Quest Guide/Walkthrough: Capital Windhelm Expansion (Skyrim) - Quick Quest Guide - YouTube ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ PROBLEMS/ BUG REPORTS If you do not bother following instructions, I will not bother answering.
1. Test if you have the problem with only this mod enabled. Do you have any idea how often your "bug" is just a conflict with another mod? 2. Are you on a new save or an existing one? 3. Click on the "bugs" tab and see if your problem have already been fixed 4. The mod "Mfg Console" will show which mod has last edited an object. Check with this before reporting a bug
- You can use console command "coc windhelmorigin" at the Main Menu. To quickly teleport into Windhelm for testing.
I'll move your post to the bug report section if I got enough info to go on.
Hello! I would like to reiterate here, I'm not the mod author, I just ported the mod. Thanks again to Surjamte for the open permissions on your mod!
Okay, so this is a big mod and was a lot of work to port and test, and I might have missed some things. That being said, before reporting any bugs, I ask that you please follow the troubleshooting steps in the other sticky. Also, please do NOT bother Surjamte with any issues you have using this mod.
I will not be taking any patch requests, and I'd rather you didn't ask me for any- you're free to make them/publish/backport some yourself. If I make any, I'll share them, but I'm pretty burnt out on Skyrim modding right now. I recommend googling what you want to do and you can find a ton of tutorials on how to do it. (Darkfox127 has a great channel for this!)
Please don't ask me about backporting the JK's Skyrim Patch- the SE version of JKs is significantly different from the LE version and so it doesn't work right. I don't use the full JK's and will not be making a patch (it is too big of a time commitment for me.) Here's a video by GamerPoet on removing towns from JK's, if you want to try that.
There's a good chance this mod will impact your FPS. On my lower-end laptop it hits a little more than JKs lite plus DOS. EDIT: you can try backporting the patch from eFPS' discord page (link to Nexus page.) (Thanks namtar55 for pointing this out!)
NOTE: I'm currently providing only limited support for my backports. After transferring my setup to a new computer,my LE game is borked (as in, after playing for like 5 minutes the game somehow forces my laptop to use battery power even when plugged in.) Not to mention, I've moved on to my own project that I'd rather spend my time on.
I will not be providing patches for mods that I don't use, as it's boring and I'm only modding for my own entertainment.
Backport tutorial is here. A good tutorial on how to make compatibility patches is here (NSFW site!)
i understand the uploader is no longer supporting this, but i'm hoping someone else may be able to help me. i love the mod, it's really neat and i don't want to uninstall it. but i'm experiencing insane freezing/crashing in windhelm, which is pretty rare anywhere else in my game. i've just been trying to deal with it because i like the mod, but i've just had to restart the game about three times in a few minutes, because it immediately hangs as soon as i try to walk towards the grey quarter. i read in the thread that there may be issues with the occlusion planes, and the uploader was looking into it, but i guess nothing came of that. has anyone else encountered this issue/know anything that could help?
Wow, thank you! Finally. The SE city expansions converted for LE are a much needed addition for us LE users. Please consider converting Whiterun Expansion for LE too.
I'm unfortunately having an infinite loading screen problem with the mod, both when trying to enter, or to exit Palace of the Kings.
I installed the mod to test it and when I tried to get into the Palace, i got that problem. Then after i quit to desktop, I launch the game again and went to the Palace with the console command "coc WindhelmPalaceoftheKings". That worked. Then i tried to exit to the city, and the infinite loading problem occured again.
Please, take a look into this issue. I would like very much to see this fixed, because I want to have this mod in my load order forever.
It’s likely because all the vanilla occlusion planes were removed by the mod, I believe namtar55 mentions it in the comments below and was looking into it (I have no experience with occlusion planes, though I’ll do my best to learn to fix it when I get the chance. Certainly before I try to mess with Whiterun.)
I will open the mod in CK later, and try to find out what the problem is, I have experience with the CK because I play Skyrim since 2011. If I get to fix it somehow or discover anything, I will let you know.
I found out the vanilla occlusion wasn't deleted, the author just moved it down enough to get it out of the way. Occluding vanilla Windhelm is already not easy, it has box marks within box marks. I managed to get it mostly stutter free, the only problem places being Candlehearth Hall and Grey Quarter. But it turns out someone had already beaten me to it.
I've been testing eFPS, which does a good job with occlusion planes, and they already have a patch for Capital windhelm expansion (since 09/09, at least), and many other mods (including COTN - Dawnstar) - but it is in their discord channel. That's why i didn't notice before.
If you don't want to use eFPS, you could remove its requirement and use just the patch, or merge Windhelmsse and the patch, since the patch content is occlusion planes and nothing else.
Update: Loaded eFPS patch, and, although i did saw improvements on other areas, it's pretty much the same result as i got in the main gate. The game won't freeze, but it will take more time to load. Loading time is lower on the other gates.
Well, Capital Windhelm is not as heavy as, say, JK's, but it is still an expansion. Unlike Cities of the North, CW raises the number of clutter, persistent references AND npcs on the exterior area. Despite that, it's playable, if you're okay with the ocasional stutter from the initial area loading. I confess i'm torn between this mod and Icy Windhelm, which i just ported. It's like Snowy Windhelm, but more up to date and with bug fixes.
Also, the eFPS is still wip, but the mod is great. To have an idea, the stutter in Riften is gone, i don't even need some old patches to remove decals, clutter, plants, and whatnot, anymore.
I'll add eFPS' page to the sticky, it sounds nice (riften is the worse FPS killer for me, even compared to this mod). Icy Windhelm looks pretty sweet, I was originally going to make a SnowyAF patch but found that it removed some things that I'd rather keep, so I'm going with Icy instead.
The current link for eFPS goes to the SSE page and there doesn't appear to be an LE version. I'm assuming though from the conversation that this mod works in LE? Or Namtar did you mean to only use the patch from eFPS's discord, because JUST the patch will work in either environment (SE or LE) but eFPS doesn't?
In any case, it seems that adding the occlusion planes back in via whatever methods that didn't improve performance much anyway? Namtar you also mentioned some improvements you tried on your own, so was it just that the eFPS patch was roughly equal to your own efforts?
Sorry, just want to be clear about what seems to be working best here.
I can do some stuff on my own, but a veteran modder will do a better job. In the case of eFPS, they are a group, and more experienced, so they indeed did a better job than mine.
What i said about roughly the same results, has more to do with the layout of the expansion, and how occlusion works. Occlusion planes tell the game to not load things your character is not supposed to see (because they are behind a wall, a house or a mountain). That shortens load times and eat less resources, cpu and gpu wise.
With Capital Windhelm, the main gate area was expanded. The left big wall is gone, and you can see part of the cemetery. Aside from that, there's more ice, more statues, more clutter, which will still load. Hence, the same results, because that can't be solved by occlusion. The improvement is that walls and buildings around Candlehearth Hall area got proper occlusion, so everthing behind them won't load right from the start anymore.
About eFPS, it's a work in progress, as things are still being added. As it is, it can be used for Skyrim LE - BUT will require some adjustment. Like removing/replacing the water entries that only exist in SE, and removing entries from other modded cities you might have installed. Come to think of it, i should have put @allonsywisegirl on that post. My bad.
I'm glad to inform you that I just tested the mod again for a while, and the mod worked pratically free of trouble, the loading screen problem didn't occur and i was able to navigate throughout Windhelm without any issues. Maybe the loading screen problem was because Crash Fixes wasn't properly configured, and now it is. Maybe the problem was memory, and Crash Fixes fixed it. I'm so happy, i think now i can use this mod without issues.
Thank you so much for this conversion. I hope you also convert Whiterun Capital Expansion, soon.
OMG I've seen your work past few weeks but this goes off the charts!
However I always end up having major ctds when modding winterhold, enven when I bearly have CRF alone, and skyrim villages but I think that one dont do winterhold. Should I get this? Would fps tremble?
You could try it on a test game, but I would wait until we figure out how to re-add occlusion planes to help with the performance before you try to add it to a save you want to keep.
I’m not the author, I just ported the mod and copied the description- I think there’s a YouTube/patreon link for him in the first sticky or description. You might find more info there!
Give Feedback
59 comments
Me making Capital Riften Expansion:
Surjamte - YouTube
Quest Guide/Walkthrough:
Capital Windhelm Expansion (Skyrim) - Quick Quest Guide - YouTube
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
PROBLEMS/ BUG REPORTS If you do not bother following instructions, I will not bother answering.
1. Test if you have the problem with only this mod enabled. Do you have any idea how often your "bug" is just a conflict with another mod?
2. Are you on a new save or an existing one?
3. Click on the "bugs" tab and see if your problem have already been fixed
4. The mod "Mfg Console" will show which mod has last edited an object. Check with this before reporting a bug
- You can use console command "coc windhelmorigin" at the Main Menu. To quickly teleport into Windhelm for testing.
I'll move your post to the bug report section if I got enough info to go on.
I recommend a new save this time around.
Okay, so this is a big mod and was a lot of work to port and test, and I might have missed some things. That being said, before reporting any bugs, I ask that you please follow the troubleshooting steps in the other sticky. Also, please do NOT bother Surjamte with any issues you have using this mod.
I will not be taking any patch requests, and I'd rather you didn't ask me for any- you're free to make them/publish/backport some yourself. If I make any, I'll share them, but I'm pretty burnt out on Skyrim modding right now. I recommend googling what you want to do and you can find a ton of tutorials on how to do it. (Darkfox127 has a great channel for this!)
Please don't ask me about backporting the JK's Skyrim Patch- the SE version of JKs is significantly different from the LE version and so it doesn't work right. I don't use the full JK's and will not be making a patch (it is too big of a time commitment for me.) Here's a video by GamerPoet on removing towns from JK's, if you want to try that.
There's a good chance this mod will impact your FPS. On my lower-end laptop it hits a little more than JKs lite plus DOS. EDIT: you can try backporting the patch from eFPS' discord page (link to Nexus page.) (Thanks namtar55 for pointing this out!)
And finally, here's a link to my backporting tutorial, in case you want that.
Thanks for reading :D
Thanks to DomainWolf for Vanilla Warpaint Absolution and Lamenthia for Lamenthia's Beauty Marks for the use of their overlays
And thanks to meirimi for their tutorial and ranaline for RS Children
I will not be providing patches for mods that I don't use, as it's boring and I'm only modding for my own entertainment.
Backport tutorial is here. A good tutorial on how to make compatibility patches is here (NSFW site!)
I installed the mod to test it and when I tried to get into the Palace, i got that problem. Then after i quit to desktop, I launch the game again and went to the Palace with the console command "coc WindhelmPalaceoftheKings". That worked. Then i tried to exit to the city, and the infinite loading problem occured again.
Please, take a look into this issue. I would like very much to see this fixed, because I want to have this mod in my load order forever.
Occluding vanilla Windhelm is already not easy, it has box marks within box marks. I managed to get it mostly stutter free, the only problem places being Candlehearth Hall and Grey Quarter. But it turns out someone had already beaten me to it.
I've been testing eFPS, which does a good job with occlusion planes, and they already have a patch for Capital windhelm expansion (since 09/09, at least), and many other mods (including COTN - Dawnstar) - but it is in their discord channel. That's why i didn't notice before.
If you don't want to use eFPS, you could remove its requirement and use just the patch, or merge Windhelmsse and the patch, since the patch content is occlusion planes and nothing else.
Also, the eFPS is still wip, but the mod is great. To have an idea, the stutter in Riften is gone, i don't even need some old patches to remove decals, clutter, plants, and whatnot, anymore.
In any case, it seems that adding the occlusion planes back in via whatever methods that didn't improve performance much anyway? Namtar you also mentioned some improvements you tried on your own, so was it just that the eFPS patch was roughly equal to your own efforts?
Sorry, just want to be clear about what seems to be working best here.
I can do some stuff on my own, but a veteran modder will do a better job. In the case of eFPS, they are a group, and more experienced, so they indeed did a better job than mine.
What i said about roughly the same results, has more to do with the layout of the expansion, and how occlusion works. Occlusion planes tell the game to not load things your character is not supposed to see (because they are behind a wall, a house or a mountain). That shortens load times and eat less resources, cpu and gpu wise.
With Capital Windhelm, the main gate area was expanded. The left big wall is gone, and you can see part of the cemetery. Aside from that, there's more ice, more statues, more clutter, which will still load. Hence, the same results, because that can't be solved by occlusion. The improvement is that walls and buildings around Candlehearth Hall area got proper occlusion, so everthing behind them won't load right from the start anymore.
About eFPS, it's a work in progress, as things are still being added. As it is, it can be used for Skyrim LE - BUT will require some adjustment. Like removing/replacing the water entries that only exist in SE, and removing entries from other modded cities you might have installed. Come to think of it, i should have put @allonsywisegirl on that post. My bad.
I'm glad to inform you that I just tested the mod again for a while, and the mod worked pratically free of trouble, the loading screen problem didn't occur and i was able to navigate throughout Windhelm without any issues. Maybe the loading screen problem was because Crash Fixes wasn't properly configured, and now it is. Maybe the problem was memory, and Crash Fixes fixed it. I'm so happy, i think now i can use this mod without issues.
Thank you so much for this conversion. I hope you also convert Whiterun Capital Expansion, soon.
However I always end up having major ctds when modding winterhold, enven when I bearly have CRF alone, and skyrim villages but I think that one dont do winterhold. Should I get this? Would fps tremble?
Been waiting FOREVER for this mod to be ported. F'ing finally! Will you be doing Capital Whiterun Expansion as well?