SkyrimLE:2.2.7

SkyrimLE v2.2.7

Changelog   |   Release Date: September 28th, 2013

WARNING

This guide is out of date and is NOT supported! It may contain information that is incorrect or not in line with the current state of the game.
Go to the latest supported SkyrimLE Guide.

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- Visit the forums and provide feedback related to STEP.

- Also visit the STEP Facebook page maintained by TheCompiler (Daniel).

- To support hosting and maintenance of the STEP Community Project, contributions are welcome.

Interim Release

STEP 2.2.7 marks the beginning of our move to a new paradigm that will officially be unveiled as STEP 2.3.0. The next few interim releases will allow a smoother transition with the official introduction of STEP:Core and the gradual build-up of STEP:Extended. STEP:Core aims to stay as close to vanilla Skyrim as possible while improving visual quality and correcting several issues with the base game on the PC platform. See The New STEP article for more details.

About STEP

A Foreword

Created by TheCompiler, STEP is a collaborative project with input from the modding community, technical volunteers, and project administrators. The goal is to provide tested and validated methods for establishing and maintaining an enhanced modded Skyrim. Thus, the Guide provides detailed, well-tested build instructions for a solid modding template. New modders can follow STEP explicitly, or more experienced modders may use it as general guide.

The STEP team collects information from the modding community through extensive mod testing, detailed reviews, feedback, and suggestions exchanged on the STEP Community Forums. Posting rules apply, so be sure to read and follow them and enjoy a warm welcome and plenty of high-quality support from a large community of experienced STEPers. Check out the comparison screenshots on the Nexus.

Minimum System for STEP:Core

It is tentatively planned that STEP:Core (and Extended, by proxy) will continue to provide a performance-friendly version in tandem with a standard version. Given what we know about the memory limits for 32-bit applications (aka the "3.1 GB limit for Skyrim"). This will most likely entail installation options associated with many of the Core mods and possibly even two performance patches (TBD).

For this release, we recommend the following as a minimum hardware configuration for running STEP:Core (installing "Baseline" versions of "Core" mods only). For those wishing to use higher-quality options and/or to install the non-Core mods (tentatively, STEP:Extended Beta), be advised that a more powerful system is likely necessary. The Baseline install that we recommend will provide the best quality-performance trade-off.

Hardware	Minimum	Recommended
Windows OS	Windows XP	Windows 7
CPU	Intel Core i3 (dual core)	Intel Core i5/i7 (quad core)
System RAM	4 GB	8 GB
GPU	HD, 1 GB VRAM	HD, >= 2 GB VRAM
Monitor Resolution	1366x768	1920x1080

STEP 1

Pre-Installation Setup

1.A. Install Steam & Skyrim

This guide assumes that the user is beginning with a clean Skyrim installation as described in the Skyrim Installation Guide (SIG). Please take some time to properly set up and configure Steam and install Skyrim as recommended by the guide before continuing.

1.B. Skyrim Launcher Options

1.B.1. Launcher Settings

1. Launch Skyrim from Steam and, if a menu is displayed, click on [Options]. This will establish the INI file configurations according to the detected hardware. It will also establish the registry entries necessary for utilities and applications used downstream. The launcher will display a message that "Skyrim will now detect your video hardware and set video options accordingly.", and when finished displays a message "Video Settings have been set for <low, medium, high, or ultra> Quality".
2. The settings entered by the launcher can be largely left as they are or, since the launcher settings are fairly conservative, some of the settings can be increased as discussed in more detail in the STEP Skyrim Configuration Guide. To change or review the settings click the [Options] button if the menu is not already being displayed.
3. If the screen resolution was not set to the correct value it can be corrected on this screen.
4. Under Antialiasing, select 4 Samples, as the difference between 4 Samples and 8 Samples is very subtle and not worth the performance loss (per Tweakguides). Drop down to 2 Samples as a last-resort to improve performance. NOTE: If using SMAA, set this value to zero. This change is appropriate for all systems that meet or exceed the Minimum hardware specification.
5. Click the [Advanced] button and make sure FXAA is UN-checked. FXAA reduces the Anisotropic Filter effect as well as overall texture detail. It is a huge performance improvement over AA, but comes with a quality cost. For more information on FXAA, and to see if it is right for you, see this post. NOTE: SMAA is a superior alternative to FXAA.
   • Consider setting shadow detail to 'High' rather than 'Ultra' for video cards with less than 1 GB VRAM, or leave at 'Ultra' for systems meeting the Recommended system specifications.
6. Exit and click Play from the Skyrim Launcher. This will create the necessary configuration files, and registry settings required by downstream applications (contrary to popular belief, the INI files are created immediately, and the game does not need to launch).

1.C. Display & Video Card Settings

1.C.1. Nvidia Users

1. Download and install the latest Nvidia drivers (beta if available).
2. Download Nvidia Inspector.
3. See the Nvidia Inspector Wiki Guide for configuration details.

1.C.2. AMD Users

1. Download and install the latest AMD drivers (advanced users can try the beta versions if available).
2. See the AMD Wiki Guide for configuration details.

1.C.3. Display

Configure the monitor's display settings using Windows Display configuration utility (Control Panel > Display > Calibrate Color).

• First use the monitor's built-in configuration to attempt to complete the wizard. (ignore the ClearType tuner process)
• Repeat the calibration wizard using the GPU's driver configuration settings.
• For each run, be certain to execute all calibrators with particular attention to gamma, brightness and contrast. Most users' monitor output will be significantly darker and slightly more color-saturated.

1.D. Performance Benchmarking

The following procedure is very important in determining baseline performance and ultimately helps the STEP team to assess performance variation across a wide range of computer configurations. This ultimately allows the accurate prediction of performance requirements for the various versions of STEP to come. User contributions in this regard are highly valued and much appreciated! Even more importantly, this routine should be used to assess the performance of the STEP versions as described above. Database-comparison benchmarks will be available as sufficient numbers of user-submitted data accumulate.

At this point ...

• There should be a clean install of both Steam and Skyrim as recommended by the SIG (see above),
• the baseline INI settings should be configured (via the Skyrim Launcher), and
• the monitor and video-driver configurations should be optimized.

This is a perfect point to collect some baseline performance data, as all tweaks after this section are manual and could have significant performance impact on some systems. A baseline benchmark provides valuable information about the setup and the gaming environment. Detecting driver issues, software incompatibilities, hardware problems or other issues is essential while the build is simple, as these kinds of problems are much more difficult to diagnose and solve as the build becomes more complex. It is recommended that users execute the following process again after the INI edits following are applied and after each sequence of potentially-impactful changes is introduced (e.g., after each mod section).

Points during setup that benchmarking is suggested will be indicated by:

Benchmark

Use the following checklist to calculate the standard STEP benchmark:

1. Identify any unnecessary background programs that may be running. Most importantly, determine if it is possible to set any anti-virus/spyware to low priority or "game mode". Any running background processes will consume some proportion of resources that Skyrim could otherwise use and increase the chances for instability. It is fine to have processes running in the background, but it is a good idea to be aware of what they are for troubleshooting in case there are problems.
2. If mods were recently installed and IF NOT USING a SSD, defragment the game HDD. This will prevent game stutter caused by i/o inefficiencies (the effects are real!).
3. Launch Fraps in order to measure FPS. Set to output FPS to a log file.
4. Launch GPU-z in order to measure GPU and system memory-usage statistics. Set GPU-z to output the following to the log file (Sensors > Log to File; each variable log can be toggled by selecting the corresponding drop-downs):
   • GPU Core Clock (MHz)
   • GPU Temperature (°C)
   • GPU Load (%)
   • Memory Usage (Dedicated) - This is on-card-VRAM
   • Memory Usage (Dynamic) - This is the amount of VRAM transferred to much-slower system RAM
5. Launch Skyrim, and start a new game. Once loaded and the sound starts and the FPS counter appears, hit the FRAPS benchmark hotkey (F11 by default).
6. Let the game progress up to the first autosave just after jumping down off the cart, and press the FRAPS benchmark hotkey again to stop benchmarking. Total time since first depressing the benchmark hotkey will be approximately 240 seconds.
7. Quit the game as quickly as possible and immediately exit the GPU-z app to stop logging.
8. Go to the GPU-z log. Identify the point in the log where the GPU Core Clock first maxes out and find the point beyond which the GPU Load values and the Dedicated Memory max and become fairly consistent (it should be between 50-90 rows from the top of the file). Delete all preceding rows (keep the header row!).
9. Move down to the end of the file and locate the point at which the GPU Load and Dedicated Memory begin to recede again (signifying loading the menue and quitting the game, usually 20-40 rows of data, depending on how much time is spent in the menu and actually shutting down the game and quitting GPU-z). Delete all rows after this point. The GPU-z log file is now trimmed of "noisy" data.
10. There are many ways to do this, but get File:Get GPU-z.7z and calculate the mean and standard deviation for:
    • GPU Load
    • GPU Temperature
    • Memory Usage (Dedicated)
    • Memory Usage (Dynamic)
11. Open the Fraps FPS log, and copy that column into the GPU-z spreadsheet.
12. Download this example spreadsheet as an actual working example.
13. As can be seen in the example spreadsheet, there are several columns and 200+ rows of data. The relevant summary statistics are the mean (i.e., average) and the standard deviation (i.e., a measure of the variation about the mean). These can be calculated for each column of data by using the following formulas in Excel or most other spreadheets (cell ranges are in parentheses):

 =AVERAGE(A2:A240)
 =STDEV(A2:A240)

Example benchmarks

Example benchmark results:

Kelmych

techangel85

z929669

1.E. Install Utilities

1.E.1. Better Oblivion Sorting Software

Better Oblivion Sorting Software (BOSS) is an essential utility for managing mod plugins for Skyrim. The primary function of BOSS is to reorder esp/esm plugins based on a master plugin order list. In addition, BOSS identifies plugins (ESPs/ESMs) that need cleaning with TES5Edit or other special treatment (more on this below), and adds Bash Tags to plugins that are later used by Wrye Bash when creating a bashed patch. Download BOSS and install according to the instructions provided by the author.

1.E.2. BOSS Userlist Manager

Boss Userlist Manager (BUM) helps to improve the plugin ordering in BOSS, especially for plugins that are not in the BOSS masterlist, by adding user-generated plugin ordering rules that are later used by BOSS. It includes a GUI to generate these rules.

1.E.3. Mod Manager(s)

There are several utilities that may be used to manage the STEP setup. While mods can be installed manually, this is not recommended. A mod-management utility is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED in order to keep track of a complex setup like STEP. These utilities also make it exponentially simpler to deconstruct a STEP install in order to update to a new STEP version, and to update versions of the mods. This is impossible to do simply or efficiently (or even correctly) otherwise.

• Wrye Bash

Wrye Bash (WB) is an especially powerful mod-management utility, full of features for both mod users and advanced mod authors alike. A fairly comprehensive mod-maintenance process is presented in the Wrye Bash Guide and presented in a context that applies to STEP. Presently, Wrye Bash lacks a Nexus-compatible-mod-update management system, so this will need to be managed by the user. Mod updates are not necessary for STEP though, and it is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED that regular STEP users avoid updating single mods piecemeal. This is the kind of thing that the STEP mod testing team works on for upcoming releases, and troubleshooting issues related to mod updates takes resources away from supporting others that are using supported versions of mods.

• Mod Organizer

Mod Organizer (MO) is another feature-rich and powerful management utility. As you would expect, MO has advantages and disadvantages relative to Wrye Bash. Four key advantages of MO are:

• MO utilizes data virtualization to keep the Skyrim folder pristine and free of mod plugins and resources,
• it has the ability to set up individual profiles each including a different set of mods,
• it tracks mod updates on the Nexus as well, and is as accurate as long as the Nexus metadata is current.
• users new to modding report it has a friendlier interface, similar to that of NMM.

See the Mod Organizer Guide to learn more.

• Nexus Mod Manager

1.E.4. TES5Edit

TES5Edit is a utility that can clean erroneous entries in mod plugins that prevent the plugin from working properly in Skyrim; see here for details. It can also read and display all of the records in mod plugins, and can edit records in plugins to change undesired mod behaviors or provide compatibility among sets of plugins. These are critical capabilities for Skyrim since the potential for incompatibilities, CTDs and other issues increases as the number of mods used increases.

1.F. INI Tweaks

INI files can be used to managed many aspects of the game and also ancillary mods to Skyrim. The following tweaks apply to all systems using STEP. Optional tweaks such as those that aren't relevant to all systems are included in the ["STEP Skyrim Configuration Guide"].

The Skyrim INI files are located in "Documents/My Games/Skyrim" or "My Documents/My Games/Skyrim," depending on Operating System. At this point, the default INI files should have been established due to actions completed in step 1.B, and the following tweaks assume that the Skyrim INI files are not already customized in any way. If using Mod Organizer, editing INI files is done by clicking [Edit Ini]. Wrye Bash users can edit and manage all INI files via the INI Tweaks tab.

1.F.1. Skyrim INI

Most of the following tweaks are recommended updates to existing INI entries. New entries will be explicitly indicated.

Create the following at the end of each of the indicated INI sections. Sections are marked by names within square brackets '[ ]', and some of these sections already exist, but for those that do not, create the section:

Increases the distance arrows fly. (From "Arrows and Bolts Tweaks").

[Actor]
fVisibleNavmeshMoveDist=12288.0000

Add the following under [Combat]:

Shifts the point of aim to the center of the aiming reticule for arrows and crossbows (with this setting targets will be hit where the cursor is placed at approximately 100 feet from the target).

f1PArrowTiltUpAngle=0.7
f3PArrowTiltUpAngle=0.7
f1PBoltTiltUpAngle=0.7
f3PBoltTiltUpAngle=0.7

Add the following under [Display]:

Fixes the shadow flickering issue. Shadow flickering is caused by updating sun shadows.

fSunShadowUpdateTime=0
fSunUpdateThreshold=2.0

Add the following under [General]:

Disables the annoying intro sequence.

sIntroSequence=

Helps prevent lighting “pop-in” by pushing back the distance at which the flicker/pulse animation loops begin.

fFlickeringLightDistance=8192

1.F.2. SkyrimPrefs INI

Modify the following under [Controls]:

Disable mouse acceleration.

bMouseAcceleration=0

Add the following under [Decals]:

Enables higher resolution blood decals on NPCs.

bDecalsOnSkinnedGeometry=1

Modify the following values under [Display]:

Valid values range from 0 - 7. Lower values will sharpen shadows (not the resolution), making vegetation more "vibrant." It gives a subtle increase in performance, but also gives more pixelated and striping effects to shadows. Higher values will make shadows softer and more blurred. Consider a value of two if using ENB.

iBlurDeferredShadowMask=3

Enables shadows rendering on trees.

bTreesReceiveShadows=1

ENB users ONLY! Enabling these without an ENB will decrease performance with no visual impact and possibly introduce excessive shadow striping.

bDrawLandShadows=1
bFloatPointRenderTarget=1

Benchmark

Reminder - Essential Guides

The following guide forms the base from which STEP builds and provide details on many of the topics mentioned in this Guide. Skyrim Installation Guide (SIG) – Comprehensive installation and configuration guide to Skyrim and its DLCs, mods, extensions, and utilities.

The instructions that follow are not specific to a mod manager, but the details of how these steps are accomplished are sometimes different as discussed in the guides for Wrye Bash and Mod Organizer. It is recommended that the user read at least the second and third tabs in the referenced mod manager guide (WB or MO) since these tabs include step-by-step mod installation instructions for each mod manager.

Final Notes

A Final Consideration

Install mods in the order that they are presented in the following tables in order to achieve an aesthetically and mechanically well-vetted result. More experienced or adventurous modders may want to use STEP as a loose guide.

Information from certain mods used can write additional information into save games. Thus, some mods can continue to affect the game even after the mods are removed or updated.

From the Bethesda document, Skyrim Mod Troubleshooting: Best Practices:

"When you play Skyrim with a mod, in most cases, the new data for the mod will be written into any new saved games you create. For example, if you play Skyrim with Mod X and create a save, the next time you load that save, the game will expect Mod X to also be loaded. If you no longer want to play Skyrim with Mod X, it is best to unload Mod X (by unchecking the plugin under Data Files in your Skyrim launcher) and loading a save that does not require Mod X, usually an older save or a backed up save."

The short version is “Never continue with a save once a mod it relies upon has been removed.” Although this is good advice, there are often occasions when it is inconvenient to revert to an older save especially for games with significant progress. The Troubleshooting Guide provides a "best-practice procedure" for attempting to ‘clean’ the effects of a removed mod from a save game.

FINALLY... ALWAYS read the ReadMe and other mod-related documentation that comes packaged with most mods. This includes the mod description on the Nexus. If the mod author has seen fit and taken time to create these reference materials, then they are relevant and important in the eyes of the mod author. This means that they are relevant and important to you!

STEP 2

Mod Installation

	Mod Name	Baseline	Quality Options	DLC Required	Notes
	Mod Name	Baseline		DG	Notes

	Core Mod	Core mods are indicated by the presence of a green vertical bar in the row at the immediate left-hand column of the table.
	Mod Name	Nexus mod name (where applicable) presented as a link links to Nexus for download.
		Link to the mod's Wiki page.
	Baseline	This notes the STEP Baseline version or option of the corresponding mod, and usually only refers to graphical quality choices. Stylistic or mechanical suggestions are located in the "Notes" section.
	Quality Options	Indicates if there are performance-friendly or performance-unfriendly versions of the mod relative to the Baseline recommendation:
		Relative to Baseline, a lower quality, less demanding version of the mod is also available.
		Relative to Baseline, a higher quality, more demanding version of the mod is also available.
		Relative to Baseline, both lower and higher quality versions of the mod are available.
	DLC Required	Any DLCs listed here are required for the mod to function. If all DLCs listed are not present do not use this mod.
	Notes	Brief notes that apply to the mod or installation. In some cases, mods with many alternative options will include a suggested option. These suggestions will take the form of: "STEP recommends 'Option A'." In other cases, there may only be one appropriate alternative option that fits the STEP Mandate. These instructions will take the form of: "Use 'Option A'."

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2.A.

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Wrye Bash Realistic Crime Radius fix

Once all mods have been installed, locate Bashed Patch on your Mods tab in Wrye Bash. Follow these steps to apply the crime radius tweak:

• Right-click on Bashed Patch and select Rebuild Patch.
• (optional) You can merge your mods into Bashed Patch via Merge Patches.
• Check the box next to Tweak Settings then click on Tweak Settings.
• Check the box next to Crime: Alarm Distance.

• To change the distance, right-click on Crime: Alarm Distance and select your desired distance. STEP recommends 1000.

• Next click Build Patch at the bottom of the window and let Wrye Bash rebuild the patch.
• You can close the summary window and congratulations! You've just applied the Crime Radius fix.

Post-Installation Housekeeping

Once all mods have been installed and are ready to play, be certain to either:

• Start a brand new character, or
• load the save game generated just after character creation if it exists, or
• load an existing character after clean saving the relevant save game.

STEP 3

Tips & Troubleshooting Common Issues

3.A. Technical Tips

The following is a good place to begin, but be certain to also check the Troubleshooting Guide. Also, search the support & Troubleshooting forum on the STEP Boards,

3.A.1. Maximizing STEP

A heavily modded Skyrim can bring even a very powerful system to its knees. Maximum visual quality is highly dependent upon total on-card graphics-dedicated video memory (VRAM), the number of GPUs, and monitor resolution. The goal should be to maintain 32 or more FPS on average without any noticeable stuttering. Following are some enhancements that users with rather powerful systems might be able to take advantage of:

• Try using SSAO (using video driver settings) for better quality graphics and note the performance hit.
• Use one of the STEP-recommended ENB configurations.
• Make sure Skyrim.ini and SkyrimPrefs.ini are writable and, using the Skyrim Launcher, max out ...

1. • anti-aliasing
   • anisotropic filtering
   • view distances
   • shadow quality
   • texture quality

3.A.2. Fix game launch crash after installing STEP

For crashes to desktop (CTDs),

• Set the Skyrim executable "TESV.exe" to run as administrator (right click TESV.exe > Properties > Compatibility > Check Run this program as administrator).
• If using RCRN or any other FXAA-Injector/ENB mod, turn off any on-screen display programs and monitoring tools such as Fraps, ATI Tray Tools, MSI Afterburner, GPU-Z, etc.
• Get the latest DirectX runtime installed.

3.A.3. Defrag the Hard Drive

For hard drives (not SSDs), this is a very important task once most/all mods are installed. The Windows defrag utility may be used, but it is sub-standard. A couple of the best free utilities are Defraggler and Auslogics Disk Defrag. Do NOT defrag an SSD as it will detrimentally affect its lifetime.

3.A.4. Semi-Invisible People & Misbehaving Walls

Be certain that ATI Antialiasing is set to Multi-Sample and NOT Adaptive. Also, remember to download the latest ATI drivers. Also be certain that bFloatPointRenderTarget=1 in the SkyrimPrefs.ini if using ENB.

3.A.5. Using Windowed Mode (ATI)

If having stuttering problems or CTDs in full screen mode, try "full screen" windowed mode by downloading Simple Borderless Window. The "Simple Borderless Window" launcher SBW.exe launches SKSE, so start the game through SBW.exe.

3.A.6. Increase Overall Performance

If after following the whole guide and installing the enhanced graphics, the game is unplayable due to low performance, try one or more of the following:

• Disable SSAO or Supersampling AA (or both) if enabled.
• Reduce shadow quality from the Skyrim Launcher.
• Install the performance-friendly versions of textures where applicable.
• Consider texture optimization.
• Reduce The [View Distance] settings in the game launcher (see 1.B.1).

3.A.7. Texture Shimmering, Etc.

Refer to the Z-Fighting Guide.

3.B. In-Game Tips

The console can be activated by pressing the tilde ([~]) key, often located just below [Escape], while in-game.

3.B.1. Optimize Field of View (FOV)

In the console enter the following using a number from 66-100, depending on resolution and screen ratio. Default is 65 (4:3 screens), but 70-75 works nicely for 16:10 screens and 75-80 works nicely for 16:9 screens:

FOV ##

This change will be permanent in the saved game. Other INI FOV tweaks don't require opening the console, but they don’t 'stick' and can corrupt the game. Also note that high FOV can cause a performance drop for some configurations.

3.B.2. BIG Frame Drops During Cell Loading

This is a likely indicator that VRAM is too often operating at or beyond capacity (see 3.A.6).

User Contributions

How YOU Can Help

STEP can only get bigger and better with help from the user community. Even simply maintaining the current STEP is too much work for the core STEP team to ensure that the highest quality is maintained. We need people to help us identify mods that are thought to improve Skyrim while adhering to the STEP Mandate. We also need ongoing reviews and updates on mods that may be causing problems or that stray from the STEP philosophy. Finally, we need help from the community in terms of testing, benchmarking and analysis. More detail is presented in the Mod Testing Guide.

In order to suggest a mod, visit the Mod Suggestions section of the STEP Forums.

Call for Wiki Content Editors

The STEP Community Wiki is open to editing by all registered community members; however, we need assistance maintaining and creating new supporting content. We are particularly interested in obtaining a few people with a passion for writing and editing. Familiarity with wiki markup is preferable but not necessary. Interested parties please contact one of the STEP Admin via PM on the forums (Please register on the forums and see the very bottom of the Forum Team page).

Call for STEP Mod Testers

STEP users interested in becoming testers, please contact one of the STEP Admin via PM on the forums (Please register on the forums and see the very bottom of the Forum Team page). Once registered, record your system specs by clicking on the button and filling out the form. These specs will be associated with performance data by tester.

Call for STEP Benchmarks

Users interested in helping out with the STEP Benchmarking Project, see our benchmarking guidelines and submit results on the forums (see link at upper left of site header bar).

Call for Forum Moderators

Regular STEP forum users interested in becoming moderators, please contact one of the STEP Admin via PM on the forums (Please register on the forums and see the very bottom of the Forum Team page).

Thank you for reading and enjoy the game!

Special Credits

The STEP administrators would sincerely like to thank (from the bottoms of our fuzzy little hearts):

• The authors of mods recommended in STEP
• The core STEP Community for feedback, suggestions and input
• The STEP beta testers ... for their good humor and rigorous analyses
• The Nexus community
• Bealdwine, EisDrache & Frihyland - site founders on indefinite leave (we hope you guys are well!)
• Outstanding v2.2.6 contributors - EssArrBee, gamingsrc, Omalong, Quitch, rpsgc, W3aponiz3d, Wormheart, and many others.
• Bethesda Softworks for Skyrim (and TES in general)

The core STEP team is:

• Farlo - Mediawiki developer & extraordinaire, Mod-list co-compiler, forums admin, site founder
• MontyMM - Solutions developer (Semi-Automatic STEP), site founder
• stoppingby4now - Main site developer, Semantic Mediawiki developer & extraordinaire, site founder
• TheCompiler - STEP creator, mod-list extraordinaire
• z929669 - Wiki & forums content editor, main site administrator, hosting maintenance, site founder
• STEP Forum moderators: Aiyen, EssArrBee, deathneko11, rootsrat, torminater (MO Forums - GSDfan, Tannin, Uhuru, wolverine2710)
• Kelmych (Associate administrator and significant contributor to the DDSopt wiki and support forums)
• techangel85 (Associate administrator, STEP release coordinator, Moderator and significant contributor to the wiki and support forums)
• WilliamImm (Associate administrator, BOSS Masterlist contributor and compulsive mod author/patch-BCF creator for STEP)

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