The OFFICIAL Anandtech Forums TeS V: Skyrim Thread

Page 181 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

runzwithsizorz

Diamond Member
Jan 24, 2002
3,497
14
76
I am playing at 1080p with a 7870 MSI Hawk and i5 oc to 4.4 ghz.
I kind of like RealVision http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvXfT-sBylM
and Gopher's suggestions. Will this have too much of a performance hit (i.e.framerate) on my system? I do want texture mods of some sort plus other mods (followers, static mesh improvements, Sky UI etc).

Or should I just use RCRN plus other mods as mentioned?

The Wife
 

SLU Aequitas

Golden Member
Jul 13, 2007
1,252
26
91
Realvision was my previous favorite prior to switching to Vividian ENB, however I find RV is very performance friendly. As for other mods, keep in mind that mods that add npcs have an exponential hit on performance when combined with script heavy mods that affect npcs, such as Wet and Cold. Gopher usually has great suggestions, but if you follow his Let's Play videos, they sometimes create issues. Additionally, he generally runs with a very light load order. I personally (again) recommend a STEP Core setup, and in your case throw RV enb on top, you won't have any performance issues, everything in there is stability and compatibility tested, and that setup contains major graphics and audio improvements and bug fixes.
 
Last edited:

SLU Aequitas

Golden Member
Jul 13, 2007
1,252
26
91
Yep, that's the one, there's even a performance version of that enb, although you shouldn't need it. Also, the latest enbs boost stability/reduce crashes :)
 
Feb 6, 2007
16,432
1
81
so what can you tell me about that

Skyrim Realistic Overhaul was the preferred texture mod for many people who wanted to retain the original artistic intent of Skyrim but with higher resolution textures. It was recommended as part of both STEP and Texture Pack Combiner. But the mod's author, starac, got upset with people in the STEP forums and Cabal, the author of Texture Pack Combiner, because they would recommend additional textures to pair with textures with SRO; starac was, above all else, incredibly vain, and he criticized anyone who would dare say that someone else might have made a better specific texture than him. After his ranting against Cabal and the creators of STEP, he announced that he was taking his texture mods down and only allowing people who paid him to have access. This violated the terms of the Nexus as well as Bethesda's terms for paid mod content, and so he was banned from the Nexus and Steam Workshop. Skyrim Realistic Overhaul is no longer available outside of torrents, which is a shame, as it was far and away the best texture mod available.
 

norseamd

Lifer
Dec 13, 2013
13,990
180
106
Realvision was my previous favorite prior to switching to Vividian ENB, however I find RV is very performance friendly. As for other mods, keep in mind that mods that add npcs have an exponential hit on performance when combined with script heavy mods that affect npcs, such as Wet and Cold. Gopher usually has great suggestions, but if you follow his Let's Play videos, they sometimes create issues. Additionally, he generally runs with a very light load order. I personally (again) recommend a STEP Core setup, and in your case throw RV enb on top, you won't have any performance issues, everything in there is stability and compatibility tested, and that setup contains major graphics and audio improvements and bug fixes.

what do you think about project enb?

run with climates of tamriel and enhanced lights and fx and water

so also have you ever tried realistic water 2?
 

SLU Aequitas

Golden Member
Jul 13, 2007
1,252
26
91
I liked Project ENB, although I prefer Vividian, his team has been keeping up with all the advanced features, while maintaining a feel somewhere in between Realvision and Bleak. I'm a big fan of RW2, and it it's a part of Core STEP now. My setup also makes use of CoT (big part of Vividian), ELFX, Relighting Tamriel, as well as the enb helpers that are part of SRLE.
 

SLU Aequitas

Golden Member
Jul 13, 2007
1,252
26
91
There's been a lot of feature changes between 221 and 252, besides recommending the latest version due to better memory handling, the older preset at best won't make use of the newer enbs features. It's a little more complicated but I'm on my phone right now. You could theoretically make use of the stability features by using the default enb provided enblocal.ini with the.exe, the actual graphics driven by the enb.ini would be far more complicated.
 

norseamd

Lifer
Dec 13, 2013
13,990
180
106
what do you think about sharpshooter enb

does ther exist any other enb that supports versions like .251
 
Last edited:

SLU Aequitas

Golden Member
Jul 13, 2007
1,252
26
91
For 251 & 252, I've only played with Realvision and Vividian, and prefer the tone and effects of Vividian more (especially cloud shadows and volumetric sun shafts
 

norseamd

Lifer
Dec 13, 2013
13,990
180
106
amd 8350
asus 990fx pro 2.0
asus 270x directcu 2 top
asus xonar dx
sandisk ultra plus 128
 

Whitestar127

Senior member
Dec 2, 2011
397
24
81
Vividian ENB is beautiful. It's a perfect mix of realism and adventure/fantasy mood I think. It does take a little performance though.

Another alternative is Skyrealism ENB, which comes with several presets. The Vanilla preset is incredible close to the vanilla game in lighting and mood, and is REALLY performance friendly. Looks fantastic and is performance cheap!

If you want an incredibly solid foundation to build a modded game on, then I suggest following Neovalen's (one of the STEP guys) Skyrim Revisited guide here: http://wiki.step-project.com/User:Neovalen/Skyrim_Revisited_-_Legendary_Edition
This will involve installing Vividian ENB (but you can change that to any ENB you want) and Mod Organizer.

Follow it as far as where the chapter The Dovahkiin Comes begins. From there you can start to pick and choose which mods you want to install.
 

SLU Aequitas

Golden Member
Jul 13, 2007
1,252
26
91
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2364993

anything you want to tell me about what my mod selection should be or what i might not want to use

have some micro stutter

system specs should be in there along with what mods i am currently using

Micro stutter all the time, or in intervals when running around? If it's the latter, I believe it's textures being loaded into VRAM, and the latest ENB boost can help with that.

Vividian ENB is beautiful. It's a perfect mix of realism and adventure/fantasy mood I think. It does take a little performance though.

Another alternative is Skyrealism ENB, which comes with several presets. The Vanilla preset is incredible close to the vanilla game in lighting and mood, and is REALLY performance friendly. Looks fantastic and is performance cheap!

If you want an incredibly solid foundation to build a modded game on, then I suggest following Neovalen's (one of the STEP guys) Skyrim Revisited guide here: http://wiki.step-project.com/User:Neovalen/Skyrim_Revisited_-_Legendary_Edition
This will involve installing Vividian ENB (but you can change that to any ENB you want) and Mod Organizer.

Follow it as far as where the chapter The Dovahkiin Comes begins. From there you can start to pick and choose which mods you want to install.

As an add on, there are several variants of Vividian to choose from (i.e. Cool tones, Vanilla color, brighter dungeons/nights, as well as performance-friendly versions).

Neovalen is an awesome user, and his guide is excellent (I use a good chunk of it in my mix), however I don't think it should be the first step into modding as it's rather complicated (although explained in detail and should be easy to follow if you follow the guide to the t) and changes items beyond vanilla. Think of it as a STEP Extended...Extended (which was kind of his goal)

Terms of difficulty in installing:
STEP (Easy) --> STEP Extended (medium) --> SRLE (harder, but totally doable)
Terms of "flavor"
STEP (Vanilla + fixes + vanilla-friendly graphic upgrades) --> STEP Extended (more gameplay changes and graphics that are lore friendly but deviate more) --> SRLE (many gameplay tweaks, best and most intensive graphics upgrades)

In terms of stability, if you follow their guides to the T, these modding arrangements are incredibly stable; they're tested by a team and then the rest of the community via various stress tests and long-term playthroughs, and have gone through extensive patching and conflict resolution. In short, they are all a MUCH better solution than simply going to the Nexus and choosing an assortment of mods you like without consideration for conflict, etc.

Again, as a point of reference, I've crashed ONCE in a total of a week, with many 3+ hour sessions through multiple characters, and my setup is basically SRLE/STEP:E + REGS (very content heavy pack). I've been modding/using mods since Morrowind, and I've NEVER had a more stable setup than what I've had now (*knock on wood*) which is why I'm basically shilling the heck out of this community. :)
 

norseamd

Lifer
Dec 13, 2013
13,990
180
106
As an add on, there are several variants of Vividian to choose from (i.e. Cool tones, Vanilla color, brighter dungeons/nights, as well as performance-friendly versions). Neovalen is an awesome user, and his guide is excellent (I use a good chunk of it in my mix), however I don't think it should be the first step into modding as it's rather complicated (although explained in detail and should be easy to follow if you follow the guide to the t) and changes items beyond vanilla. Think of it as a STEP Extended...Extended (which was kind of his goal) Terms of difficulty in installing: STEP (Easy) --> STEP Extended (medium) --> SRLE (harder, but totally doable) Terms of "flavor" STEP (Vanilla + fixes + vanilla-friendly graphic upgrades) --> STEP Extended (more gameplay changes and graphics that are lore friendly but deviate more) --> SRLE (many gameplay tweaks, best and most intensive graphics upgrades) In terms of stability, if you follow their guides to the T, these modding arrangements are incredibly stable; they're tested by a team and then the rest of the community via various stress tests and long-term playthroughs, and have gone through extensive patching and conflict resolution. In short, they are all a MUCH better solution than simply going to the Nexus and choosing an assortment of mods you like without consideration for conflict, etc. Again, as a point of reference, I've crashed ONCE in a total of a week, with many 3+ hour sessions through multiple characters, and my setup is basically SRLE/STEP:E + REGS (very content heavy pack). I've been modding/using mods since Morrowind, and I've NEVER had a more stable setup than what I've had now (*knock on wood*) which is why I'm basically shilling the heck out of this community.

does vividian have a realistic enb setting like project enb or sharpshooter

what do you recommend for improving factions like the bards college and the vigilants and the forsworn?

any good content mods that you would recommend?
 

SLU Aequitas

Golden Member
Jul 13, 2007
1,252
26
91

Have you played vanilla through? Because Requiem is a completely different Skyrim experience.

As for content:
Interesting NPCs (amazing mod, my one "must have" mod if I could only use one)
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/8429/?

Falskaar (new DLC-like lands + quest):
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/37994/?

Wyrmstooth (new lands and quest):
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/25704/?

EVERYTHING in this pack:
http://wiki.step-project.com/Pack:Explorers_Guide

Seriously, it's got my above suggestions + a whole bunch I haven't even gotten the chance to play yet. Major improvements to towns/villages as well, and all mods improved/corrected/updated and compatibility ensured.
 

norseamd

Lifer
Dec 13, 2013
13,990
180
106
would you recommend realistic needs and diseases or imps more complex needs?

have played both of them

just wondering the compatibility for both of them and what your favorite is
 

SLU Aequitas

Golden Member
Jul 13, 2007
1,252
26
91
Used to be a huge Realistic Needs fan, but I instead switched to Isoku's iNeed, single .esp with built on compatibility with most mods.