PowderdToastMan

Edit - already answered

To say alienware sells gaming pc's is a bit of an exaduration. First off, you can take the 2500 dollars you would spend on an alienware m17x and purchase an actual gaming pc thats 4 times as powerful - a desktop Heres an example -a dual liquid cooled SLI - http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/overclock-core-i7-sli-liquid-cooling,3096.html In the above example, theres an ssd and a hdd also, unlike the alienware which only uses an hdd. The hard drive speed is the biggest bottleneck on any system. Heck, instead of those gpu's that are 1000$ you could get a 300$ card and have a 1900$ total build and still be twice as powerful as the m17x. exa - http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007709%20600083901%20600095874&IsNodeId=1&name=Radeon%20HD%206970 The article you linked to was very careful to give examples of games you could play on it that had high fps. What they diddnt tell you is that those games are very GPU heavy and do not rely on the CPU for 3d rendering. If you were to try to run skyrim on that 2.2ghz processor you would barely break 20 FPS on high settings. Toms hardware breaks it down here - http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/skyrim-performance-benchmark,3074-9.html Once you start to run mods you'd be unable play the game on high settings at all. Heres some 800$ solutions that will outpreform that m17x all day - http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=30000007%20600090100%204022&IsNodeId=1&name=%24750%20-%20%241000 If you purchase a kit like the ones above, you can pay the local computer shop 50 bucks to put it together.

There are two ways to mod. One is to make aftermarket meshes and textures. for that you can seek help and training here on these forums from the links provided here: Meshes - http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?/topic/234818-blender-read-this-1st/ Textures - http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?/topic/234822-gimp-read-this-1st/ The other kid of modding is making esp's. To do that you need the creation kit. This kind of modding allows you to make new quests, characters, unique locations, weapons and armor with unique stats... Unfortunately the creation kit for skyrim is not out yet. But if you want to get started learning you can go to the guide for the construction set and the fallout geck which work on the same principles at their respective locations here: geck modding guide - http://geck.bethsoft.com/index.php/Main_Page Oblivion modding guide - http://cs.elderscrolls.com/index.php/Main_Page If you have the game you can actually follow the tutorials, if not then you can read to get an idea of what to expect when the construction set and accompanying tutorial come out for the skyrim set in january. hope this helps.

Did it do this before you installed 4gb or any other mod? Also, download and install FRAPS and run it.(its free) It will tell what frames per second you are running during incident. Also download and install gpu-z. (its free) Once installed, go to the sensors tab. Set to run in background, and play the game. When the problem occours, pause and ALT-TAB to the desktop and see what your temp reading is on your gpu. These laptops can get overheated trying to keep up. Post your results. *EDIT* also, tell us what settings you have it on. It should default to the lowest settings possible on that speed of cpu.

Im using a rosewill challenger midtower and love it. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811147153 But the 12 inche gpu i plan to get doesnt look like its gonna fit without a little surgery. Its just too long. The 8 inch im using now fits without issues. (obligatory - thats what she said)

Update steam and make sure you have it installed outside of program files x86 and are on an administrator profile. Download 7-zip 9.20 from wherever you want. (its free) They have it here on the nexus. Install the NMM from here: http://www.thenexusf...se-notes-01218/ If you download a mesh or texture replacer, you have the option to let the manager install it, but its best to learn first how to do it manually. When you download a mod, there is a large chance you will have to use 7-zip to unpack it. After you do that, take the texture file (and meshes, and esp if the mod uses them) and place the folder in its entirety inside the data folder which can be found inside your skyrim folder. Make sure the folder you place inside the data folder is named textures or meshes. If the folder you drop in there says something else, manually go in and remove the mesh and texture folders from within and drop them loosely inside the data folder. If the mod uses an esp file, upon loading the mod manager, you will see it on the list and in need of being checked off. Check it off. Make sure it is below your skyrim esm. If you placed a texture replacer mod in your data folder you will need to click the wrench and screwdriver logo and reset archive invalidation on the mod manager. You must do this each time you install a new texture or mesh replacer. Then start the game...

http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?/topic/234818-blender-read-this-1st/

I heard the fxaa injector doesnt work anymore because of the tesv exe is now tied to steam. You might go to the thread of the mod and see if anyone, including the author, has a solution. I would be hard pressed to call the fxaa injector a mod to buy a pc for, but to each their own. When the construction set comes out there will be plenty of mods that will make you glad that you got the pc version. In the mean time, running NMM with archive invalidation invalidated will make the texture replacers show up in the game.

I dunno. I heard that updating the firmware for the new sandforce controllers was real problematic so i paid the local computer shop 20 bucks to do the initial fire up.

I have a terabyte and recently put a 128 gig ssd - mushkin chronos deluxe - in my case. I put windows seven on it and moved my steam folder over to it with no problems. I currently have 60 gigs of free space. What a difference it makes. When i load a skyrim game save, i barely see a load screen for maybe two seconds on a 50 hour game save. It is incredible

When you say - the mods dont work. What do you mean? Are you using a texture replacer that is not showing up, an esp, or something else. Does it ctd? Are you applying archive invalidation with the NMM or load loose files on the steam tied launcher?

When you uninstall it will only remove vanilla game files. So whatever mods were placed in your skyrim folder are still there. If you dont manually clear out the folder of your mods after the uninstall, when you re-install, it will place your vanilla game right back there next to the mod files. Clear out that folder after the uninstall. When you uninstall, clear out your skyrim folder so that it is empty. Then go to your saves games folder and remove the ini files within. Uninstalling does not remove those either. With that done, when you re-install and start a new game, it will generate vanilla ini files. Then the game will work like new again.

Be sure to apply archive invalidation for replacers or they wont show up.

When you uninstall it will only remove vanilla game files. So whatever mods were placed in your skyrim folder are still there. If you dont manually clear out the folder of your mods after the uninstall, when you re-install, it will place your vanilla game right back there next to the mod files. Clear out that folder after the uninstall. When you uninstall, clear out your skyrim folder so that it is empty. Then go to your saves games folder and remove the ini files within. Uninstalling does not remove those either. With that done, when you re-install and start a new game, it will generate vanilla ini files. Then the game will work like new again.

Probably a stupid question but how does one unpack a .rar file, does taht just mean download it or does another step need to be taken? If the file says rar or zip then it is compressed and needs to be unzipped. You can use a software program called winrar but it costs money. Most use 7-zip, which you can get here on the nexus and everywhere else for free. Simply install it and right click on the item you wish to unzip and select unpack here. Then you can access your mod files

Program files and Program files x 86 has safeguards in it that can prevent certain administrative tasks from working. At worst, certain mods wont work if steam is in x86. To move your steam folder out of x86, simply follow the instructions here: https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=7418-YUBN-8129 Basically, cut and paste the folder to where you want. Its best to simply place it on your c drive in a empty folder. The instructions in the link are intricate looking, but simply cut and paste then you have two options: Simply run steam and let it verify your cache or, go to your program section of your control panel, right click on the steam icon, and repair/reconfigure. Then your good to go. This is not by any means something you'll need to do now. In fact you can wait to do it when you see something not working, but someday it will affect a mod you install.

Update steam and make sure you have it installed outside of program files x86 and are on an administrator profile. Download 7-zip 9.20 from wherever you want. (its free) They have it here on the nexus. Install the NMM from here: http://www.thenexusf...se-notes-01218/ If you download a mesh or texture replacer, you have the option to let the manager install it, but its best to learn first how to do it manually. When you download a mod, there is a large chance you will have to use 7-zip to unpack it. After you do that, take the texture file (and meshes, and esp if the mod uses them) and place the folder in its entirety inside the data folder which can be found inside your skyrim folder. Make sure the folder you place inside the data folder is named textures or meshes. If the folder you drop in there says something else, manually go in and remove the mesh and texture folders from within and drop them loosely inside the data folder. If the mod uses an esp file, upon loading the mod manager, you will see it on the list and in need of being checked off. Check it off. Make sure it is below your skyrim esm. If you placed a texture replacer mod in your data folder you will need to click the wrench and screwdriver logo and reset archive invalidation on the mod manager. You must do this each time you install a new texture or mesh replacer. Then start the game...

click the wrench and screwdriver logo on your nexus mod manager and reset archive invalidation. Then it will show up.

Reset archive invalidation on your mod manager for the texture replacers to show up. Its the wrench and screwdriver logo.

Uninstalling will not remove your save games. After you uninstall, go to your skyrim folder. You will see that it only removed vanilla game files and the mods you installed are still there. Simply clear out the folder. and re-install. Dont forget to go to your saves games folder and remove your ini files as well. Uninstalling wil not remove those. When you re-install and start a new game, regardless of whether you have saves in your folder, it will auto-generate new ini files.

All mods that work at all, will ALWAYS work with a new game. A new save however is different. Whatever mods were used when making the save must be present when loading that save or corruption/crashes can occur. Thats not true. Mods that need work can cause a ctd on a new save game. I was trying to help him figure out whether or not it was a mod issue or something else. If it ctd's on a new game then that narrows down the possibilities.

Update steam and make sure you have it installed outside of program files x86 and are on an administrator profile. Download 7-zip 9.20 from wherever you want. (its free) Install the NMM from here: http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?/topic/461759-nmm-release-notes-01218/ If you download a mesh or texture replacer, you have the option to let the manager install it, but its best to learn first how to do it manually. When you download a mod, there is a large chance you will have to use 7-zip to unpack it. After you do that, take the texture file (and meshes, and esp if the mod uses them) and place the folder in its entirety inside the data folder which can be found inside your skyrim folder. Make sure the folder you place inside the data folder is names textures or meshes. If the folder you drop in there says something else, manually go in and remove the mesh and texture folders from within and drop them loosely inside the data folder. If the mod uses an esp file, upon loading the mod manager, you will see it on the list and in need of being checked off. Check it off. Make sure it is below your skyrim esm. If you placed a texture replacer mod in your data folder you will need to click the wrench and screwdriver logo and reset archive invalidation. You must do this each time you install a new texture or mesh replacer. Then start the game...

Dont be bashful. Explain what parts your having trouble with and we'd be glad to help.

Did you install 4gb skyrim using the NMM? Are you using the 4gb launcher?

Tell me. Are you using replacer-type mods like better grass, and stuff like that. Or are you using .esp type mods also.