So got home to try this out.. and i confirm that what has been stated in a few places is that the new DLC package appears to be overriding user made mods... at least some of them... unpredictably and without any clear reason, but it does seem to follow a pattern.

For example mods that replace armor, will use the DLC HD textures for the Main armor, however if the boots/gloves/Helmet have been modded they are only loaded even though there is indeed a modded main armor peice...

Additionally Actor textures don't seem to load either, Mods that replace NPC textures or even dragon textures, the DLC HD package will override it.

Now ideally it would be great to load the HD DLC package and then the mods would load last...

but it appears the bug is prevailent and mostly picking and choosing mods to override which leaves for some pretty nasty Texture clashes.

So far i can only load the game with mods with the HD DLC Package disabled....

I was going to post several screenshot comparisons... first with vanilla... vs the HD pack.. VS the inclusion of user mods.. but then i was stopped cold hoping the mods would work without a hitch.. but don't apparently...

(sigh)...

screenshots incoming soon.

Heres Vanilla Skyrim using Ultimate Quality mode no mods with no HD DLC

http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/8558/whiterunvanilla.jpg

Heres Vanilla Skyrim using Ultimate Quality Mode with ONLY the HD DLC

http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/6715/whiterunhd.jpg

Heres Skyrim Using ultimate Quality Mode with HD DLC + Mods (resulting in mishmash mostly HD DLC overriding textures)

http://img850.imageshack.us/img850/4914/whiterunhdandmods.jpg

Heres Skyrim Using Ultimate quality Mode with Mods and only by disabling the HD DLC

http://img845.imageshack.us/img845/443/whiterunmodsonly.jpg

Nice comparison. At first, I couldn't discern the differences between your #3 and #4 until I loaded both and then toggled between the two. #4 is really impressive looking. One thing though -- when you mention "Ultimate Quality mode", is that the same as the "Ultra" setting?

Oh boy.... I just though about this. Is it possible that this is related the old "archive invalidation" issue?

no it's not the same as Ultra..

Ultimate is the best way to decribe the changes i've made to the skyrim ini/skyrimprefs ini files... which increase draw distance, lod distances and shadow detail and so forth.

Basically it's using a setting equivilent to 24x FSAA with 16x AF combined with a 3240x1920 resolution which consumes approximately 4gb of vram (2gb being offloaded to physical ram resulting in crashes due to the lack of vram... good for taking screenshots only..)

I need more vram.

http://www.freeimagehosting.net/dacq6

Much better with the DLC texture pack. The problem with texture mods is that they can take a lot more VRAM.

look into the validation issue.... i don't seem to be making any progress unfortunately