obobski
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Posts posted by obobski
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Note, for those that don't understand x86 vs x64, MS changed their nomenclature a few years back - x86 refers to the architecture of the old 32 bit 8086 processor chip used in older PCs. As time went on, and various processors came and went the x86 actually became meaningless except as a generic name for any 32 bit processor that was backwards compatible with the 8086 code. The new nomenclature uses the x64 as that is the number of bits that the processor uses. (it is still backwards compatible though) - the next gen will likely be called x128 for a 128 bit processor - unless they change the naming conventions again. :whistling:
To keep things extra confusing: Apple will call the same instruction sets "x86-64", and in the past Microsoft has used "64-bit" to refer to both x64 and IA-64 (Itanium). :facepalm:
Support for 16-bit (e.g. 8086) code exists, at least in hardware, for x64 CPUs, but 64-bit Windows dropped NTVDM and WOW16 which eliminated 16-bit support. This can break installers for some applications (including games) that are still 16-bit.
For the PC so we can set it up too, to be prepared for Fallout 4?
Nothing until they say what hardware recommendations.
Everyone expects Fo4 to be on the same engine as Skyrim, which means whatever you have for Skyrim should get you through a game of Fallout 4. I guess there would be a lot of surprised people if Fo4 came out and it uses Unreal, but that is a highly doubtful scenario.
I wouldn't be surprised if Fallout 4 added DX11 support, but I agree that it doesn't seem unreasonable that it should run on systems that can run Skyrim (this was at least true for Oblivion-> Fallout 3; Fallout 3 added DX9c but machines that ran Oblivion could run Fallout 3).
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OBSE has to be installed in the right location to work properly (refer to the readme for directions (you can redownload the entire thing from here: http://obse.silverlock.org/)), and if you're using NMM (or similar) you will have to point it at obse.exe as opposed to oblivion.exe (newer versions of NMM should automatically offer this; older versions, and OBMM require manual configuration iirc). The Oblivion launcher itself is likely looking for the wrong executable - have you tried running the game straight from obse.exe in the directory? Does that work properly? If so just create a short-cut to that (or go into that folder whenever you want to play - your choice really).
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What's your frame-rate, if you know, and/or do you have vsync enabled at 60Hz? If no to vsync, try it - does the problem go away?
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It looks like the custom hair is just clipping on the actor's head (the custom hair would have to be modded to change that, and I'm guessing if it exists this way it's for a reason (e.g. changing it to not clip there may make it look bad everywhere else)). Have you tried making a new character with that hairdo and just moving around a bit to see if the issue is reproduced there?
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If I remember right you have to re-apply ArchiveInvalidation for Readius to work properly. Else you could remove the mod via NMM and load a clean save and things should go back to the way they were.
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Just to add to what's been said: no there's no risk for running various mods from Nexus for Fallout 3 (or Fallout New Vegas). As far as VAC - I don't think Fallout even supports VAC, but multiplayer games like Counter-Strike do. Basically what VAC does is check for hacks/cheats running on your system (like stuff that makes your aiming easier than it should be) and will kick players who try to use them on VAC servers (and a VAC ban will prevent cheaters from joining any VAC-enabled server). Not all multiplayer servers for games that support VAC will implement it though - there's plenty of "custom" servers for games like Left 4 Dead (and I'm sure Counter-Strike and HL2: Deathmatch) that run mods, for example to add different guns, use non-Valve maps, allow more players to join than is conventionally possible, etc and those servers won't have VAC enabled because they're running modded games. AFAIK any multiplayer server that also enables the console also will not run VAC (because the console can be used to cheat). And of course in single-player it won't matter - you can cheat as much as you want in single-player even in games like Half-Life 2 or Counter-Strike.
Basically, there's nothing to fear with VAC unless you're trying to hack/cheat in a conventional multiplayer match in supported games, like Counter-Strike. You can read more about VAC here: https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=7849-RADZ-6869 (has a link to all VAC supported games too).
As far as achievements go, I know that Fallout New Vegas will disable achievements for that session (e.g. you have to quit and restart the game) if the console is opened, but it will not disable achievements just because mods are running (at least none that I've ever seen). That said, IME the achievement detection thing is a little spotty even when the console hasn't been opened, so it's nothing I worry about (I've had it give me achievements twice, fail to register achievements, etc - its bonkers). I would assume Fallout 3 behaves similarly on Steam; I have the GFWL version and it behaves that way (achievements disabled per-session on console open).
No idea whatsoever about Dark Souls though, sorry.
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Yes it looks like this is a problem with archive invalidation. The lazy-man solution would be to let NMM grab Oblivion, your two mods, and apply ArchiveInvalidation from there - just bypass Wrye until/unless you determine down the road that you really need it (e.g. because you need to create a bash patch).
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Agreed on it looking like a good system (the specs are very solid). The only thing I'd be cautious about, and by that I mean do a little bit of review-checking and whatnot, is if MSI's support has improved in the last few years. I remember years ago (we're talking probably ten years ago here) their customer support was not all that great - like emails going unanswered and RMAs not ever coming back to you "not all that great." Things certainly could have turned around in that time, and part of my reason for posting this is I'm hoping someone will come in and go "no man, I have an MSI, and their service rocks!"
If you want to buy a pre-build, you may also consider a desktop if that's possible. It'd give you more options for upgrading in the future (e.g. you could swap the graphics card out), but price-wise would probably be pretty similar (actually building your own machine would probably end up pretty similar in price too; $1k is not bad at all).
Just using Amazon's "suggested products" thing from the MSI's page, it found this Asus that already has an SSD, IPS screen, same/similar hardware, and is only $100 more: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00T7XRGGC/ref=psdc_565108_t3_B00TI6TASK Might be worth a look at least.
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When you say "runs fine without mods" you mean you can enable higher than 800x600? Or that it doesn't crash? (or crash as often)
General curiosities:
- Does this only affect one character/save that you have, or does it happen with a new game as well?
- Have you sorted your load order with LOOT or similar?
- Are your graphics drivers up to date?
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An application being in "Program Files (x86)" is not forced to execute as a Win32 application - at least that directory tree doesn't force or impose that limitation. The (x86) folder serves to (in theory) separate 32-bit and 64-bit applications to try and prevent conflicts between them (e.g. 32-bit application trying to read a 64-bit DLL, or separation for an application that installs both 32-bit and 64-bit variants (like Internet Explorer)). Convention is to have 32-bit applications in (x86) but that isn't a hard and fast rule. Windows will determine if an executable is 32-bit or 64-bit at runtime, regardless of where it is installed (you can install things to C:\Games for example, if you wanted). For more information about the dichtomy: http://www.howtogeek.com/129178/why-does-64-bit-windows-need-a-separate-program-files-x86-folder/
On the application profiles/3D settings:
Both nVidia and AMD support per-application profiles in their drivers, as well as stand-alone applications that will seek to optimize settings per-game based on your detected hardware (nVidia users have GeForce Experience, AMD users have Raptr). As far as I know these optimization applications do not account for overclocks, but otherwise will try to set the best settings based on your hardware. Many of the settings in "Manage 3D Settings" can be set in-game, and doing that in-game is usually better when available, but forcing over-rides is sometimes useful (e.g. if you want to force vsync).
On DSR:
https://techreport.com/review/27102/maxwell-dynamic-super-resolution-explored (it has pictures too)
AMD offers a similar feature called VSR ("Virtual Super Resolution") on many of their GCN parts (e.g. Radeon R9 series).
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"Skyrim on Ultra settings" at what resolution? Do you intend to run AA/AF? Running at 4K with 8x MSAA and 16x AF is almost certainly out of the question, but 1080p (or lower) with FXAA and AF should be no problem (my GTX 660SC could handle that).
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Stutter around things like flames may also be caused if the frame-rate is too high - especially in Skyrim. These games generally don't like being run at multi-hundred FPS, and the animations associated with fire and some other lights will behave improperly when they are. Just enabling vsync or something else to cap at 60FPS can fix this.
HyperThreading may also be causing the stutter problems - have you tried turning it off?
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NVM!
Typical, only minutes after posting my question I read a note in Nvidia's FAQ which told me, no, VRAM on SLI-ed cards don't stack.
/sigh
No - neither SLI nor CrossFire "stacks" VRAM. So 2x4GB of 4x4GB or whatever will still only provide 4GB of VRAM for the application. Historically, 3DLabs' multi-GPU solutions could combine VRAM across multiple GPUs into a larger frame-buffer, however those aren't gaming cards, and also relied on an additional load-balancing processor to accomplish this feat (the GPUs were also all piped into all of the memory, which SLI/CrossFire does not implement).
Unfortunately, Beth games don't play very well with SLI. Hopefully the new games will be able to take advantage of multiple cards.
For General gaming, though, would you take 3x GTX 980s, or 1x Titan? (Just Titan, not the super Titans (Titan Z & Titan X))
Or another comparison, 2x GTX 580 or 1x GTX 970?
3 GTX 980s, or 1 GTX 970. No question. The 980 will be generally faster than Titan (unless we're talking FP64 GPGPU), and three of them would be significantly faster. I'd take 3 980s over "super Titan" as well. Same goes for 580:970.
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I agree with the GTX 980 over the 970. Alternately, Radeon R9 290X makes a good choice, and will cost less.
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Yes, everything does draw power, but no graphics card will actually use 600W. What you're probably seeing is the suggested PSU capacity for the entire machine, which includes that "extra" based on some generic assumptions about your computer (which probably works out for your system, based on the specifications you provided). The GTX 770's actual power draw will be around 200W at max, and in normal usage it will be lower than that (it has power management features that will try to minimize its power consumption).
A 600W PSU would be fine with your configuration; "at least 750W" is decidedly overkill.
As far as the different types of cards - there's various brands, like PNY, EVGA, and Asus (all three are good; EVGA is usually the crowd favorite), and then different makers will have different features like offering the card overclocked from the factory, with upgraded cooling, etc.
Price-wise, $550 is ridiculous. $250-$300 is not unreasonable though.
If you want a bone-stock card, it won't get any more standard than this:
Looking at prices for 770s, it may be a good idea to strongly consider the GTX 960 instead - you can get one for probably $100 less, and the performance difference will not be that dramatic (if at all), and the 960 will use less power to boot. Here's a review, comparing them, and a lot of other cards, in Bioshock Infinite:
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_960_SLI/8.html
"960 SLI" means two cards operating together (and your system may not support this), so that can be ignored. For whatever reason it appears TPU has removed Skyrim from their benchmarks (they used to include it), but it will run equally well on GTX 960 or 770.
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On file extensions - t'll make Windows show the full file name for everything , as opposed to just the title. It's useful because you know exactly what you're looking at, so instead of say "super awesome mod" you would see "super awesome mod.esp". By default, Windows will hide extensions to "known" filetypes, so things like 7z, zip, jpeg, doc, rtf, etc won't show, but "unknown" filetypes (which is where esp and esm usually end up, unless you've associated them with a specific application) will show.
To change this setting, just type "Folder Options" into Windows search (in the Start Menu/on the Start Screen), open Folder Options, go to the View tab, and uncheck "Hide extensions for known file types."
Now, something else that may be occuring since you're dealing with modder resoruces and not finished mods - it may just be a collection of meshes, textures, etc that you have to associate with your mod. To do that you'd have to create your own mod and then use some object in the modder resoruce, and you'd specify the path in the CS when you do that.
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+1 on the 80-series chipsets and Haswell; you have to double-check that it will support Haswell. The 90-series will support it (and Devil's Canyon) out of the box. No reason, imho, to go 4790 if you're just after gaming - a lot of benchmarks show the similarly clocked i5 (4690) to perform the same in games, the only place where the 4790 will really shine is encoding/compiling/etc where HyperThreading can actually provide some advantage. If you're not interested in overclocking, the S-suffix CPUs will use less power and run cooler as well.
On the graphics card, GTX 960 and 980 don't have the 'memory bug', and there are also older nVidia cards that may still be available like GTX 770. Not sure what the problem with AMD is (my 290X has had no problems, and actually has some better compatibility with older games than my GTX 660SC with the newer nV drivers), but personal preference is personal preference (so get whatever you're comfortable with). If you don't mind shopping used, GTX 780s may also be worth looking at. SLI may also be a consideration, like dual 960s or some-such, depending on your budget and performance target.
For the PSU, I'd probably look at FirePower, Antec, Enermax, EVGA, etc. Corsair's top of the line models (AX) are still very solid, but I've seen some less-than-favorable reviews of the mid-range stuff (like the one you listed). Basically, check JonnyGuru or some other high quality PSU reviews for the specific model you want (or just to find a top-rated model in the size range you need). Something in that 700-800W range will be fine for this build, and give you room to grow.
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The ini will be in My Documents/My Games not in the Fallout 3 folder. You want to add that threaded AI as well as iNumHWThreads=2; at least that's what has fixed Fallout 3 on multi-core CPUs for me (I've tried setting HWThreads to 4 on quad-core CPUs, and it doesn't seem to make any difference from 2).
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If it's not HyperThreading at fault (technically this shouldn't be a problem, as the motherboard's BIOS is supposed to enumerate logical cores last in the MADT, but that's making an assumption that everyone had their morning coffee and followed the directions, but I've seen systems that don't do this right so turning HTT off is worth checking), it may be some other application you have running that affects the 3D drawing (e.g. FRAPS, amBX, some recording applications, etc) which can really impact NV's performance. Also, you didn't mention, but are you trying to force very high levels of AA or some other image quality thing thru the nVidia driver? That may also be causing trouble.
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I know back in the Windows XP days there was an application called 3DNA that did this - it came with a lot of PNY and MSI graphics cards. However, as far as I know, the company that makes it went out of business and it doesn't work with Windows 7/8.
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If I'm not mistaken, that "7" icon shows that it's still a compressed file (turning on file extensions can help navigating this kind of stuff) - it isn't uncommon for large libraries to be compressed multiple times ('nested') to save space and produce a single file for distribution. It may just need to be unpacked another time to get to the actual resources.
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If I'm not mistaken, the 4590 is faster than the 4460 (I just looked them up on ARK and that appears to be true), so I'd probably take the #3 option. The 290 is going to be somewhat faster than GTX 960, but having the faster CPU will probably help more at the end of the day for Skyrim (it's fairly CPU dependant) and other games. You could always upgrade the graphics card down the line if the GTX 960 ends up being not enough for the settings you want, but 960 is a pretty fast card in its own right, and should be no problem with Skyrim and other games.
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A solid state disk (or SSD for short) is a different type of hard-drive - instead of using mechanical mechanism (spinning platters) it uses flash memory (hence 'solid state') to achieve much lower latencies and higher bandwidth. It will improve things like boot-up time, application load times (e.g. how quickly does Fallout actually start-up, how quickly do level transitions load, etc) but it cannot improve computationally bound tasks (e.g. running with higher levels of AA, higher resolutions, more demanding games, etc) so I wouldn't suggest it ahead of a graphics card upgrade; you would still end up limited by the GT 630. That said, it wouldn't be a bad upgrade alongside a graphics card. Also remember, as with any hard-drive upgrade, you will need to either clone your existing drive onto the new disk, or reformat/install Windows and re-install all of your applications and transfer files over; the SSD will do nothing whatsoever for files not contained on it.
To your proposed upgrades, GTX 770 is a very nice choice, and should have no problems with Fallout/Skyrim/etc at basically max settings (I don't know what resolution you want, and if you want AA or AF, etc). The 750W PSU may be a little overkill, but if it fits in the case that wouldn't be a bad choice either. Make sure you go with a reputable manufacturer (e.g. Antec, Corsair, FirePower, Enermax, EVGA, etc) - a good place to look for reviews of PSUs is JonnyGuru (just google for it). You may consider some other nVidia cards as well: GeForce GTX 660, 760, and 960 specifically. They may work with your existing 460W PSU, and any of them would still be fast enough to get you what you want (I've run my 660SC on a 450W PSU just to test it, and it works fine, for example).
Switching to AMD (Radeon graphics) would also be a consideration - the only extra step would be uninstalling the nVidia drivers and installing the AMD drivers (this is really easy to do). There's no big reason to do this, unless you find a really good price on a Radeon or want the gaming bundle (afaik they still offer that).
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Agreed - there's no good way to use a USB headset with a soundcard. There are some non-analog headphones and headsets that can be used with soundcards (Audio-Technica, for example, has a few models that have TOSlink connections), and many wireless setups can be used with soundcards if the base station can accept a digital or analog input (Sennheiser, Audio-Technica, Sony, Koss, and JVC all produce examples). But USB implies that the headset (or whatever) has its own audio interface - so it's basically including the same function as the Sound Blaster in the bundle.
Now, to your second question about 5.1 <-> 7.1, it generally would not be a problem. With a 7.1 output to 5.1 speakers, the 7.1 source should be able to be configured to have its rear surround channels disabled (e.g. Audigy 2 ZS (which is 7.1) plugged into 5.1 speakers), and with 5.1 source into 7.1 speakers/whatever you will either get nothing on the rear surround, or the speaker/headset/etc may have some sort of upmix feature that will put something on the rear surround channels (some Logitech and Creative 7.1 sets do this). A lot of the wireless headphones I've referenced will have various DSP features as well, because they're generally designed for home theater, so you'd probably just want to take the 5.1 Dolby Digital Live output from the Sound Blaster and then let the base station unit perform whatever processing for the specific headphones.
Oblivion UOP Issues
in Hardware and software discussion
Posted · Edited by obobski
Alright, let's the put the brakes on and go back to the beginning. Uninstall everything; no more Wrye, no more OBMM, go back to square one. Install Oblivion along with KOTN and Shivering Isles. With *just* Bethesda stuff loaded, does this error still exist?
Once you've got the base game working properly, then you can begin installing mods. One at a time in a logical fashion. You should not need Wrye or any other "mod helper" application just to run the unofficial patches, but LOOT never hurts, and switching to NMM (vs Oblivion's built-in manager) will make life a lot simpler. The reason I'm suggesting this is that currently it sounds like you're both new to the game, and new to modding the game, and want to do 73 things in 15 directions all at once, and that's more than likely where you're running into trouble.
For info on instalilng Oblivion in the right order, see here:
http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/406737-oblivion-optimum-install-order/
And this for removing Oblivion entirely, prior to re-install:
http://forums.bethsoft.com/topic/561101-unofficial-technical-faq/?p=8103714&do=findComment&comment=8103714