dthompson32

It's time to upgrade. My 4 year old Dell XPS is showing it's age, even with an nvidea 570 something something in it. Kind of funny, when I bought it, quad core was such an advanced concept and it was lightning fast. But software has a way of chewing up even the most advanced hardware, and this machine predates the i7. Heck, the processor in my Macbook Air is more powerful. So I'm pretty much done with Dell, and am looking at gaming specific companies. I spent some time on the CyberPower site and came up with the following configuration, which seems good for my needs at first blush: CAS:Cooler Master Elite 431 Mid-Tower Gaming Case w/ Side-Panel Window [-8] CD:24X Double Layer Dual Format DVD+-R/+-RW + CD-R/RW Drive (BLACK COLOR) COOLANT:Standard Coolant CPU:Intel® Core™ i7-3820 Quad-Core 3.60 GHz 10MB Intel Smart Cache LGA2011 (All Venom OC Certified) CS_FAN:Maximum Enermax 120MM Case Cooling Fans for selected case (Maximum Silent Operation) [+29] (1,000 RPM Black Color with No LED Enlobal Magnetic Barometric Bearing 17 dBA) FAN:Asetek 510LC Liquid Cooling System 120MM Radiator & Fan (Enhanced Cooling Performance + Extreme Silent at 20dBA) (Single Enermax Enlobal Silent High Performance 120MM Fan [+15]) HDD:240GB Corsair Force Series SATA-III 6.0Gb/s SSD - 550MB/s Read & 510MB/s Write [+152] (Single Drive) HDD2:2TB (2TBx1) SATA-III 6.0Gb/s 64MB Cache 7200RPM HDD [+124] (Single Drive) IEEE_CARD:IEEE 1394 CARD AND DRIVER [+19] IUSB:Internal USB 3.0 4-Port Hub [+29] KEYBOARD:(Keyboard & Mouse Combo) Logitech MK200 USB Keyboard & Mouse Combo [+16] MEMORY:8GB (2GBx4) DDR3/1600MHz Quad Channel Memory (Corsair or Major Brand) MOTHERBOARD:(3-Way SLI Support) ASUS P9X79 LE Intel X79 Chipset Quad Channel DDR3 ATX w/ UEFI Bios, Remote GO!, 7.1 HD Audio, GbLAN, USB3.0, SATA-III RAID, 3 Gen3 PCIe X16, 2 PCIe X1 & 1 PCI (All Venom OC Certified) [-10] NETWORK:Onboard Gigabit LAN Network NOISEREDUCE1:Sound Absorbing Foam on Side, Top And Bottom panels [+29] NOISEREDUCE2:Power Supply Gasket [+5] NOISEREDUCE3:Anti-Vibration Fan Mounts [+9] OS:Microsoft® Windows 7 Professional [+135] (64-bit Edition) OVERCLOCK:No Overclocking POWERSUPPLY:800 Watts - Standard Power Supply - SLI/CrossFireX Ready [+21] SOUND:* ASUS Xonar DS 7.1 Channels 24-bit 192KHz PCI Audio Card [+49] TEMP:Aerocool Touch 1000 5.25" Touch Screen Fan Control [+25] VIDEO:NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 2GB 16X PCIe 3.0 Video Card [+369] (Major Brand Powered by NVIDI WNC:802.11b/g/n 300Mbps PCI Wireless Adapter Network Card [+26] So a couple points/questions: 1) I know nothing about cooling or noise abatement, other than I want better than the single noisy fan I've been stuck with in the past 2) I'm on the fence regarding the quad core 3.6G and the six core 3.2G processor. I'm leaning toward the quad core on the theory that multi core use is still spotty, but faster always works 3) On the hard drives, I'm sold on using an SSD for my primary drive and I need at least a 2 Tb secondary for all my video files (I use this machine for games and video rendering). I really like the SSD in my Mac Air 4) Firewire is a must have for attaching my video camera 5) I know nothing about motherboards. I've heard people talk about ASUS. I know I want SATA 3 6) They are recommending Windows 7 Pro, but I don't know of a single feature that I don't get with 64 bit Home 7) I want nothing to do with overclocking, call me a prude 8) Xonar vs Audigy, I'm using headphones so I have no clue if one or the other is better, or if I use the built in sound 9) Video is the big cost driver. I know I want nvidea. I'm sure I want to move into the GTX 670+ range. I'm sure I want at least 2 Gb of RAM. But do I bite the bullet and get a GTX 690? Or will I be happy with a GTX 670? That is a $500 question. With my current system, I had to rework all my Skyrim textures down to <1K in order be be able to play the game in anything close to smooth motion. 10) I saw quite a few posts that more than 8Gb of RAM is a waste of money Opinions welcome, I'm pretty much a noob at how to select gaming components.

I figured it out. When you add an effect to a spell, the only effects that you are allowed to add are ones that use the same casting type AND delivery method. It will only show magic effects that share those attributes with the spell as defined. Since there are 3 casting types and 5 delivery methods, that is 15 different sets of magic effects. What I was able to do it make a copy of the soul trap effect and change the delivery method from "target actor" to "aimed". Since it is combined with firebolt, it doesn't really break logic for it to be aimed. If you miss, you wouldn't expect the soul trap to work. On my first test, it didn't work because I think the firebolt killed the target before the soul trap took effect. But on my second test (a giant) it worked fine, including the flowing soul effect.

Bumping, hoping someone knows (or can point me to a resource that explains it)

I'm trying to develop some custom spells based off of existing effects, and I'm not understanding what is populating the contents of the drop down box when I create a new effect in a spell. In order to test my idea I was trying to add a soul trap effect to a firebolt spell. When I look at the effects used my the current soul trap spell, it is using the effect SoulTrapFFActor. But when I add an effect to Firebolt, this effect isn't available from the effect drop down. I do find EncSoulTrapAimedArea, which appears to be the weapon enchantment version. As I'm browsing through the list of all enchantments, I see that SoulTrapFFActor is a script, so I'm thinking that must be part of the problem. But trying to add an effect to the Soultrap spell instead of Firebolt, I see a completely different list. Anyway, testing out the modified Firebolt spell, it will indeed trap a soul. I get the message that a soul has been captured and can verify in my inventory that my filled gem count is higher, but there is no visual effect. I assume that is because nothing is calling the Papyrus script "magicsoultrapfxscript" that is called by the SoulTrapFFActor script. So what is governing the content of the effect drop down? I'm not getting it.

This is great advice. I guess I can just ignore the Workshop, since anything really good will be loaded here too. I haven't been using the modmanager, but I'm going to rectify that.

I'm putting this question here, since I'm not sure if it belongs in the mod forums. I recall in Oblivion there were a couple set of instructions for loading mods in a specific order (i'm thinking the the FCOM instructions). I'm starting to get a bit overwhelmed. I have about a dozen mods of various types, and now with the Workshop I'm not sure what I do and don't want. It's a bit of information overload, and I'm worried about conflicts and such. What I'd like to do is reload a fresh copy of Skyrim and load some useful *stable* mods on top of it, but I'm not even sure what to look for. I don't want to get into the situation of loading everything that looks sort of cool. I did that with Oblivion and ended up with corrupted save files and a forced restart after about 100 hours. Is anyone trying to keep a list of recommended mods?

You know, that must be what I'm doing wrong. The new .esp has been created, but it isn't active. Thanks!!

Ok, great I'll give it a try. I did figure out that I could edit Nec's file by making it active, but this is a matter of curiosity right now.

I'm trying to learn how the construction set works, and playing around with race modifications as my current project. What I wanted to do is see if I could take Nec's Mystic High Elf remake and make some minor mods to it (e.g. replace the blade bonus with a conjuration bonus). Here is what I am doing, and the effect I'm getting. 1) I open Nec's datafile by double clicking (not making it active) 2) I open up the character menu and make the minor mods to starting attributes 3) I click OK, then save the file as a different .esp file 4) I activate the file, while turning off Nec's .esp. When I do this, I get the new starting attributes, but the hair choices are default, Ren's hair is not available. Also the eyes are Ren's Odd Eye 01, but listed as blue. Looking in the data directory, I see that my new .esp is 3K, while Nec's is 83K, so this is making me think that somehow the Ren's beauty pack isn't available to my mod. I did try double clicking both Ren's and Nec's, but that didn't work either (file is still 3K). So can someone explain what I'm doing wrong?