Impact of various mods for PC users

[KMA]

This thread is meant to explain the difference between conversion mods and additive mods, and what the eventual relative cost to your computer's system resources could be. This is not a discussion of what you should download, and we will not be advertising mods. We are simply discussing the impact of the various types of mods that can exist in these two categories (more can be added later if applicable).

 

Conversion mods take assets in the game and convert them to whatever the modder chose. This may cost more resources that the original assets, but not necessarily. For example, if a texture mod just replaces a 1024x1024 pixel texture with another of the same dimensions, then there is no additional cost (or saving).

 

Additive mods add new assets into the game. These always cost more system resources. These can be some of the most fun mods, where small armies can spawn instead of just a handful of NPC, but they can also require a powerful system to run, especially when stacked with other additive mods.

 

Now why am I expounding on this?

I have been asked if my various mods would work on various systems over the years, and decided that I could take this question on in a more comprehensive way and possibly get feedback on the individual types of mods that fit into these two categories. It would also help to have a central area we can refer people to on this topic.

 

Right now my largest concern for gamers is that if the engine was not changed that much then converting Oblivion mods might be possible. This would likely mean (given Bethesda's track record) that the game will be CTD level buggy for the first month, and still have memory leaks afterward. Now we are all hoping that this will not be the case, but for an open world we are willing to put up with it and fix/bypass as much of that on our own*. So the one thing that you do not want right away (unless Beth really fixed the old engine totally this time - which was not the case from Oblivion->F3, or F3->FNV), you do not want to overload your system with more assets (people, creatures, special effects - even god rays). This will just make the problems in the game worse. I suspect it is one of the reasons that id withheld it toolset breaking their promise to release them right away. So basically, as a friendly warning, make sure the game is stable on your system before adding more content. Replacing it is less demanding, but if I were to release a total HiRes pack before the first real patch comes out (the one that fixes major issues for most PC users), then my mod would be unusable to most.

 

*How to bypass some of the issues with the game (before it even comes out) - Ya, I know. It sounds obnoxious, but by this point if I do not know Bethesda, I will publicly apologize (unless they neutered the entire engine to get it to work).

 

With Beth's games the best fixes is to activate an extended memory mod. Now of course, you will have to wait until it comes out, but it will probably be out a few days after release. This will allow your system to actually use some of that RAM that you put into your system. For some reason Beth cannot understand that the max. of 2GB of RAM is damaging to game stability in the presence of bugs. If the bug does not cause an auto-CTD (Crash to Desktop) every time it happens, then it is very likely eating up extra memory (which makes the game unstable/lag).

 

The other trick to clearing you RAM is to save, exit and restart. Now depending on where the bugs are, this could mean exiting to the main menu and getting right back into the game, or having to quit to the desktop and relaunch.

 

There will also likely be INI tweaks that we can perform to make the game use more system resources. They may also have other features that make the game more stable. The problem with these INI files is that the developers tend to leave in a massive amount of junk code, showing what they were hoping to accomplish before the game was released. In this case it is more likely going to be junk lines left over from Oblivion and F3/FNV days. So there may be 200 variables in it that can be tweaked, but only 120 active ones, and 30 of those are pretty useless. The point is, wait for a comprehensive guide before jumping in an changing a lot (and always, always, make a backup of the original before you start editing).

 

If any of that was confusing just let me know. I was a little rushed. :tongue:

 

Cheers,

4Aces

[Viritus]

now i'm not going to have a problem running skyrim and most people won't, seeing as it's built to run on ancient consoles, but I know that some console players will want to play on the pc version for the additive mods, and these people may not have the best pc for newer games, so I was actually wondering if anyone was going to make an effort to downgrade the assets so it could be run on older computers. It seems counter-intuitive for a lot of us in this forum, but I think there could be some demand for something like this. It wouldn't take much to reduce cpu stress, and there are a few ways people could go about doing this without sacrificing a lot of visuals, IE simplified particle effects, reduced distance rendering, smaller textures. I don't think I could bring myself to work on something like this, but I could definitely see it happening.

[KMA]

For reduced distances, most of that can be accomplished via the INI file. You can set the LOD (Level of Detail - but read a long range detail) for many categories (objects, NPCs, creatures, etc.). It is usually much better to do this in the INI than to use the global slider in the options menu, as that tries to set everything at the same value which may be inconvenient (larger objects should be visible farther away - so Tree LOD should be higher to avoid immersion-breaking pop-ins).

 

Will anyone build a streamlined assets for the game? Most likely. If nothing else, it lets us play longer with a memory leak that has not been patched yet. Not that Skyrim has any that we know of (yet).