 1.5 GB VRAM card! DissaPOINTment!

 

Working with Skyrim Tuner right now as well as Boris Voronstov to figure out what to set Video Memory to in ENBLocal, this will result in a new installer for RealVision once we're done. I've gone from 14336 to now 4095 (a number none of the previous methods used for it in either stability guides or anything could reach) and actually gained FPS.

[Mimirue17]

ok ran into a problem with a follower mod, the author made them crazy overpowered and was wondering what steps to take if any to fix their god like power.   I love to try new mods out, but this would fall under comments above about authors who do not support the mods or respond to comments.   But figured I also do not mind learning new things so figured I would ask

 

here is the mod

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/59970/?

 

again might not even be worth messing with, but if the mod could be fixed maybe can send it to the author as a patch or ask permission to post the changes.   All things I have never done before so might be fun to learn.

 

[Mimirue17]

@gender - i wonder myself if gender changing can cause you problems. You surely don't want to change it during quests sensitive to it like slaves. Vanilla i think doesn't care for gender at all , so it is just mods.

 

Now i have started fresh moding and i'm already in deadlock lol!

It's ENB preset , want to get it out of the way first as they require some specific mods/replacers to be working as intended. Previously i had realvision but i dislike how skin becomes dirty in shadows (SG renewal).

For parallax i need 265+ , there arn't many pressets for 265+ that support CoT and ELFX (fully) , actually it is just RV -_-' .  The closest i found is project ENB , it supports ELFX just partially and is for 221 but looks good. Can i just use it with 266 binary ? i did try and seems to work but ....

Besides that it is either give up on CoT/ELFX or stick to RV

 

 

@MO - i love that it doesn't want to "download" to its own folder files that i already have on drive! And if i delete the file i just lose the ability to reinstall it - gives info file is gone and thats that. NMM not only forces you to put mods in its folder (and has no way of categorize mods by folder structure) but also if you remove the mod file, it goes drama and you either give him the file back or will uninstall the mod!!

 

see post #124 for proper load order of mods effecting what you are talking about.   I use Tamriel Reloaded ENB with CoT and ELFX and have no issues, once I fixed the load order anyways

I did not like Realvision in that it requires 20 something mods to make it work like intended, would rather keep it simple and rely on TRHD to take care of most of the looks.  Have also used the optimized textures as suggested earlier in the week.   FPS is nice and stable.

[trpd]

I did try K pure light - demanding is understatement. Basicly no mods just the prereq , that ENB and i'm looking at 35 ~fps after coc whiterun .... whaat? throw in some mods and it will be fast unplayable. Not sure if northern is less of a killer ... Project with highest preset is hovers around 45 there and RV medium is 60 fps. Im using gtx 970.

I dont need a constant 60 , 45-50 is fine and drops to 30 are acceptable in peek stress.

 

@Climates of tamriel - i must say i don't know how changes in this mod compares to vanilla or ENB (did read they got some weather support now?). I tried to find some info on forcing weathers in it but didn't find any . It is just like everyone says it is great ... so yea..

 

@ELFX - well i found myslf to love it . The light sources do give light with it. When i turned off enhancer&exterior (ENBs that i did test allow for interior module usage) i noticed that lights in whiterun don't illuminate my character ! WTH the ground is bright but my character stays dark .

 

WIll try TR ENB.

 

@Realvision - i have CoT , ELFX  + settings in ini set as instructed and thats that, no other mods. Can't see what could be interfering.  Here  thread i made some time ago about it. I noticed Blood and imagebasedlighting reduce the effect but also mess other thigns up.

...i made screens (bad ones removed)  ... not sure if im just tired or the RV one doesn't look like in game (in game it is dirtier) will investigate tomorrow. (with RV screenshot is named ENB_blabla while project it is screenshot1234) anyway it is visible that RV got more dirt.

 

 

As for memory in enb  local - i had it set for 18432 and learned max is 10240 today .. but it worked heh