mindinavoid

In response to post #35480260. I definitely second this. Public review systems are far too often abused for "teh lulz", and would likely need some heavy-handed moderation to properly manage. Even with a system in place to allow users to rate reviews, all it takes is some creative sockpuppetry or enough bored channers rolling through and upvoting something 'cause it'll make someone Mad Online to cause problems. Would also be a good idea to allow the mod uploader to specify whether they want to allow mod reviews or not (and for the love of Paarthurnax, make it opt-in, not opt-out! too many sites do it the other way around, and look at how many old/abandoned mods there are across the Nexus!). Maybe with a tiering option--premium accounts only, all accounts, or none. You would also need a reporting system for reviews, perhaps even rules in place so that if a mod's getting a lot of flagged reviews the site moderators can disable reviews for the mod (and, of course, rules against abusing the review system).

If-slash-when you do profiling, are you going to implement save file profiling as well? For instance, I have six different characters I play as in Skyrim. At the moment, I simply tag the last save as that character with their name using the console (save "Marcus", for example), so I know who is who. But Marcus is a Khajiit, and I use KhajiitSpeak for him and him alone. If the profiling system supports saves, I could tie all of the Marcus saves to his profile, and not have any of them show up at all when I'm playing Siariel, because she has a completely different save set. Elsewise, there's the chance I might accidentally try to load into one of Marcus's saves (say if I'm just not paying attention or trying to load too quickly or something, or die before the game gets a chance to autosave anywhere and Marcus was the last autosave) and everything could go pear-shaped. Obviously, some games aren't going to be as easy or even capable of save profiling (I'm lookin' at you, Chivalry), but then those games might not even be worth setting up a profiling system for. Either way, I (personally) think the safest method, rather than trying to figure what's active and what's not, is to simply "snapshot" the desired load order and mod installation structure, and compress it into its own collected zip file. I have several mods from the Skyrim Workshop, which wouldn't be recognized by anything that cross-references from the Nexus unless the mods are there too, and not all of them are. I also have a few custom personal-made "merge" mods that aren't uploaded anywhere at all. I combine things in ways that fit me, and I would rather just be able to tell it "this is my intended result, do EXACTLY THIS" and have it do EXACTLY THAT rather than "this is what I could figure out you wanted kinda". And please, for the love of Mike, whatever you do, don't implement automatic *anything* without an option to turn it off somewhere. I use enough mods from the Skyrim Workshop that fully half of my ESPs (I'm running 192, for reference) gets alphabetized at the bottom of the list because BOSS doesn't know what to do with them, I don't use the bog standard settings on most SkyProc and Bashed patches-- if there were a way to turn off the "this mod is a newer version of X mod, do you want to upgrade?" box so it will just overwrite only (always "No"), I would.

The reason I started using an adblocker for the Nexus way back before the site redesign was the fifteen-to-twenty second video advertisements. I would often start downloading three or four mods at once downloading, which meant adverts in multiple tabs all talking at some random different rate, all eating a small chunk of my (at the time limited) bandwidth to stream whatever the video file was from whatever server-- and it was the same two adverts. Every. Single. Time. It got to the point where I had an aneurysm every time someone said the word "rainbow" or mentioned Skittles in general. Later, when the site was redesigned and the video adverts were apparently dropped, I took off adblocking, but I put it back up again after no less than ten instances in the span of two hours where Lysol started talking at me from unmonitored tabs. (There was also an issue for some time-- although I think it was Chrome's doing-- where adverts appeared OVER a mod's screenshots when I clicked to zoom them.) And the only thing I hate about site skin ads is that most of them will trigger the link just because I clicked into the previously inactive window and my mouse landed on the ad, or if I middle-clicked to scroll a particularly long page (which, apparently, is browser-fu for "open link in new tab"). I've also seen some websites where the skin ad would force the (normally width-aware) content off-screen, but that's just an issue of bad coding. If there were a way to run site skin ads that had a designated "hier klicken!" section on them I'd be all for using them. (At least, assuming that 60% of your adverts aren't WoW. I made an exception to my supporting exception for a site when, over the span of a year, I saw a grand total of two different ads for them: World of Warcraft, and Starcraft II. I get tired of having the same air-humping, bobbing gnome crotch pop up on the right side of my screen every single page I go to.) As for the supporter thing, I'd be all for throwing a buck and change in to support the site. Hell, if I had 64 bucks to swing around I'd drop for a lifer Premium. I started modding with Morrowind back at Planet Elder Scrolls, but when I saw Nexus was far more active I moved here (around the time Oblivion's GOTY hit) and have been kicking around since. Nexus has more than earned my sixty bucks... just as soon as I can give it.

(Now with section breaks for readability, 'cause I type a lot and I don't want to repetitively bump the topic if nobody else is posting in it.) I'm having this bug too, although mine locks my menu controls and acts like I've transformed, despite not finishing the transformation. Doesn't seem to be happening to everyone, but certainly a number of folks, and so far if anyone's found a solution, they haven't said anything. The only mods I'm using that modify anything to do with werewolves (and use .esp files) are Derrax Male Werewolves, Female Werewolf, and Werewolf Affinity, and the first two use only one ESP. The only one that changes how werewolves work is the last one, which does modify scripts including LTDWerewolfTransformVisual.pex and LTDwwNPCTransformScript.pex. Going to remove those two script files and see if that fixes the transformation bug for me. I'll update with results. --- Edit One: Well, as some small part of me expected, with the .pex files gone, I don't transform at all. The innate problem of the mod, however, is that it rewrites werewolves entirely. I think I have a viable save from before the ritual (don't know why I didn't think to make said save -right- before it, to be cautious), so I'll see if it's only the mod using that particular loose script file or if vanilla werewolves need it too. --- Edit Two: Lucky me, I had an autosave from just when I entered the Underforge! So I was able to test without Werewolf Affinity. Unfortunately, no dice. Seems Werewolf Affinity doesn't rewrite scripts after all, so that's not the cause of the problem. Next step is disabling the werewolf dimorphism, see if there's a dirty edit somewhere. As before, will update when I've got... well, an update. (My, but the forums never seem to like me editing more than once.) --- Edit Two(Plus One): Haven't gotten to the dimorphism yet, as I was hungry. I have determined, though, that jratwood's bug likely lies in the two aforementioned scripts, because I was able to perfectly replicate the "nothing happens, tells me I'm in beast form" aspect of the bug by removing those two files ( LTDWerewolfTransformVisual.pex and LTDwwNPCTransformScript.pex for player and NPCs, respectively). After unloading Werewolf Affinity, I had the previously deleted files back, but still no proper complete transformation occurs. Disregard that, the LTD scripts are from Werewolf Affinity, and I had a doubled up install. I did at one time use Tales of Lycanthropy, which was around the time this bug started happening for me... and, come to think of it, I never got that one running properly, either. I was going to try and take over support for it, but real life jumped up and I took a projectile to the patella, ending my plans for that entirely. (A pity, because I had SO MANY IDEAS (read: none at all) for what to do with the mod.) However, I performed a Surgical Mod File Removal to get rid of every file associated with that old mod, including scripts, before I tried WA, and I've already confirmed that the bug is even occurring with vanilla lycanthropy. (I don't have Dawnguard active, nor have I had it, on this particular character. I bought it, but I'm using it to tease myself into finishing my album faster before I can "have" it.) So, something somewhere is the cause of this, and until I can finger the culprit I'm gonna pound away. However, I do feel it necessary to ask: what mods, if any, are those of you who also have this problem using? I'm talking full mod lists, not just whatever you have that affects werewolves. If there's a commonality somewhere, that'd help to narrow things down, and for all we know there may be something somewhere that edits something unnecessarily. --- Edit the Fourth: Success! (Or at least, a definitive lack of failure!) Requiring a fresh, werewolf-mod-less character, I threw a basic male Nord into the Companions, gave myself full Dragonscale armor, maxed my Destruction and Light Armor perks, TGM-ed, and SGTM 1.75ed my way through the missions necessary to get to the werewolf part, and lo, did I successfully wolf out in that very test. Going back to double-check, I found that I have no files prefaced with LTD in the Scripts folder at all. This only further adds to my theory that something related to those scripts is causing severe bugging to occur. Now that I have a fresh, non-modded (at least, not regarding weres) character at the point of becoming a werewolf, I can test if a werewolf mod is the cause of this error (and if Dawnguard doesn't play nice with things that affect werewolves). --- Edit 5: Now things are getting interesting. I just tested the character without anything affecting werewolves, which as expected allowed me to change. Then I turned on Dawnguard. Suddenly I'm back to the bug from before: the transformation starts, but never finishes. Interestingly, it won't let me access the menu when this happens, telling me I can't access the menu in werewolf form. The script seems to be halting right before the point where it actively changes the player race to WerewolfBeast, and when I manually do that (player.setrace WerewolfBeast) I can access the Dawnguard werewolf perks menu. Changing back, however, causes the werewolf parts that appear as a result of the transformation to fade in again. Turning off Dawnguard and testing it again indeed allowed it to work just fine. My next step in testing will be to turn off the werewolf retexture mods I'm using, see if those aren't playing nice with werewolf form (perhaps because of a wereskin pathing adjustment?) --- Edit 6: Nope, pathing doesn't have an affect on it (which I somewhat expected). With Dawnguard active, I can't wolf out. With it off, I can. With Werewolf Affinity active, I can't access the menu, even though that particular mod is supposed to allow that, and I get the same error when I try to transform with it (completes the animation, but doesn't actually change form). Manually setting my form to WerewolfBeast didn't fix the lack of menu, either. Sub-Edit 6.5: Looking over WerewolfAffinity, I can more or less say with certainty that the LTD-prefaced scripts are tied to that mod and that mod alone, and are likely not the cause of this problem. Skyrim itself seems to be acting skeevy about anything that affects werewolves. I'm partly curious as to whether it's related to the fact that I have SkyRe, which is a general overhaul of the rest of the game. I'm not certain if SkyRe changes anything regarding werewolves. I'll have to look into that. Is anyone else running anything of that sort that's having this bug?

Just in case you don't see it in the comment thread for Tales of Lycanthropy, I've got a possible fix for you. Here's a link to my post in that thread.

I'm hazy on the syntax details, but the command you're looking for is setessential. The format is either setessential (refid) (boolean), or setessential (boolean) so you would do the following: 1. Open console. 2. run command help Delphine 0 (or, since 1.6, just help Delphine) 3. Find the NPC reference number that comes up. 4. Run the command setessential XXXXXXXX 0 (where XXXXXXXX is Delphine's reference id and 0 indicates "off" in boolean integer. Note that any leading zeroes don't have to be involved, so if her refid was 00001234, you would only need setessential 1234 0 for it to work.) This should make Delphine non-essential. If that doesn't work, find Delphine, click her, and run setessential 0. I really don't recall whether it's the former or the latter, as I don't often have to change the essential status of an npc. You might also try The Paarthunax Dilemma for your future game runs, so that you can just tell her off for telling you to kill off Grandmaster P, and move on with the questline.

As the topic goes, I'm curious as to whether anyone out there feels like making such a modification: turning the gold of Skyrim into Rings, a la the Sonic the Hedgehog games. Clearly an immersion breaker, of course, but I do find myself wondering why such a thing doesn't appear to exist yet. There are coin retextures that make them into all manner of moneys from all manner of locales, and even some that turn them into little round TnA shows. Why not something a bit more innocuous? For that matter, people have made a small pile of Zelda mods, but I've yet to see someone turn coins to rupees, either. (Admittedly, Skyrim doesn't have different denominational sizes other than 'one' to begin with.) So, who's up to it?

There should be some somewhere, yes. I've been digging through the categories, trying to locate one, but so far no dice. I'll update if I find one. I seem to recall one in the past having multiple options, where the user could just swap in the new file at their leisure and have a different height for the camera, but that was before the CK released.

There should be a 1st person skeleton somewhere in the main Skyrim.bsa file. I believe it can be found under Meshes/character/ somewhere in there. You'll need a BSA extractor, there are a few here on the Nexus. The thing you're looking for would be, and I'm iffy on this because I'm going off of picked up knowledge on skeletal structure (I can't mesh nor bone to save my life, I don't have Nifskope, anything like that), but you're looking for the skeleton with a 1st person camera "bone". The one you've got right now appears to be a third person female skeleton, which would only adjust the default camera placement (sans xoffset and zoffset, both found in the Skyrim.ini) on a female character using the appropriate skeleton. From there it's just a matter of scaling up the skeleton. The CK sets height and weight base values for races based on a standard size skeleton (Imperials are standard height, I think), but the 1st person skeleton doesn't change whether you're a Bosmer or an Orc, male or female-- it uses only one skeleton for all races and genders. Raising the height of the 1st person skeleton would raise the 1st person camera placement accordingly. 1.1 scale is taller than anything you're likely to find playable in-game at the moment (save maybe one of those playable Dremora mods), because I think the maximum height is an Orc or Altmer at 1.04 height. (I could be wrong, though.)

The short answer is: the height in first person is determined by a skeleton file. The long answer is: There used to be some mods on the Nexus that modified the height of the 1st person camera "skeleton", thereby modifying the height of the camera. Using player.setscale in-game changes the player character size; going below default, using player.setscale .75 as an example, will lower the first person camera placement as well as their character's size in game. (I use .9 for a Cathay khajiit, as the ones in Skyrim are implied to be Cathay-raht.) However, using setscale to change the player height to above standard (1.0001 and beyond) doesn't increase the height of the first person camera. Using one of the taller 1st person skeletons would suffice, I think, although I confess I'm not sure how it would cooperate with the setscale values.

I like this idea! Sure, you're the Dragonborn, you can pick up Shouting easily, but that doesn't mean you should be easily able to gain magical ability just by looking at a book. (Although I'll miss being able to gather a backlog of new spellbooks and using them all as fast as possible.) My inner Grammar Gestapo is screaming, however, so I must indulge him (and this is important, if you're intending to write dialogue): Please, for the love of Talos, use more commas and periods. If you think there should be a pause there, PUT A PAUSE THERE. It's a headache to read otherwise. My vocalized thoughts ran out of air halfway through some of your sentences. "...but I want a game where, in order to use magic, you have to study it, research it, and dedicate your life to it." Much more readable, no? It also has a more natural flow. You write as if you're immensely excited about what you're detailing, and that's fine, but understand that someone who reads it is likely going to go cross-eyed trying to comprehend your sentences, unless you direct the thoughts into a more manageable flow. It's a bit like how it's hard to read (and comprehend) something while paying attention to someone else, or while talking about something of a different topic. Or how those "You are now reading this in my voice" images with some recognizable celebrity (most often the Old Spice Guy or Morgan Freeman) can make you "hear" the voice in your head. When you read, your mind parses the whole word at once, then the non-punctuated chunk as a whole. If the sentence is longer than ten words, you need places to pause for mental "breath", to parse the previous statement and give it equal consideration. Otherwise, it's like someone ran up to you and excitedly rattled, "HolycowdidyouseewhatjusthappenedIthinkIsawadragonitwentVREERoverthetreesandthensomeoneshotitwithanarrowanditwentYOLTORSHUULandthenweallcaughtfireandthenwediedthatwasawesome!" You may have had to go back and re-read that chunk just to understand it, which illustrates my point: the mind, like the ears, requires gaps and breaks to consider the incoming information. Information overload leads to stack overflow, and your brain ends up discarding some of the earliest stuff just to figure out what the rest of it was. This post is long-winded, but you likely haven't had any trouble understanding anything I've explained, have you? Spacing, punctuation, and flow. All ranting, pedantic complaints and persnickety punctuation aside, I'd be more than willing to provide assistance with sentence structure, spelling and grammatical correction, if you need someone for that. (If you have doubts of my knowledge on the subject, you didn't read any of that up there. Shame on you.) (Edited: Spotted a typo. Figures the one time I don't re-re-re-read the post, I *FUS!* up something.)

Two things: 1) Mod request subforum is thataway. 2) It would be completely possible with in-game code. There are torch brackets in some of the mines in Skyrim that allow you to remove the torch that's in it, or put one in it if there's no torch there. The code is there, someone simply needs to expand it to the rest of the game. 3) There's also a Mod Dectives Detectives thread wherein you might ask if someone knows of such a mod. (I'll inform you now though: I don't think there is.)

OK, fresh edit to the post: figured out what I was doing wrong (in that I didn't know I could double-click the MODL in question to see what it referenced). Testing momentarily, and will upload three versions (Khajiit only, Argonian only, Both) shortly. From this modding fun I might have also gained the knowledge to make another mod I wanted, which was to fix the abysmally gimped Unarmed combat. I keep expecting to see "Programming Skill Increased" and a little progress bar.

I'm not defending diddly. They fumbled on a number of things (Hand to hand is gimped, NPCs talk over each other, Esbern is a walking glitch magnet, the clipboard NPC at the beginning sounds like he learned English two days before they started recording, I could go on but I won't). Your argument is essentially, "Werewolves can't do something, this means they're broken." I'm just pointing out in my habitually verbose way that, no, not everything in a game that doesn't work as you believe it should is "broken", and that particular matter is most likely working as intended. Putting baskets on peoples' heads to steal things is broken. Not being able to marry someone who doesn't believe in the same concept of "marriage" as you is not. I gave you answers to your mod-related questions, you didn't understand my answer or my reason for the answer, and I clarified. Sarcasm and insults are not necessary.

Two things. One: "Dectives"? Thinkin' you mighta typoed that'n, Buddha Buddah. ^_^ Two: There is. Sort of. It's a quickie workaround batch file and it's still a bit buggy, near as I can tell.

Your issue with the first is your own; the lore has been there for some time, you have only to find it. For the Bosmer lore, look up A Dance In Fire, v1 by Waughin Jarth in-game. That story has been in since at least Oblivion (not sure about Morrowind, never got far in that one) and explains in brief how Bosmer won't eat plant matter or use lumber that originates in Valenwood. Another event further in the story (in volume 3) details their spiritual connection to a much higher degree: they summon the Wild Hunt, in which spectral beasts devour all intruders into their native land (in that particular case, Khajiit.) As for the latter, I have not personally found any lore-based information on the Khajiiti spiritual structure, but I'm fairly certain it's been canon lore for some time. Bethesda does a lot of strange things, but retcon their own lore, they do not. I'll put the second in a better term, perhaps, considering my own personal view on how Unarmed combat in this game is "broken" (gimped, to be more precise), much as you see the werewolf form to be: the werewolf form in Skyrim, as Bethesda made it, is meant to be more like a berserker state, like the Orcs' battle rage. You only get 180 seconds to maintain wolf form by default, but feeding extends the transformation; if there's nothing to feed on, you change back. You can use it for a temporary bonus to sprint, but bearing in mind there are numerous NPCs out there that will be hostile on sight, and transforming (to wolf or back) incurs a 1000 gold penalty, it's not exactly wise to wolf out for that quick jaunt between Riverwood and Whiterun unless you're smart enough to keep away from the roads. That's my assumption on Bethesda's reasoning behind werewolf form being the way it is. I might be wrong; I'm extrapolating on limited data here. Regardless, they won't be fixing it, because that's how they intended it to be (as with the Khajiit/Bosmer marriage issue). Assuming otherwise would be like assuming that making it so that the player can only be a werewolf or a vampire, not both, was a technical error and not planned design. Are you forced to be a werewolf before reaching that gate? If not, then it's a matter of unfortunate timing. If so, then it was either intended that way, or just bad level design. Same with Histskin for Argonians: I used it early in a fort full of Necromancers while fighting two, and found out the hard way that there was a class of rogue fire mages practicing in one of the further rooms. After becoming a char-broiled lizard-kebab, I chose to not use my Histskin until later when the autosave reloaded. The only difference in that situation is that I had the option borne of an autosave. If memory serves, there's another quest chain which gets you the Ring of Hircine which (I believe) allows you to wolf out whenever you put it on (although the 180 second timer still occurs).

A bound weapon maintaining existence until sheathed would be a nice mod indeed. My Khajiiti spellsword uses primarily bound swords for combat. Although it would negate the effect of overcharged summoning for weapons.

I'm neither a modder, nor a programmer. Regardless, I'll try to bash out a viable .esp that does what you're wanting. I'm just going to make three variants: Khajiit only, Argonian only, and Both. The program you would need is either FNVEdit or TESSnip. I have the latter. They allow you to look at the object information from Skyrim.ESM and make adjustments (if you know what you're looking at, anyway). I know just enough about programming to be a nuisance and muck around in things, so Astymma's explanation made perfect sense to me, and between that and the first post in the thread, I think I have it figured out. (Edits: The Rich Text Editor was freaking out on me and putting HTML in the post. o.o)

Two things: 1) Bethesda won't be adding Khajiit marriage because it's a lore-based decision: neither Khajiit nor Bosmer follow the Eight-and-One. They have vastly different spiritual beliefs from the most prevalent (worship of the Aedra). There will be enough mods that "fix" this from Helgen to Sovngard and back again when the kit comes out. There are ways of changing an NPC's race through the console, however, which doesn't break their AI in any way. They even keep their prior voice! 2) Werewolf transformation is a power, not a permanent thing. You aren't forced into Werewolf form, it's a Greater Power that you can use once per day and will wear off after a short time (I believe two and a half minutes in game?) that you can extend by feeding on sentient races (IE the playable races of Man, Mer, Khajiit and Argonian). Much like with the lack of Khajiit or Bosmer marriage prospects, the inability to do certain things as a werewolf is as intended; there is nothing to "fix", for it isn't "broken". Bonus third thing! 3) There are already a few mods that tweak the wereform, but I can guarantee you'll have every option from choosing to be one from the start of the game to pack mechanics and armor/weaponry after the kit comes out (given reasonable time for modifications and learning, that is.) Educate thyself, youngling, for there is much to be learned.

I don't know what's causing your problem, but I'm certain I know what's not: weapon/armor/body/building retexture mods. A re-texture mod only provides a new image for the game to superimpose onto the mesh of an object. If the new image is incompatible, what usually happens is the game will either revert to regular (if it can't read it for the object in question) or you'll get some funky broken textures. If you can get into game just fine and futz around in the town with nothing going cockeyed on you, rest assured it's not because you have a far more detailed image pattern on the character meshes-- especially since you're running a far better system than me. (Vapor-X Radeon 5770, Pentium Dual-Core E5200 2.50GHz, only four gig of ram.) If I can run almost every one of those mods myself with relatively no slowdown (versus vanilla Skyrim) I'm fairly certain your rig should be fine I would try disabling the Enhanced Distant Terrain mod and... maybe the Arcane Enchanter blur fix. I'm not sure how either of those work (I don't use 'em), but that's what I'd do. If the texture changes are loading fine in town, they're definitely not an issue unless you get massive framerate bogging just by looking at a couple people (and you shouldn't, for the aforementioned rig-based reasons.)

I recall seeing the former (reduced knockback on kills) somewhere around the Nexus, although I can't for the life of me find it through searching. However, the second one is already very much possible, should you take the time to search for it. There are several, but that one is the one I'm using, and I'm quite fond of it. There is another, I believe, that makes crafting and the like not contribute to global leveling. I may be wrong.

It pains me to point out that we get far, far too many threads on topics like this. That said: we don't have a Construction Kit yet, and anything that doesn't involve modifying or copying existing object values (which is to say, stats and parameters for armors, weapons, objects, powers, or people) will have to wait for the January release. If you've thought of something that you think will be cool, and you can think of at least three mainstream uses of it in the past five years, I guarantee someone's going to make it. Please do exercise your search options more thoroughly in the future, though.

CK Kit = Creation Kit Kit. (This message brought to you by the Department of Redundancy Department that brings you this message to you.) Silliness aside, the Creation Kit is the Bethesda-built, Bethesda-Approved free program that allows users that have the game to poke around at the game's innards. Fallout 3/New Vegas both had the G.E.C.K., and Morrowind and Oblivion both used The Elder Scrolls Construction Set (two different versions of it, though) to do the same thing. You can bet your backside that when the Kit releases, someone will release a marry-anyone mod (heck, there'll probably be two or three of them). It might take a week or two while everyone gets the hang of the controls, though

Somewhere around these forums is a thread titled "Playing a Dog in Skyrim" or something along those lines; it essentially tells you how to change the player into things that aren't default PC races. By extension, using those functions (specifically setrace and the information as to what the game uses for the "race title" of the Flame Atronach) you could potentially turn one of your followers into just that: a Flame Atronach. Furthermore, a Flame Atronach that (I think) can talk to you. Some of the followers are viable for marriage. It's a longshot, in any case, but they also mention the "spells" that allow creatures to attack (be it ranged or melee), and one of the examples is the spell for the Flame Atronach's melee strike and ranged shot. Anything beyond that, though, is going to be reliant on the Creation Kit, I'd wager, as you'd essentially have to make a new viable Flame Atronach with dialogue options. Kudos for thinking outside the box, though. You could potentially extend this to, say, having a Spriggan follower. Or marry a Hagraven, if that's your thing. Edit: Linked the thread. You'll have to do some digging if you want to find the fun bits, because I've only skimmed the thread once or twice.

There's more to computer cooling than just having a fan/water pipes/hyperventilated chicken blowing cold air into it. If your computer case is small and cramped inside, you won't get much airflow to begin with. I'm only eyeballing off of my tower, but it's about 20 inches tall and 16 long (front-to-back), and it runs significantly cooler with the same parts in it that I had in another case I was using that's about 16 inches tall and 12 inches long. (Again, this is eyeballing, I'm probably wildly off on my guesstimations.) Extra space does wonders for airflow, because it allows air to flow. Making certain you have a proper path for the air to move helps too (mine has an intake fan on the front and an outlet fan on the back, for example-- don't have all your air going in or you're just stirring heat around). Then there's the fact that some equipment runs hotter than others; certain processors will hit higher temperatures because that's the way they're built. You'd have to look up average temperatures for your processor and graphics card (which, mind, has its' own Graphics Processing Unit onboard, and puts out heat as well). I had an older ATI card that ran a good ten degrees hotter than most newer cards for some time. It ran fine, just hot.