Installation Questions

[xInfaRedx]

Ok so I have learned that it is best practice to instal Skyrim SE on a separate drive. Will do.

 

BUT, does that mean the Steam app itself, SKSE64, LOOT and the Mod Manager your using AND all your mods are also best installed on this dedicated separate drive too ? Or only some, if so which ones ? Etc..

 

Basically, where should everything be installed in a ideal scenario ? What goes on the OS drive and where on it, and what goes on the separate drive ?

 

Thanks !

[wfandrews]

I would think that would depend on the size of your drives.

 

Skyrim SE is installed in Steam\steamapps\common\Skyrim Special Edition and I do not think you can change that. This means that if you want SSE on a separate drive you must install Steam on that drive.

 

I have a 200 some gig ssd drive and a 1 tr hdd drive. I have Steam my mod manager, LOOT, SSEEdit, and Wrye Bash all installed on my hdd drive although I have their archives stored on my ssd drive under Mod Tools.

 

It is probably mainly personal choice as to where you want to install Steam and it's dependencies. Other people may have their own ideas as to where to install them. For me it depends mostly on the size of your drives.

[anjenthedog]

I have a 500G SSD as my primary drive. I only use a secondary drive for archiving purposes. The game and all active components are installed to the primary drive, ie the one which houses the OS.

[Gorsha]

The drive is not the most important thing, although it is nice if you have one. The most important thing is to install steam not in the C:\program files\ folder. But if you should have a secondary drive bigger than 250 Gig, I advice you to install steam there.

 

My D:\Steam\ etc. is 220 from the 500 gig big, so I have enough place. And I have Skyrim SE, Skyrim, Fallout 4, Oblivion, Dragons Dogma and Greedfall installed and modded.

Loot is also on that drive, and of course SKSE64, which is installed in your Skyrim game. Also all the helping tools like Vortex, Bodyslide, TESS5Edit, etc. are on that drive. And for me it works very smooth.

[xInfaRedx]

Thanks for the answers so far guys ! Much appreciated. First off, my OS Drive (C: Drive) is 500Gb SSD. My secondary D: Drive is 1Tb SSD. Both Samsung 970 Evo Plus M.2 NVME.

 

 

 

I would think that would depend on the size of your drives.

 

Skyrim SE is installed in Steam\steamapps\common\Skyrim Special Edition and I do not think you can change that. This means that if you want SSE on a separate drive you must install Steam on that drive.

 

I have a 200 some gig ssd drive and a 1 tr hdd drive. I have Steam my mod manager, LOOT, SSEEdit, and Wrye Bash all installed on my hdd drive although I have their archives stored on my ssd drive under Mod Tools.

 

It is probably mainly personal choice as to where you want to install Steam and it's dependencies. Other people may have their own ideas as to where to install them. For me it depends mostly on the size of your drives.

 

I have a 500G SSD as my primary drive. I only use a secondary drive for archiving purposes. The game and all active components are installed to the primary drive, ie the one which houses the OS.

 

Oh wow, because every tutorial I've watched so far (Ai Cave, Gopher, GamerPoets, etc..) highly suggest not to instal the game itself on your OS drive if you Mod. If you instal to the default location (Program Files, etc..), you will run into problems with some mods not being able to write to the locations they need to. Or something like that.

 

They show and instruct how when installing SkyrimSE through Steam how you steer the instal to a secondary drive. So I get that. What they don't show is if Steam app itself can be in the Program Files ?

 

(sorry my first PC and I am a Mac dude my whole life prior to this). I get the concept cause several things are like that with my Pro Audio apps. BUT the apps themself reside on the OS drive with no ill repercussions, whereas the content (in this case games and components) are the only thing needed to go to the secondary drive. Matter fact this is best cause Apps run best from the OS drive of course.

 

Anyway so I asked if anyone else knew the true best way to get what the tutorials were saying.

 

 

 

 

The drive is not the most important thing, although it is nice if you have one. The most important thing is to install steam not in the C:\program files\ folder. But if you should have a secondary drive bigger than 250 Gig, I advice you to install steam there.

 

My D:\Steam\ etc. is 220 from the 500 gig big, so I have enough place. And I have Skyrim SE, Skyrim, Fallout 4, Oblivion, Dragons Dogma and Greedfall installed and modded.

Loot is also on that drive, and of course SKSE64, which is installed in your Skyrim game. Also all the helping tools like Vortex, Bodyslide, TESS5Edit, etc. are on that drive. And for me it works very smooth.

 

Yes both my drives are SSD and bigger than 250Gb. So you're saying everything goes on the secondary drive ? Including the Steam App itself and your Mod app ?

 

 

[anjenthedog]

Well, although I do respect other people's expertise and believe in accepting piecemeal advise from experts, I don't really subscribe to the "gamer so-n-so says to install games this way" paradigm. When resources aren't colocated (same drive) with their engine(s) they can often go awry, as I first discovered in a non game installation way back in the early 1990s. I figure that if you have the space on your primary (your setup is like mine except I have a 5tb secondary drive) just install to the primary. makes life so much easier, but you do as you see fit.

 

I've actually been quite "sloppy" with file archiving over the past many months (since Dec or so) and need to move some stuff over to the secondary, but my game hasn't been negatively impacted, nor the OS operations when playing or not playing. In fact, now that I look, I really need to do so soon, since I just checked and the drive is @ 465G/499G filled. So thanks for the reminder!

[xInfaRedx]

Haha ! No problem, happy to help remind... inadvertently.

Well, although I do respect other people's expertise and believe in accepting piecemeal advise from experts, I don't really subscribe to the "gamer so-n-so says to install games this way" paradigm. When resources aren't colocated (same drive) with their engine(s) they can often go awry, as I first discovered in a non game installation way back in the early 1990s. I figure that if you have the space on your primary (your setup is like mine except I have a 5tb secondary drive) just install to the primary. makes life so much easier, but you do as you see fit.

 

I've actually been quite "sloppy" with file archiving over the past many months (since Dec or so) and need to move some stuff over to the secondary, but my game hasn't been negatively impacted, nor the OS operations when playing or not playing. In fact, now that I look, I really need to do so soon, since I just checked and the drive is @ 465G/499G filled. So thanks for the reminder!

I totally get what you're saying. And I agree about listening to this and that you hear. But FYI this is not just so n so, its literally everyone and everything I ever seen says to make sure to not ever instal a game you want to mod in the default location of Program Files. As that folder is secured by windows and some mods therefore can not operate properly in there.

 

If you must instal the game on your OS drive then just make sure to not install it in Program Files. So yes you can install on your OS Drive, but if you do, just not in Program Files.

 

But I got the secondary drive for this purpose. (I archive to external drives that sit on shelves out of sight). So I will choose to instal the game on it... But my question was, when using this approach do you also install the Steam app and Mod App on that secondary drive ? Or no keep them on the OS drive ?

 

FYI, let me give you a little side info on the things I personally do know. They coincide a touch, so I want to share. In the pro audio world (which is very serious as far as importance or you lose money if your down or slower) on Macs it is undeniable and benchmark tests have proven that Apps that use large content folders (For instance a 300Gb Piano App where 299.7Gb of it is the content folder) run much quicker and flawlessly smooth when the content folder is installed to a secondary drive. WHY ? Because the OS drive can concentrate on one thing while the other drive can concentrate on the other.

 

Remember the OS drive needs to run the computer + the Apps. Why make it do this WHILE also needing to grab Gigs of info at a time quickly as you press keys or whatever that accesses that content folder ? When you split those tasks across 2 drives, the App runs MUCH smoother, zero latency. (almost 0), lol.

 

Not done - When your recording audio, thats is another task, and again benchmark tests proved that a dedicated drive for the "Sessions" themselves is also best. This makes the recording happen on a 3rd dedicated drive. So for proper studio audio recording you NEED minimally 3 drives. 1 is the OS drive running the computer and all Apps. The second is the Content/Library Drive that stores and accesses all the big content from apps, and the 3rd is your DAW's (Digital Audio Workstation) in my case Pro Tools Sessions in which is getting the audio recorded/accessed to and from.

 

(The thing is, on Mac anyway, with the plugs/apps I am talking about it is MANDATORY that you install the App itself on the OS drive or it doesn't run properly (it needs the OS).)

 

So all in all I was just applying that knowledge/experience to this concept once I heard everyone say to instal the game on another drive. BUT I could be wrong here as this is not my field of profession and I am brand new to PC's. So I needed to ask.

 

To me, the concepts are similar I am almost sure of. But I wanted to ask to be clear on the "what goes where" if you do decide to instal the game on another drive as recommended by literally everyone. It seems Gorsha says its ok to also instal the Apps (Steam and Mod Organizer of choice) on the secondary drive as well.

Edited July 17, 2020 by xInfaRedx

[anjenthedog]

Huh, go figure... Mine installed onto the normal Program files (x86) without ANY issue. I guess I must have a special computer or something.

 

best of luck to you.

[xInfaRedx]

Huh, go figure... Mine installed onto the normal Program files (x86) without ANY issue. I guess I must have a special computer or something.

 

best of luck to you.

Wow ! Well this is good to know. Thanks for the wish of good luck. I will need it as I learn not only modding, BUT PC's in general too. lol I'm a hot mess !

 

Do you run a lot of mods ? After you say what you said, I am curious now as to why literally 99% of all the modding community (admittedly my consensus of this said community is currently small due to my lack of experience and time on the subject) say to make sure to never instal SkyrimSE there ? TBH, that is where mine resides now too. But it is Vanilla with only the Menu Screen mod stuff installed.. (whatever those mods are that are available in the menu screen) - I have downloaded about 8 of those and using them fine. No problems as well.

 

But my desire to grow has come, and mainly for Sky UI, in which uses SKSE64, in which now can not use Vanilla style as neither of them mods are available on the vanilla menu screen mod place (whatever that place is, as I still don't know, its just built into the menu). Hence my drive to finally come here and find you guys !

[anjenthedog]

I'm currently running around 225 mods. (PS> I've had as many as around 340 installed (~250 esm 90 "light"), but after I had to rebuild the game when steam glitched and I had to go back to online to get it working, it automatically updated the main game and well, I had to rebuild, this time around I've been more selective with what is and isn't installed. Frankly a a lot of them were installed on a lark and I grew bored with what they offered within a day or two. I was just too lazy to dump them.

 

As I said before do as you will. I would never want to put anyone in an unfavorable position with anyone you know or look up to. I'm simply reporting my own experience. I'm no leet gamer.