ENB, the fps killer?

[mbk6452]

I don't have a very powerful rig, one that can definitely run vanilla Skyrim at 60fps. Before we get into my specs, all of that aside I want to know what's the big fps killer with ENB? Some ENB presets don't really hurt your fps, others like the recent release of Dovah Naakin brings me to 18fps roughly, from 60. When I turn off DoF, SSAO, Reflection, I get about a 4fps boost, 22. What's hitting the fps so hard? Is really just my video card? But before you ask, lol, is it ENB that's bringing it down? People suggest more performance friendly enbs for mid range video cards, so what is it that allows them to run these more performance friendly enbs? I want to tweak my enb setting if possible to make it more performance friendly. Thanks

[Deleted3082751User]

the most demanding enb settings are:

 

Ambient Occlusion and SSAO

 

however these settings alone wont hit your fps that hard in comparison to your reported fps. at most you can expect a 10 - 15 fps drop, not 30+

 

also depth of field is actually pretty lightweight, it can of course hit fps but minimal like 3 - 5 fps at worst. maby extreme DOF might hit your fps by probably 10 fps. (i could not really say though as i cant stand DOF)

 

Note: SSAO and Ambient Occlusion go hand in hand, SSAO = Screen Space Ambient Occlusion. (it calculates ambient occlusion in real time)

 

Ambient Occlusion is the most demanding enb setting and is also the setting that can raise temperatures of gpu (i remember on my old Radeon 7970, this effect alone would raise the temperature by a whole 10 degrees lmao), it also plays a big role in the visuals of the enb, as in atmospheric and enhanced imagery.

 

the difference with all enb is the modification to these settings, and some enb use advanced effects.

 

but yea, the enb will be the most demanding on any skyrim setup, so you need to see if your system can handle a modded game (preferably high res textures, weather modifier mods etc etc, basically demanding mods) before even thinking about using an enb. also i believe all enb are built around or are designed to be run with weather modifier mods, to get the full effect of the enb, unmodded skyrim with just an enb is a waste of a lot of potential. yes the game will look far better, but its like putting gold rims on a crappy car, yes its looks cool, but the car is still crap. its waste of potential.

 

the very simple fact is, you dont edit the enb yourself, you get a more performance friendly enb alternative, its completely redundant to get a heavily modded enb, and then strip it to make it bare minimum, as it will completely destroy the looks of the enb, and could in fact make it look worse then a performance friendly alternative. their are thousands of enb, see which 1 you like.

 

however with all that said, its a good chance that it could simply be that you gpu is not good enough for the ENB in question, afterall those that are making extreme enb, most likely have very high end rigs, and thus their enb settings is built around their rig, as enb are personal settings for the author that is shared public, not to mention that enb that are very demanding are typically aimed for taking high quality screenshots only, their not desinged for game play. and those that are making high demanding enb for this reason will ovbiously not care about fps. since fps is redundant in this scenario.

 

also did you ensure that you disabled Anisotropic Filtering and Antialiasing (setting them both to 0) in both the Skyrim Launcher and your Gpu control panel, it should go without saying, since every single enb page should mention that you disable these for skyrim if using an enb. since the enb handles it, and having both the launcher enable these and the enb, would cause Graphic Anomalies and Severe Frame Drops, and in some cases straight up CTD.

 

 

Alternative Enb Setup

 

 

i would recommend Project ENB it is pretty performance friendly, and combined with a few other mods, can make the game look gorgeous, atmospheric and just very pleasing to the eye. it offers nice colour repoduction, and very sharp image, but not overly sharp.

 

so yea if you want a pleasing graphic setup which offers nice visual and performance friendly, i recommend these below:

 

Project ENB

 

Enhanced Lights and FX

 

Climates of Tamriel 3.1 (the old version)

 

Climates of Tamriel Weather Patch

 

the above covers, ENB, Weather Modifier, and Lighting (for beautiful atmosphere, in interiors, you could get the exterior module (refeering to Enhanced lights and Fx), but just be aware that the exterior module could conflict with quite a few mods, should you decide to mod the game, specifically mods that edit exteriors in 1 way or another, which is basically 90% the total mods) all 3 mods will have the biggest impact on visuals, and should all be run together as they all compliment each other perfectly for the ultimate visual fidelity.

 

so yea the 3 main things that effect visuals are ENB, Weather Mods, and Lighting. they go hand in hand.

 

Note: my computer specs at the time when i was running this setup were:

 

CPU: Intel I5 2500k

 

GPU: Amd Radion 7970

 

Memory: 8 GB DDR3

 

so if your current specs meet or exceed these, you should be able to run this same setup easily, should also be mentioned that i was also running 255 mods, most of which were high res texture mods, armor, clothing and weapon mods, usally 2k - 4k texture sizes.

 

 

 

 

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Edited October 16, 2017 by Guest