vometia

6GB of memory; should be plenty, it's not getting close to using it up. One thing I wonder about (with some caution, as I came to the same incorrect conclusion with Oblivion) might be something to do with levelled lists and bad spawns, since another thing that could cause random CTDs is spawning something it doesn't like. Seems unlikely it'd be something like Mart's Mutant Mod, but that's the main thing that changes wilderness beasties so I'll try to disable that; disentangling it from other subsequent mods (some "glueware" that I added myself) has proven to be an interesting challenge, though...

I'm never sure that just checking that one flag is all that's required, so that's a handy link to have. Just tried it again and it crashed after just a minute with under 800MB of memory in use so I guess there's another problem somewhere. Could be a bad mod, I suppose, I found one where the format of the plugin was a complete mess, but as far as I know there's no useful information provided to track down problems so it's all trial and error until I stumble across the actual cause...

I guess that would be a good start; I'm not entirely sure what figure I should be looking for, though: with Oblivion, it would tend to crash when it got to around 1.4GB rather than 2GB, which may be something to do with memory mapping (I'm never too sure how video memory is factored into the equation) or it could be the memory tables being corrupted after a certain point, since I've heard some horror stories about how badly hacked around the memory management routines are. Windows' low-level stuff remains something of a mystery to me, though. Unix I can (just about) understand, but Windows makes my head hurt! I guess the best way to monitor it is perhaps to put it into windowed mode so I can see the Task Manager window...?

The keyboard I mentioned in the OP is basically the same thing: it's not quite as heavily constructed as the original IBM Model M, but it's still heavy, nice to use and should last for years. They also make them with the extra Windows keys these days, too. Edit: actually, post 14 as it transpires. Oops!

Does anybody know if anyone's succeeded in getting FO3 to run using some form of large address aware thingy? I've revisited it again lately and would love to do some serious playing, but I'd forgotten how horribly crashy it is: it's the worst of all Bethesda's games for CTDs in my experience, in spite of the competition. Both of the main problems seem to be memory related; a frequent random crash bug that I get in the wilderness seems to be the same one that afflicted both Oblivion and Skyrim, and was resolved in the latter (kind of) by enabling the 4GB memory mode; the other really long-standing problem is the "dead cell bug" where the presence of an object with coordinates that are out of range (typically a formerly spaghettified corpse) causes a crash presumably by making the game try to allocate more memory than it has available. A similar bug was caused by the unofficial patch, where placing several objects with extreme coordinates e.g. -30,000 on the Z axis does the same thing. Not everybody has these problems so I'm guessing it must come down to available memory, which may also be dependent on things like how many mods they have installed, the length of gameplay, additional textures, graphics resolution and so on. Which also suggests I may be able to alleviate the crashes by uninstalling stuff... but I'd rather not. I tried enabling the "> 2GB memory" setting using CFF explorer, as well as using the GFWL remover in case that was wasting memory, but it appears that neither has had any effect. Since it's hard to play in outdoor areas for more than 10-15 minutes without a crash I'd love to find a solution, but I'm stumped!

I like keyboards with a nice tactile response, which I'm willing to pay for, but for something with even good quality Cherry keyswitches (which I think this one has), it seems very expensive. I'm guessing that there's a premium for something or other, but I seem to have missed what it is. Then again, talking of cost, I remember a review of the original IBM PC from 30 years back (probably about a year after it was initially released) that praised its wonderful keyboard, but stated that "it costs half as much as an entire BBC Micro", which would've put it at £200: in today's money, that's approximately... a lot. I think the reason they mentioned the BBC Micro is that it was renowned for having the best keyboard of the home computers of the day, though I've little doubt that IBM's effort was better. And I figure if your keyboard is still going after 12 years, it must be doing something right!

Just out of curiosity, has anyone encountered a Das Keyboard before? At the rather eye-watering price of nearly £120 it's even more expensive than my buckling spring keyboard, so I'm wondering exactly what you get for your money, or if it's just the next trendy brand. I don't need a new keyboard (and I'm unlikely to do so, except for bouts of "gear acquisition syndrome"!), I'm just interested to know what it's about.

I have a new project from Castle Keep in the pipeline now (yeah I know, I never posted any new pictures of Glamdring!) which is another LotR sword, this time Arwen's sword. Although I think I've mentioned my ambivalence about the films, I think the swords were incredibly well done. Like Glamdring, this one has a slightly reduced amount of decoration as it's very easy to overdo it, but I'm very pleased with it so far. The motif on the grip was done by inlaying silver wire into the wood; the matching motif on the blade either by etching or engraving, though I think at this stage it's still just the outline. Rob's waiting for the castings to come back in order to finish it off. In the meantime, I can't remember if I ever posted my "Skyrim swords" picture; these are my two Viking swords, an Albion Valkyrja, based on the Finnish Suontaka sword, which I absolutely love (talking of Castle Keep, Rob's done his own version of this sword which you can see here: as much as I love my Albion, I'm still jealous of what he's achieved here!) and an Armour Class Anglo-Saxon sword, based on the Gilling sword. The Armour Class sword came with its own scabbard, which is really nicely done, but the Albion swords don't, so protecting the Valkyrja's modesty was was another job for Tod's Stuff: and again, very pleased with the results. Talking of Albion and Skyrim, interesting looking at the names of their Viking swords and seeing a few familiar terms! The Thegn has a description of what a thane is, apparently an Anglo-Saxon English title that was the predecessor of the knight, though similar titles existed in other Scandinavian and Germanic areas; it also mentions the lower ranking "ceorl", which along with another sword, the Huskarl, sounds quite familiar; and then there's the Jarl, which just occurs to me is probably the same thing as the more familiar-sounding "earl". Anyway, just rambling now.

Perhaps more jealousy-invoking than shocking: looking at that whizzy state-of-the-art editor and then going back to wrestle with the Creation Kit with its ancient Windows 3.1-style interface... argh!

Yeah, that was my line of reasoning! And now I'm really feeling the savings after ordering all that stuff.

I decided I really needed another pair of jeans, so I ordered some, as you do. They turned up today. Alongside another pair of jeans. And two skirts, another pair of trousers and a blouse. You'd think I'd have learnt by now to just order the thing I wanted, but apparently not.

Surely you can convince him to buy other stuff in its place! Sadly, anything I can suggest isn't much of an improvement, such as cream cakes, pies, alcohol... hmm. And, yeah, I also hate being ruled by anything. The struggle I had trying to quit that final time felt like a bit of an indignity. I think that I'll let it remain in the past this time...

I think a positive outlook often helps more than a negative one: yeah, all the health stuff is scary, but think of all the shiny stuff you can buy with the money you'll save! Stay strong and be bloody-minded enough to get through it.

Good luck! I found a nasal spray worked for me when things got too tough (on the third attempt, which was tougher than the previous two successful attempts... i r idiot.)

I wonder if maybe I should get around to making some contributions anyway! I've worked on so much stuff that could be uploaded as "mini mods": I could add some bits and pieces like that to the downloads, perhaps? I guess I'm much too reticent about stuff like that, even screenshots I'm worried about uploading in case it looks like I'm just cluttering the place up!

Yes, that's right. I think it's also a good idea to save afterwards too in order to make sure that any relevant changes are applied to the NIF's constituent bits... Occasionally I forget to change the version and it all goes a bit wrong!

I never use the obj method, I just export to an FO3 format from Blender, use NifSkope to change the version to 12.83, delete the incompatible bits (saving and reloading detaches these from Scene Root making them easy to spot) and then copy across BSLightingShaderProperty from a similar enough NIF (these vary depending on factors such as whether it's e.g. a piece of armour, a ground object or whatever). Haven't really had any significant problems with that method, except that it's a bit tedious. Haven't tried things like weapons though. There's a few other bits of the process including giving the various components the correct name (especially important for the root) and changing the BSDismemberSkinInstance partition ID where necessary, but y'know. If I'm adding bits to another NIF I still use this method before copy-and-pasting, which seems to work without any problems except for forgetting the NiTriShape name which I need to reenter manually.

I rather like that: I wasn't too big on the grid theme (I mean it looks pretty, but I prefer the way the list functions) so that's really rather cool. Had a couple of out-of-memory glitchettes, but overall it's looking good.

Hmm, it seems that I no longer have walking animations, either for myself or companions... Oh, and a rather nasty CTD problem too.

You still have some keys left; and more keys left to steal!

I don't know what one could possibly say in response to that, except that I'm glad I don't have such an eventful life! Glad your dad is unroasted, though.

Is it a bit sad that the current excitement in my life is a new lawnmower? Our lawns were getting a bit messy, though. It's a Hayter Spirit for those who must know. It's taken a week to try it out while my gf and I quibbled about whose job it was to go and get some petrol for it.

It can be done using Stylish or some other type of CSS rewriter if a member is determined enough...

Bowling with fallen enemies heads, perhaps. They had molerat racing in FO3, too: I guess mudcrab racing could be entertaining!

I remember seeing a programme about this on the telly a while back where a rather obsessed chef called Heston Blumenthal was determined to find out what made the perfect chilli. I seem to recall it was important that the whisky in question was bourbon (I think) and that the likes of scotch probably wouldn't have the same effect. It was years ago so my memory is hazy, but I think it was something to do with the type of barrels that they use.