I'm guessing this post is appropriate to one or more of the mods/utilities I have running and an expert will be able to tell me immediately where it would be best to post this query. But I have no clue, so I'll start here.

My load order:

My query, quoted from the http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/772219-more-hotkeys-please/?p=28246724 discussion thread where I have just posted it:

Now here is where things get weird for me. When I consult the seemingly synonymous file at:

C:\Users\Anthropoid\Documents\My Games\Skyrim\Skyrim.ini here are the attributes/variables I find i the papyrus section of the file:

I'm guessing this is because of one or more of the mods I have running, else a result of having used Wrye Bash or the Patchus Maximus patcher, and the settings that are not listed here have been transferred to some other location?

Thanks for any guidance or advice.

Many ini settings are not visible in the Skyrim.ini or SkyrimPrefs.ini that you can find in the My Games/Skyrim directory. To see the whole of them, launch the game, open the console and launch the command

saveini

Once this done, quit the game, retrieve the ini that has been created in the Data folder and move it wherever you want. It's named after one of your mods with the extension .ini. Do not leave it there of strange things will happen in your game.

Thanks a million Lady!

ADDIT: clarification, I followed the steps you describe and after sending the "saveini" command and closing the game I have three .ini files in my C:\Steam\steamapps\common\Skyrim\Data

Alternate Start - Live Another Life 1KB

PatchusMaximus 43KB

Unofficial Skyrim Patch 1KB

A quick look at each reveals that, the two small files include very few entities/attributes/variables, and the Patchus Maximus file has probably 99% of all the salient configuration settings.

My question: Should I move all three of these to some alternate location (so as to avoid the "strange problems" you describe?)

Given my goal here is to reset some of the papyrus attributes to avoid problems with running so many scripted mods, I assume that, I need to move (at least) the PatchusMaximus file to a location where it will be findable and usable by the application?

What would be the best choice? Should I just cut those three files from that directory and past them all to:

C:\Users\Anthropoid\Documents\My Games\Skyrim\

Alternate start and USKP ini files comes with the mods having the same .esp name.

Leave them here or incorporate their changes in your own ini, they're worth it (aslal one disable tutorials popup, uskp one help with sound bug/oddities). The one generated by the command is the PatchusMaximums one (PatchusMaximus.esp being the last plugin in your load order).

Settings from .ini files which have the same name as one of the active plugin in your load order overrides other settings. If two edit the same setting, the one associated with the highest-priority plugin take over.

Cool. Thanks Kesta. I've made my edits (per Spinner385's suggested settings) to the papyrus variables

So I'll move

PatchusMaximus.ini --> to --> C:\Users\Anthropoid\Documents\My Games\Skyrim\

and leave the other two in: C:\Steam\steamapps\common\Skyrim\Data

If it doesn't explode on launch I'll consider that mission accomplished.

This won't do anything. ini attached to an esp have to be in the data folder AFAIK. If you rename it Skyrim.ini and replace the original, it will then be considered.

However I don't really see the point, ini settings which aren't written in Skyrim.ini are set at their default values by the game. Values which the game printed in your PatchusMaximus.ini when you used the console command.

Best things to do is just to add the line you want changed in your Skyrim.ini, that's the "common practice".

Ahh! Thanks

The ini created when you did saveini in game is in your Skyrim/Data folder, not in My Games/Skyrim.

I believe the received wisdom on these forums is that the value for iMaxAllocatedMemoryBytes should be left at or very close to its default of 75KB or all sorts of Bad Things^TM will happen, is there a reason you want it at 50MB?

Don't do this. Messing with those Papyrus settings is WRONG and even the Papyrus developer himself has chimed in on this on numerous occasions to warn people against messing with it at all. You should revert your entire Papyrus section in the ini file back to these:

[Papyrus]fPostLoadUpdateTimeMS=500.0bEnableLogging=0bEnableTrace=0bLoadDebugInformation=0

All advice gathered from offsite "tweak guides" or "knowledgeable" modders on the subject are total BS and the settings you're being advised to use will ultimately harm the performance of the game rather than helping with anything.

You should only ever enable the debug logging if you suspect a problem with a mod, which is why those options appear by default in the file, but set to 0, since you don't need to see all that playing normally. You *MAY* need to boost the fPostLoadUpdateTimeMS but that should only be done if you're getting lots of problems from debug logs when passing load screens.

Those suggestions from Spinner385 are completely wrong and, as Arthmoor says, using those will lower system performance. The four values Arthmoor listed are the only ones that are completely safe to change, but even then you probably shouldn't. Here's what I've learned by experimenting and from the information given to us by the Papyrus developer.

Getting as close to 60 FPS as possible is the best thing you can do for Papyrus performance. Many Papyrus functions are tied directly to the game's frame rate.

Papyrus logging and tracing requires writing to the hard drive which is going to slow down your game, so unless you're writing scripts for a mod or debugging specific problems you should have those values set to 0.

The fPostLoadUpdateTimeMS value is an extra delay you'll see for every load screen. Setting it too high won't have any bad effect except the longer load screen times. If it's too low you'll notice that things meant to be positioned or altered by scripts won't start in the correct state as you enter cells and script performance will be sluggish for a while after every cell load. For example, in your houses you might be able to watch mannequins walk around the room as you enter the room or weapons start on the floor then teleport onto the weapon plaque or rack. In dungeons you might notice doors closing, traps getting reset, NPCs starting in the wrong spaces, and various animated things not being animated correctly as the cell loads. The other sign of a value too low is that quests that should update or start when you enter a location take a few seconds to trigger. If you think scripts aren't working right, you should bump up the fPostLoadUpdateTimeMS by another 500 and see if that helps. If so, add another 500. When you can't see a difference, go back down to the previous setting because you're just making your load screens longer for no good reason. (The consoles use a value of 2000 by default so that's likely the highest you would ever need.)

All of the other Papyrus settings are designed to limit how much time or memory the scripting system is allowed to consume. If you raise them then system performance almost always goes down because you're letting Papyrus steal memory and time from the rest of the game leaving fewer resources for graphics, AI, etc. Never change any of the memory settings unless you enjoy having your game crash. If you're desperate you can experiment with raising the two BudgetMS values to 1.4 or 1.6 but if you can't see a change by raising them a small amount then going higher isn't going to help either. And if those changes lower your FPS value you've just made things worse not better. (My personal advice is that unless you can maintain a steady 60 FPS you shouldn't even think about editing those two values.)

Thanks for the clarification guys. Indeed, shortly after I made those changes I started to see sudden, unexpected CTDs! Everything back to factory default now.

The other thing I've got a hunch on: Spinner385's mod (More Hot Keys Please) was possibly the source of the problems I was seeking to correct in the first place. I've reverted by load order to a smaller set that excludes More Hot Keys Please, as well as Populated Cities and Open Cities. It runs like a top!

I was skeptical that Dynamic things and Immersive Citizens were _not_ part of the problem, so I initially reinstalled only the set that I've played a lot with in the past, then added from my latest selections one at a time. With a brand new game I have not had a CTD or performance issue for 5 or 6 hours of gameplay.

I may try to activate Populated Cities to see what effect that has. However, based on the little bit of experience playing with it previously, if it needs to be jettisoned not a big deal. Immersive Patrols and Immersive Citizens achieves a sufficient effect of making Skyrim feel more lively without adding 10 additional NPCs to each major city. If it will work smoothly, great I'll run it but if not no big deal.

Open Cities: based on the bit I played with it, I love it. But I'm concerned about it for a couple reasons: (a) it may cause Immersive Patrols to do stupid stuff (that is what the mod maker for IP says); ( I'm guessing it adds to the total memory usage at any given time and if that is combined with all the other mods I would think it could contribute to CTDs.

I'll leave More Hot Keys till the very last (SKY UI is pretty sufficient really).

This is pretty much the only relevant thing for game/script stability all together. Shadows, light, HDR etc. all things you think get processed solely by the GPU, are processed by the CPU in Skyrim. They did make use of the GPU, but only to support the graphical functions, not to process them standalone. This is why stable 60 FPS is so important. Lower your FPS and you will lower your script latency, lower the script latency and you will be in a world full of dib[censored]...

Also, what Arthmoor said about .ini settings. Make sure to use a correct SKSE .ini, one that enables memory patch and clears invalid registrations. Maybe use ENB Boost. People stated Hialgoboost is worth a try...it didn't worked out for me however, probably because my new rig is a beast^^

Nothing to be concerned about with OCS at all, as long as the SKSE memory recommendations are followed. Trying to run it without that probably won't go over too well (thanks Patch 1.9).

I don't know what the IP author is getting at, but without some kind of evidence, I'm inclined to believe he's blowing smoke at best.

I did install ENBoost. I was surprised at how simple the installation process was, so I'm slightly skeptical that it is actually doing anything. But I downloaded the archive, uncompressed it, found the folder with my GPU maker and memory amount and plopped it into the same directory as the Skyrim.exe. I did not install any other aspects of the ENB set though.

Okay, I'll have a look at the recommendations on the mods page on Nexus and make sure I've got it set correctly. Thanks for responding I was curious what you'd think.

What the Immersive Patrols mod maker wrote was (to paraphrase): "there is no incompatibility with OC, and in principle it should not be a problem. But since cities are open, patrols might calculate the optimum path through enemy cities thus resulting in problems . . ." It didn't sound to me like a very solid concern but I was curious to see what you though Arthmoor. Sounds like I'll reinstall OC next.

What about Populated Cities? Would having those cells loaded with 10 additional NPCs be a possible problem?

Arthmoor I'm actually stumped by what you are referring to in the Open Cities page when you say:

Can you expand on that "Data/SKSE.ini" part?

I've looked in a couple different locations and I'm not finding a corresponding file.

I saw what he wrote, and he's mistaken. AI won't be able to path through any city but Riften, and I think it would be highly unlikely to happen there as the routes don't appear to go close enough to the city to need to pass through it. The other 4 are effectively closed loops. The navmeshes go in the city gates, but they don't come out on the other side. So a patrol intending to go from one fort to another, passing by Whiterun, won't suddenly try to go THROUGH Whiterun as there's no route to do so. They'd stick to the roads around the city as expected.

The SKSE part - check your Data/SKSE folder. If such a folder does not exist, create it. If there's no SKSE.ini file inside the folder, create it, and put the sections I listed on Nexus into the file. That will set things up properly for the memory patch.

Adding NPCs is one of the things that increases system load. Unless you feel like the cities are a wasteland you're better off without them. I find that having Immersive Citizens making NPCs move around and interact with each other really adds life to Whiterun and Riverwood. It seems that no matter where I visit there are more people around (except for inns during the day). The other cities haven't gotten as much attention, but even what has been done gives a sense of life that was seriously lacking.

Remember that uninstalling mods and continuing to play from a saved game is a bad idea but you can almost always add mods without any problems. So don't load your game to the max when you start. The game itself needs more resources the longer you've played and you want to save a little room for the next great mod that comes out (whatever it might be). If you're pushing the limits when you start a game, it's inevitable that you'll run into problems later.

The http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/51038 is a good way to set up SKSE initially. It includes commonly used values for all of the SKSE settings and you can always edit it if one of those (like iTintTextureResolution) isn't right for your system. Just reading that mod page's description gives you an easy way to see what you can add by hand if you prefer.

Thank you gentle folk! Some excellent advice and information here

Since I have the attention of some true experts, indulge me in a question that occurs to me but is unrelated to the thread topic:

"Breaking into windows."

I forget now if it was this game, Oblivion, or perhaps some other game, but I seem to recall that at one point someone was working on a mod that would involve adding windows that could be entered through into every building in the game world? Did I just dream this or am I remembering correctly?