The OFFICIAL Anandtech Forums TeS V: Skyrim Thread

[Elfear]

I watched a video by Golpher and tried out the Phinix ENB. Looks great, much like Vanilla, but with better lighting. Anyway, performance with any ENB @ 1440p is poop... you can disable the SSAO, but without it there is no point of an ENB imo. With my GTX 780 cranked up my FPS was pretty much in the 30-40's the entire time outside. IMO playing Skyrim without a solid 55-60FPS is not an enjoyable experience. Right now I am using SweetFX and COT and I think it looks fine. Pretty much vanilla outside lighting, but the performance is back up to 55-60 FPS. You can use the Imaginator mod to adjust the lightning to make it brighter if you want.

I found the same thing you did. The ENBs I've tried put the hurt on my videocard.

I did figure out my performance issues outdoors though. I'm using Mod Organizer and apparently you have to modify the .ini files through MO and not in the regular .ini save location. Once I figured that out I adjusted the settings for the Grass on Steroids mod and now I hit 40-50fps outdoors.

I also made the .ini adjustments according to Skyrim Tuner's suggestions on the Nexus RealENB page. Game looks very very good now.

It still dips into the 30's every now and then though so I'll try some of the tweaks you suggested.

 

[mizzou]

started pickng up the side quests finally...it's funny because I have such a high level now it's not a problem at all beating everyone.

However, sometimes I venture out completely naked and without a weapon, and have to figure out how to arm myself as I move on...just to make it challenging

 

[shortylickens]

umm, are you still playing on Novice?
Cuz most enemies level up with you.

 

[code65536]

umm, are you still playing on Novice?
Cuz most enemies level up with you.

Not enough, though. First, a lot of enemies have a max level cap--beyond a certain point, they stop leveling. And second, crafting is really overpowered at the high levels (and no, I'm not talking about the fortify restoration glitch that I've heard about--I've never even tried that). I eventually had to bump up the difficulty level because one-shotting everyone was getting boring very fast. Now I've worked up to Legendary and it still feels easier than the start of the game on Adept.

 

[mizzou]

umm, are you still playing on Novice?
Cuz most enemies level up with you.

Good question, i have no clue what difficulty I'm on, lol

But with all the perks I have in smithing and enchanting...I'm practically speaking impenetrable to everything.

Lvl 38..and not a whole lot of hours into it to be honest, when I compare it to other games I own.

I did reset my last save from wayyy back because I exploited one of the book bugs where you could read a book and then keep reading it to obtain a new level.

 

[Face2Face]

I found the same thing you did. The ENBs I've tried put the hurt on my videocard.

I did figure out my performance issues outdoors though. I'm using Mod Organizer and apparently you have to modify the .ini files through MO and not in the regular .ini save location. Once I figured that out I adjusted the settings for the Grass on Steroids mod and now I hit 40-50fps outdoors.

I also made the .ini adjustments according to Skyrim Tuner's suggestions on the Nexus RealENB page. Game looks very very good now.

It still dips into the 30's every now and then though so I'll try some of the tweaks you suggested.

Do you have a link for the ini suggestions? What ENB are you using? I removed the shadows on the grass in my skyrim prefs and that helped quite a bit. I use BOSS to organize my mods, seems to be the most common one used from what I have seen. I would be willing to go back to an ENB if I could get decent frame rates.

Not enough, though. First, a lot of enemies have a max level cap--beyond a certain point, they stop leveling. And second, crafting is really overpowered at the high levels (and no, I'm not talking about the fortify restoration glitch that I've heard about--I've never even tried that). I eventually had to bump up the difficulty level because one-shotting everyone was getting boring very fast. Now I've worked up to Legendary and it still feels easier than the start of the game on Adept.

I started a new game with a Mage/necromancer. I am level 16 now, but on Adept there are some parts that can be tough. Bandit chiefs can destroy me if they get close enough. I find adept good until level 60 or so, then I crank it up. The game is much more fun when it's harder, but not Dark souls hard. Too easy makes it no as enjoyable.

 

[shortylickens]

If you're gonna do a pure mage it makes sense to shove points into the perk that boosts armor when using Barkskin and Ironskin.

 

[Face2Face]

If you're gonna do a pure mage it makes sense to shove points into the perk that boosts armor when using Barkskin and Ironskin.

Good point, I will have to do that.

 

[Elfear]

Do you have a link for the ini suggestions? What ENB are you using? I removed the shadows on the grass in my skyrim prefs and that helped quite a bit. I use BOSS to organize my mods, seems to be the most common one used from what I have seen. I would be willing to go back to an ENB if I could get decent frame rates.

Here is the guide I used to mod my game. It's the Real ENB and here are the .ini suggestions Skyrim Tuner (guide author) made:

Skyrim Flora Overhaul by vurt (i'm using V171b, newer ones require also iMaxGrassTypesPerTexure=6 or 7 in skyrim.ini

Grass on Steroids by Skyrimaguas (SFO is needed to get GoS to work! and set iMinGrassSize to around 75 in Skyrim.ini)

Section 3 of his guide has a link to someone's .ini files with some good tweaks.

I've heard a lot of good stuff about BOSS. The only reason I used MO is because it keeps all the mods in a separate file so you don't corrupt the main game with a funky mod. Anytime you want to run the vanilla game you just launch using Tesv.exe rather than go through MO. You can also test mod compatibility very easily and even do custom mod profiles to try Sharpshooter ENB vs Real ENB, etc.

I started a new game with a Mage/necromancer. I am level 16 now, but on Adept there are some parts that can be tough. Bandit chiefs can destroy me if they get close enough. I find adept good until level 60 or so, then I crank it up. The game is much more fun when it's harder, but not Dark souls hard. Too easy makes it no as enjoyable.

+1

You need a fine balance between being challenging and frustrating. I went mage this round too and so far it's been a lot of fun. 1st time I was a ranger basically and had such good armor and bow that it became too easy and boring.

Much funner now with my wussy robes. :biggrin:

 

[norseamd]

Do you have a link for the ini suggestions? What ENB are you using? I removed the shadows on the grass in my skyrim prefs and that helped quite a bit. I use BOSS to organize my mods, seems to be the most common one used from what I have seen. I would be willing to go back to an ENB if I could get decent frame rates.

there are performance enb

boss is amazing

I started a new game with a Mage/necromancer. I am level 16 now, but on Adept there are some parts that can be tough. Bandit chiefs can destroy me if they get close enough. I find adept good until level 60 or so, then I crank it up. The game is much more fun when it's harder, but not Dark souls hard. Too easy makes it no as enjoyable.

you relize that the difficulty level is a artificial hadicap right. all it does is lower your damage rate while increasing the bandit rate. you should look at higher level enemies or even better a complete overhaul like requiem. requiem is amazing. not only does it have better ai but the combat mechanics are completely different. armor is much more protection and weapons deal much more damage. so you recieve a lot of damage if you are unarmored. the same applies to npcs. bow and crossbows are especially powerful. one shot is often enough to kill anybody otherwise 2 will finish most characters.

 

[shortylickens]

I putzed around, wasted time, and never did make that mod for myself.

It was supposed to be a huge player home. A giant domed hall with lots of beds for all my followers, and all the crafting I could need in one spot. Loads of custom storage too, one named box for each type of item. Tiny boxes, so as not to fill up the whole darn place.

(My drawing doesnt have the stuff in the middle. Turns out its more work to draft a dungeon than actually build it.)


It seems making a huge circular room from scratch is going to be a real pain. May be easier to copy one of the large open dungeons and make that my own.

 

[NoSoup4You]

I'm using Skyrim Redone (SkyRe) to make the game more difficult. It's been awhile since I played vanilla combat in Skyrim, but SkyRe will definitely make you think twice about absorbing a power attack from even a lowly bandit. Certainly this is the case early in the game, once your perks start kicking in things get easier.

 

[shortylickens]

Note the knees.

 

[SLU Aequitas]

Just wanted to showcase my latest Skyrim build. STEP Extended + SRLE (custom mix of the two) + REGS. Vividian ENB is pretty damn amazing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNDBokawQeM

The best thing is that I run 30+ FPS at all times (usually 60ish) and not a single crash in multiple 3+ hr playthroughs. I'm still amazed at the work Boris and others have done at stabilizing and improving this game.

 

[christ0pher]

I just purchased Skyrim and am going to start playing this week. I did the same thing with Morrowind and Oblivion where I bought the GOTY editions several years after release when my laptop was finally able to handle them.

But this time I just built my first gaming PC with these specs:

Intel Core i5 3.2GHz
MSI Geforce GTX 770 2GB Twin Frozr OC
8GB G Skill Ares DDR3 Ram
WD Caviar Blue 1TB HDD 7200

My question is will my machine be able to handle the HD Texture Pack? I'm starting to make a list of mods I want to install before my first playthrough and this one seems like the one that's going to impact performance the most. I plan on playing on Ultra @ 1920x1080. I value smooth framerate over nice graphics. I will not have many more graphical improvements. I usually go with about 20 mods or so and not more than that due to compatibility and performance issues.

 

[Atomic Playboy]

I just purchased Skyrim and am going to start playing this week. I did the same thing with Morrowind and Oblivion where I bought the GOTY editions several years after release when my laptop was finally able to handle them.

But this time I just built my first gaming PC with these specs:

Intel Core i5 3.2GHz
MSI Geforce GTX 770 2GB Twin Frozr OC
8GB G Skill Ares DDR3 Ram
WD Caviar Blue 1TB HDD 7200

My question is will my machine be able to handle the HD Texture Pack? I'm starting to make a list of mods I want to install before my first playthrough and this one seems like the one that's going to impact performance the most. I plan on playing on Ultra @ 1920x1080. I will not have many more graphical improvements. I usually go with about 20 mods or so and not more than that due to compatibility and performance issues.

Your machine will do fine with the ultra texture pack, and additional custom HD textures on top of that if you decide to branch out into modding. You're not going to max out your VRAM until you start pushing your anti-aliasing up over 4X (at least I didn't on my 2GB 680, which has similar performance to your card, and I had scads of texture mods). You might also consider using an ENB profile which really improves the lighting and shadows in the game (you don't have to use all the additional features such as bokeh depth of field, although they can look very nice). But even a modest ENB with the vanilla HD texture pack from Bethesda will make the game look incredible.

 

[christ0pher]

Noted. I will add a couple of more graphical improvements. Which HD texture pack is better? The official release from Bethesda or the one on Nexus? I was going to go with the Nexus one.

 

[Atomic Playboy]

Noted. I will add a couple of more graphical improvements. Which HD texture pack is better? The official release from Bethesda or the one on Nexus? I was going to go with the Nexus one.

There are several on Nexus, of varying quality. It's been well over a year since I actually looked on the Nexus, but my personal choice was Texture Pack Combiner, which took textures from several different HD texture packs (along with Bethesda's HD textures) and used the best from each. I did a write-up on modding Skyrim a while back; I don't know how much of it is still accurate, but it might help.

 

[norseamd]

the texture combiner does not have support the the latest of several of the files

thus thy may want to install mods like smim seperately

 

[norseamd]

read through this stuff

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2369361&highlight=skyrim

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2370525&highlight=skyrim

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2356624&highlight=skyrim

and my old mod thread

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2364993&highlight=skyrim

 

[Atomic Playboy]

the texture combiner does not have support the the latest of several of the files

thus thy may want to install mods like smim seperately

Oh, that's a shame. It was kind of a pain in the ass to set up, but convenient to have someone go through and find the best textures in advance. Between that and the Skyrim Realistic Overhaul going away (good reasons notwithstanding), I don't know what's what on the Skyrim texture modding scene anymore.

 

[norseamd]

(good reasons notwithstanding)

so what can you tell me about that

also in case any of you guys missed it the texture pack combiner and icompatibility with the latest mod files was addressed in the links i put up there along with other stuff

 

[SLU Aequitas]

Oh, that's a shame. It was kind of a pain in the ass to set up, but convenient to have someone go through and find the best textures in advance. Between that and the Skyrim Realistic Overhaul going away (good reasons notwithstanding), I don't know what's what on the Skyrim texture modding scene anymore.

Most recent additions have been the "photorealistic" texture packs by frozenwaidan:
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/42348/?
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/38539/?

I generally do NOT recommend using these due to a great deal of mid-range tiling of textures; they do look great at short distances though.

The other major development would be Cabal's work on textures (known mostly for his amazing armor retextures), however I'm pretty happy with my current setup of mostly SRO.

Noted. I will add a couple of more graphical improvements. Which HD texture pack is better? The official release from Bethesda or the one on Nexus? I was going to go with the Nexus one.

Honestly, it's mostly a matter of taste, although I always err on the side of avoiding tiling. I highly recommend following this guide:
http://wiki.step-project.com/Main_Page#tab=Core_S_T_E_P__Guides

Not only is it highly detailed, it walks you through every step of the modding process. In addition, it incorporates several modding "best practices" that provide far greater stability in modded (and unmodded) Skyrim games. In addition, there are modular "packs" that you can add onto the core experience (core experience = fixes + graphics enhancement) that can suit various needs (immersion, exploration, gameplay experience, etc). Best of all, they maintain compatibility patches that can take a lot of the tedium of modding out of the equation.

so what can you tell me about that

also in case any of you guys missed it the texture pack combiner and icompatibility with the latest mod files was addressed in the links i put up there along with other stuff

He had/has some major attitude issues and basically trolled/got trolled his way into a ban. However, you can still obtain an optimized version of his texture pack (already DDSOPT'd and optimum texture size) via torrent. Just check the STEP forums.

Also, for the amount of effort that went into TPC, I'm not actually certain it left me better off than my current STEP setup of SRO + other overwrites, and I was one of the earliest adopters of TPC when it first came out.

As a comparison point, here's my current setup:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNDBokawQeM

Run on the rig in my sig.

 

[sochee]

I just recently bought the game on sale, and was wondering: would you recommend a completely new player just play the stock game, or should I install all the graphics mods first? I played for about 5 minutes before I had to leave for work and it looked pretty pixelated on max settings..

 

[SLU Aequitas]

I would recommend the STEP Core Package, as it covers graphics and fixes, but still leaves the game basically at vanilla, and you really should play through it once vanilla, otherwise you're not going to know what aspects of the game you want to change.