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I'm running an i5 750 and it blows away skyrim on full HD texture pack (not the DLC one) and I also only have 4gigs DDR3 since my one stick was bad in my 8 gig kit. Then again, it is G.skill 2133mhz ram @ 2200mhz, so it's really fast, but trust me...4 gigs of ddr3 is enough. So is an i5. The i5 has crushed everything I have thrown at it and then some, and have it overclocked at 4ghz at a stable 32c idle/60c full load (corsair h50 dual fan push/pull), and there is no reason to upgrade for a long time (then again the 750 is better than the 2500k) but don't let anyone tell you the i5 is falling short. I also have the same video card and can vouch for its awesome performance (with ultra settings and hd textures it's not 100% smooth, but is absolutely more than playable, and could always just get a second one SLI and itll run smooth as glass and I only paid 175$ for this one and they're selling on Amazon in Like New for about $180 now, IMO the best video card right now under $250 by far, let alone $175)

All that being said....your real issue is your hard drive!!!!

Trust me on this!! I have the same hard drive but a 320gig caviar blue 7500rpm as my backup drive on my gaming computer (my htpc has the 3 caviar black 750's) and I had Skyrim installed on it for a bit, and then switched over to installing it to my main drive (corsair force gt 60gig SSD) -- holy fucking shit. Like ridiculous performance boost. This is all due to the textures being loaded about 100x faster from the SSD.

Also, trash the DLC texture pack, TRUST ME. I share the same sentiment that about 99% of other modders do as well, so just go and get the 2k HD texture pack. It is MUCH, MUCH better than the DLC, and is more noticeable, and is easier to run (I have tried both.) They put a lot more work into this one than the DLC. It's 2 something gigs to download, but 110% worth it.

So my recommendation - Get a SSD asap (at least you have sata 3 on your board, my board, the EVGA P55 FTW 300 didn't, so I had to get a Rosewill raid card, no biggy cuz it's an insane mobo... I HIGHLY recommend the Corsair Force gt 60gb - When I say you'll notice about 100% performance boost all around, I mean it.

Also, check whatever other mods you have one by one (this is made easier with the nexus mod manager) to see which one is causing the crash if it isn't a hardware or DLC issue.

Sorry for the delayed response: Yeah, step one is to usually invest in a decent cardioid mic and an audio input. Here are the ones I'd recommend for getting started. Good enough quality to be just under professional tier, though capable of producing professional quality sound, but not so expensive as to offer you features you don't need for years to come:
Mic: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002QAUOKS/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Audio Interface (to be able to plug that or any other professional mic into [XLR input]): https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01E6T56CM/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o09_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

and this is optional but can be helpful to understand the true sound of your recordings, monitors:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075QVMBT9/ref=twister_B07NDRK282?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
(either the 3.5 or 4.5 would be totally fine)

Aside from t hose t hings, the only other things you'd need to get set up would be soundproofing foam, either putting panels up around your space, or around the mic itself. Conversely, you could set up inside a closet full of clothes and accomplish the same task for free, cable length and space permitting.

Good luck!

Reuse of Enviroments
I think the key difference lies in designer intent. Are the enviroments being reused to increase playtime, or to help drive the narrative? Reusing enviroments is a really (relatively) cheap and effective way to show the passage of time & the influence the narrative has had on previous enviroments. The player's familiarity helps draw emphasise to the changes made.

If I were to pick out one game that does this really well it'd be the original two Doom games. As a rough example, imagine the player enters a square room. The corners of the room are blocked off, so the room forms a sort of + shape. The player clears this area of baddies, but as they cross the room the walls blocking off the four corners lower revealing more monsters. Its a simple 'gotcha' design used to great affect during the earlier 'tutorial' levels, while the player is still learning the game. However after a while this design is altered. Imagine the same trap set up, this time though the player crosses the room and nothing happens. They exit and carry on till they are given reason to return - perhaps a key was later in the level. The trigger was hidden elsewhere in the level, so when the player returns the monsters have already been revealed and are waiting for them. The player isn't aware of this and expects an empty room.

Seligman
I studied psychology for 4 years. So I'm pretty well read up on a lot of the main theories & approaches. Its turned into a surprisingly useful tool when designing enviroments or narratives. I actually studies under one of Zimbardo's students and was surprised to find he is still quite active on the lecture circuit, even today.

If you're looking for more reading among similar lines I would strongly suggest taking a look at Nature via Nurther, Influencing Attitudes... and The Psychology of Attitude Change. I would also take a look at the theories behind Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. as there is a lot of very interesting work in that field. I would strongly suggest looking for an introduction to the cognitive & humanist approaches to psychology. They're a bit more modern than conditioning which has been shown to be incapable of predicting human behaviour.

I will mention that I'm by no means an expert of Seligman. I know of this research enough to know that I don't support it, but I've not read too far in that direction. I was mostly aimed in the psychobiological & cognitive directions. The main take away: if it works for you, keep at it until something better comes along.

Moonpath
Moving back to moonpath, I feel the questions you've asked are useful during the concept/pre-design phase but are not really useful once you've entered the sprint cycle (I'll be covering that in tomorrow's article).

Thanks for the heads up -- I'll definitely look more into Hassabis, sounds like an incredibly interesting guy with his plunge into neuroscience.

Thx, I went to a few universities and picked up several graduate coursebooks on AI, and also went through some online and conventional book sources. On Intelligence really opened my eyes to the power of hierarchical learning, and the mechanics of cortical hierarchies. Absolutely fascinating stuff.

Hahaha and yeah, I agree that the point of games is not to just kill the player. Despite the "adversarial" nature of most AI enemies, they're actually teachers, gently guiding the player towards more nuanced strategies and better reactions.

If anyone's curious about getting an XLR setup, I can direct you to some pretty good starting gear! I personally use the Audio Technica AT2020 cardiod condensor microphone and a Focusrite USB audio interface. You'll also want to buy a male to female XLR cable of some kind. A pop filter is also a good investment! And, of course, you'll want a stand of some kind for the microphone. I personally use this but it limits your ability to move the microphone away from a desk.

If you want studio quality, be sure to record in 24-bit 48k, with an uncompressed format like a wav. That's the standard both Hollywood and indie productions have been using for years.

Oh, and if anyone's curious about credentials, I mix and record audio for commercials.

I'd advise looking into an alternative to the 660p SSDs. I was originally going to go with one for my build but they have shorter lifespans than a traditional NVMe drive. It's also not much faster than a SATA SSD, though it is easier to store than a SATA in a mITX case. It will probably last you long enough, but I'm a paranoid type and if you are too you should know that.

Also, I would suggest a different case! I also built a mITX modding beast and considered the Core 500, but decided not to out of thermal fears. If I may suggest the case I went with, I got the Silverstone SG13. Don't worry about the different versions on amazon, they're all identical as far as I can tell. But with this case I've gotten a killer machine with great thermals! I super recommenced it. Fitting an air cooler is real hard though. I gave up and went with liquid, but I think that the mesh front will ultimately be worth it.

Also seconding the Ryzen 3 idea. If I was building mine now, I'd have gone with Ryzen hands down.

Good luck with your build!

Thanks for the lengthy reply, I really appreciate it and will look into those mods! I guess I should have clarified but I got the 6GB version of the 1060, not the 3GB so this should be a pretty big upgrade from my 660 ti. Is the card you have the 6GB or 3GB version? You mentioned mods being "performance friendly" with the 1060, were you saying that as the card wasn't able to handle more graphically intensive mods?

If you ever feel like getting a good mic, a lot of people us the Blue Yeti (Amazon). It's pretty affordable. Thanks for the support!

It would be an... interesting team, since as I understand it reverse engineering x86 is mostly for people creating malware. And the security experts thwarting them, I suppose. Book on Amazon: Practical Reverse Engineering.

If someone was a programmer looking to expand their skillset into IT security, though...

Better Deal

Take the Elder-Scrolls-Anthology to Best Buy or you local electronic/game dealer the takes Amazon prices, and get every elder scrolls game & DLC/EP's for $20.

I did this today and now finally "Own" the DLC for Skyrim along with copies of Oblivion and Morrowind on Steam.

I know you asked for stuff that works for vanilla so I'll at least put in some that I know such as Moonpath to Elsweyr and MadFrenchies mods but I really would recommend getting the DLCs. On Steam they cost a whole bunch at the moment but you can find them elsewhere like on the Humble Bundle or even Amazon's disk copy.

Yup, $400 CAD smackeroo's for it. ($450 when all is said and done) It was my first big flashy gpu upgrade (last card was a GTX 750Ti, not bad, not great) and was so excited to buy it that I overlooked getting a better deal xD Not my proudest moment, but I don't regret it. That 400 bucks is in the past now, and my new GPU is in the present :P

https://www.amazon.ca/Gigabyte-GeForce-1060-WINDFORCE-GV-N1060WF2OC-6GD/dp/B01JNUO6BG

I tried SSE and I absolutely love how with only a few mods you can achieve the same results as a heavy-ish load-order in Classic. Only shame is that we don't have SKSE64 yet :( There was supposed to be a beta in.. april?? Hoping that means that SKSE64 isn't too too far away yet.

In a similar vein, "The Design Of Everyday Things" is a great read. And iirc uses quite a few examples like the one you gave.

A fourth generation i5 would be a huge performance boost, even more so if you have a Z97/Z97 motherboard to go with it that will allow overclocking.

Don't replace a R9 290X, it is a great card. You can upgrade the cooling instead, which will dramatically lower the noise and even give you a bit more overclocking headroom.

https://www.amazon.com/NZXT-Kraken-RL-KRG10-B1-Bracket-Black/dp/B00ITTFO8M

https://www.amazon.com/Corsair-Hydro-Quiet-Liquid-Cooler/dp/B009VV56TY

https://www.amazon.com/Noctua-NT-H1-Thermal-Compound-Retail/dp/B002CQU14A

Worst case scenario you decide to sell the card anyway and have a really good cooling setup to put on your new one.

The controller looks like this: https://www.amazon.com/Xbox-Controller-S/dp/B00006409Z
In the archive is the software, xpadder, the config files I use, (for reference) the image you'll need to setup the controller with xpadder, and the driver. As well as two pictures of what my setup looks like.

Also included are links to both the controller, and the connector you'll need, (amazon) or if you want to do it manually, a link on how to splice in the USB connector to the existing cable.

You sure they didn't just renew it for the huge boxed set that they released? Remember that? They had a huge package deal with all the TES games in one box. Had collectibles and all sorts of stuff. Redguard was in there. Might have been why they renewed it.

EDIT: It's called the Anthology: http://www.amazon.com/The-Elder-Scrolls-Anthology-Pc/dp/B00E9I1FPI

EDIT: I don't think Redguard is in there, actually. Weird.

Much better and cheaper to buy the legendary edition from amazon:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Elder-Scrolls-Skyrim-Legendary-DVD/dp/B00CJ8X24C/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1525690409&sr=8-1&keywords=skyrim+pc

Remember guys, physical still exists

He's better off just buying the Legendary edition rather than each DLC separately

https://www.amazon.com/Elder-Scrolls-Skyrim-Legendary-PC/dp/B00CJ7IUIQ?th=1

Thank you, I was planning on upgrading to this:
https://www.amazon.com/Gigabyte-GeForce-1060-WINDFORCE-GV-N1060WF2OC-6GD/dp/B01JNUO6BG/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1485178210&sr=1-1&keywords=GEFORCE+GTX+1060

Skyrim Legendary edition digital copy from GMG is currently $40, or if you don't mind the wait, a physical copy which can be redeemed on Steam can be found for about $22.

You could always get something like {Ultra Low Graphics Mod} if you really need it.

But you can also get a laptop cooling fan for like 15-20 bucks,I used one of these bad boys before I built my desktop PC.

New Robin Hobb book is out. So if seems like I'm ignoring you, it is probably because I am.

Cpu: some 6 core amd one

Gpu: Gigabyte R7 250x

Ram: [8 gigs](
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231428)

Here is the mobile version of your link

https://www.humblebundle.com/store/the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-legendary-edition

https://store.bethsoft.com/the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-legendary-edition

https://www.amazon.com/Elder-Scrolls-Skyrim-Legendary-PC/dp/B00CJ7IUIQ?th=1

http://www.gamestop.com/pc/games/the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-legendary-edition/109737

https://www.google.com/search?q=Skyrim+Legendary+edition+steam&newwindow=1&safe=off&source=univ&tbm=shop&tbo=u&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj56pKWmKnUAhUE44MKHSheB8wQsxgIJA&biw=960&bih=418

https://www.humblebundle.com/store/the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-legendary-edition

https://www.amazon.com/Elder-Scrolls-Skyrim-Legendary-PC/dp/B00CJ7IUIQ

Blue Snowball microphones are phenomenal quality and $60 http://www.amazon.com/Blue-Microphones-Snowball-Microphone-Textured/dp/B000EOPQ7E

Maybe the community could band together and buy her a decent mic, for starters.

There was another post I commented on earlier today about getting Oldrim. Don't bother getting it from Steam. I looked and it's like $55 or something pretty close to that. I did buy mine on G2A for a little less than $14 but I've heard some bad things on them since. There are a couple of other sites you can buy Oldrim Legendary Edition from

Edit: Bethesda's website: $30
$20
$19 (Disc, though)

Just google "Skyrim Legendary Edition PC" and you'll come across a ton of places to buy it for way less than $55-$60