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.
