Requirements

Hardware

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.

Runtime

You just need runtime requirements. These are:

1. .NET Runtime 8
2. VCRedist x64

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

Engine

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 is enabled under Extended Materials. This is the default.

Usage

1. Install the PGPatcher archive 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 verify that:
   1. Data path is set correctly
   2. Game type is set correctly
   3. 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
   4. 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.
4. Click on Start Patching and wait, it shouldn't take more than 5-10 minutes, even for a big list.
5. After patching is done, either install as a mod, or skip this step if you set your output folder to a mod folder already, just enable the mod.

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

PG_X.esp plugins MUST BE LOADED LAST, except for DynDoLOD/TexGen Outputs. I will not investigate a bug report if you do not have the ordering set this way. If a mod author is telling you to put their meshes after PG, don't listen. It is always better to let PG manage everything. If you experience issues with doing it this way, tell me so I can see if it's a configuration issue on your end or a bug I need to fix in PG. There are very limited times where I might tell you to load something after PG as a band-aid fix. This is always because of a PG bug that I will fix and you should only do this for the version I tell you

DO NOT download prepatched meshes where possible. If a mod offers parallax meshes for example, stick with the vanilla meshes. This is because PG can apply shaders to meshes, but it cannot remove shaders from meshes (unless it is to apply another shader type). Therefore you will run into less issues by using vanilla only meshes and letting PG patch them for you.

Conflict resolution is an important aspect of PGPatcher. Read more about how that works here.

Patcher Order of Operations

The various patchers should be run in this order. If it's not in the list order probably doesn't matter.

1. Bodyslide
2. Synthesis
3. PG (Keep PG output enabled for the rest of this list!)
4. xLODGen (for terrain)
5. TexGen
6. DynDoLOD

How to Update

Unless specified on the mod page, you can keep your cfg folder and update everything else when PG has an update. This will preserve your mod priority and any settings.