Basic Usage (PGPatcher)

Requirements

Hardware Requirements

PGPatcher is heavily multithreaded and has a lot of random IOPS. This means that the runtime will be slow on an HDD, like REALLY REALLY slow (usually something like 10x the runtime over an SSD). Therefore, an SSD is HIGHLY recommended for your modlist. The more cores you have the more PGPatcher will use.

Software Requirements

In order to see the shaders that PGPatcher patches in-game, you need to install either Community Shaders or ENBSeries. If you want to use TruePBR textures, only Community Shaders is supported.

Mod Compatibility

• Auto Parallax is INCOMPATIBLE with PBR and REDUNDANT for all other cases. PGPatcher replaces its functionality completely.
• Model Swapper might be incompatible in some cases. This is because model swapper circumvents plugins when swapping meshes and PGPatcher relies on plugins to patch based on plugin use, therefore, a mesh may be missed or patched incorrectly when swapped in-game by Model Swapper. If you are a mod author I would recommend using Base Object Swapper instead which is fully compatible.
• All parallax mods are compatible
• All complex material mods are compatible if they use community-defined best-practice values. If they do not, they can be made compatible by ignoring their meshes in the PGPatcher mod window
• All PBR mods are compatible as long as they include patcher jsons (99% do)
• All other mods are compatible

Game Requirements

ENBSeries Setup

After installing ENBSeries and a preset, you will need to open enbseries.ini and set the following items in the file:

1. EnableComplexParallax=true
2. EnableComplexParallaxShadows=true
3. EnableComplexMaterial=true
4. EnableDynamicCubemap=true

Community Shaders Setup

In the CS menu, ensure that Complex Material and PBR is enabled. This is the default.

Snow/Ash Mod

You don't need any snow mod to use PGPatcher, but Better Dynamic Snow 3 is my recommendation. Simplicity of Snow will work fine with parallax and complex material, however, it being multipass means snow will appear to float and not match the contours of the parallax underneath. If you use PBR you cannot use Simplicity of Snow, as PBR rendering on multipass is not supported by Community Shaders.

To see PBR snow materials with single-pass snow, the underlying material must be patched for PBR, otherwise the snow on top will not render as PBR.

Usage

1. Install the PGPatcher archive as a mod (You can do this as an external app instead, but for simplicity I am advising users who don't care to install it as a mod)
2. Add the PGPatcher.exe executable to whatever mod manager you use (from the mod staging folder), then launch it via your mod manager.
   1. For vortex, verify that Run in Shell and Run Detached are both enabled
3. In the launcher UI set the following settings:
   1. Under conflict resolution, make sure you select the mod manager you are using, or None if you do not use either.
      1. NOTE: For MO2, the instance folder is the location can be found by pressing the folder icon in the toolbar then "Open Instance Folder". It should have a modorganizer.ini file in it
   2. Set your output directory. I would recommend setting this to an empty mod folder like PGPatcher_Output directly, and unchecking the zip option. This will allow you to update your previous output automatically without having to reinstall every time. Keep in mind that the mod must be disabled in your mod manager prior to running PGPatcher.
   3. If not already set and locked, set your game path and game type
4. Click on Start Patching. Wait for completion.
5. In the completion dialog, it's best to review your conflicts by clicking on Conflict Manager. For MO2 users in most cases the default is correct. Vortex users may need to tinker and re-run the patching step. For more information look at the Conflict Manager page.
6. Press any of the buttons to close the confirmation dialog, then either install as a mod, or if you output directly to a mod folder, simply activate the mod in your mod manager.
7. In the previous steps if you outputted directly to a mod folder, the next time you launch PGPatcher there will be a Update Output button that you can use instead of Start Patching. This will be much faster as it will scan your load order for changes and only patch files where necessary.

The installed mod should overwrite everything in your load order except DynDoLOD/TexGen outputs.

PG_X.esp plugins (where X is any number) MUST BE LOADED LAST, except for DynDoLOD/TexGen Outputs. LOOT will sort these plugins correctly.

Other Patchers

The various patchers should be run in this order. If it's not in the list order probably doesn't matter or we don't know about it yet (feel free to ask).

1. Bodyslide
   1. Make sure the bodyslide output is a mod and that mod is active prior to generating PGPatcher.
   2. To output to a mod use the preferences within the Bodyslide GUI NOT the MO2 output to mod option. This is because this MO2 function will only place NEW files into the mod. Existing meshes in your modlist will instead of overwritten by the patched bodyslide mesh, forever modifying the ORIGINAL mod. This is an unsolvable limitation of the MO2 USVFS.
2. PGPatcher (Keep PGPatcher output enabled for the rest of this list!)
3. TexGen
4. DynDoLOD

VRAMr is not included in this list because order doesn't technically matter. If you run VRAMr after PGPatcher, ensure PGPatcher output is enabled and generate VRAMr with it enabled. If you run VRAMr before PGPatcher, ensure its output is DISABLED before running PGPatcher.

How to Update PGPatcher

• If you installed as a mod, install the new version and replace (not merge)
• If you installed externally, go to the location you installed it and remove everything except the cfg folder, then drag the files from the new version in.

Both of these options will preserve your settings and mod rules.