lordmonkus

The problem I have with stock Skyrim is that it is just an action game with rpg-light elements to it. The perk trees are just so bland and simple, you just blindly pick anything you wanted and it really wouldn't make a bit of difference to the play through. Thankfully we have mods to alleviate this and other issues. I also don't like the game world leveling with you and using a mod to do-level the world doesn't work either because the games world and quest system doesn't work for it. I would hope that they go back to a more Morrowind approach for Elder Scrolls 6, though I really doubt it will happen.

Looks like it judging by the saturation levels seen in the picture.

Thank you for this post. I wanted to say this exact thing but I couldn't find the right way to say it and you summed it up perfectly. Mod authors owe us, the users nothing. They give their time and energy into this site and the mods on it, we can either choose to use or not use and I for one am very grateful for them.

It is coming and Todd Howard has said that it requires a whole engine and tech to make it. Basically it's just in the planning stages at the moment. It's a long ways off yet. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2K8Q4fdpy7A

I like NMM for smaller and simpler mod lists and it is much more new user friendly. But Mod Organizer is the better choice for larger more complex mod lists that have a lot of overlap and it is a bit more of a learning curve to use but it isn't really all that bad if you watch a tutorial video like Gophers. Either mod manager is much better than using in game method or doing it all manually. The new version of Loot has been officially released and so far to me it seems to be working fine for the most part but you still may need to do some manual sorting. These are just my simple observations and opinions though I am far from an expert.

Two mods that did give me some issues but have since been fixed with updated versions was WICO and Realistic Water Two. The crashes were only in certain places though and have since been fixed.

So happy to see that work is progressing and that is all anyone can really hope for. Thank you so very much and it is greatly appreciated.

Edit: Nevermind.

Yes you can.

You are right the backlash to the mod makers was ridiculous and uncalled for. The hate directed at Valve and Bethesda however was deserved. I do hope that mod makers do come back, like Chesko. Many of us would truly welcome them back with open arms and I don't even use his mods.

http://steamcommunity.com/games/SteamWorkshop/announcements/detail/208632365253244218 Self explanatory. Paid mods are done. Edit: Doh, someone beat me to it, pls delete this post.

One of the best posts I've read about this issue That post is awesome. I wish we could pin it somewhere for everyone to read haha. You know you goofed when Forbes publishes an article about what you're doing being a mistake. http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2015/04/24/valves-paid-skyrim-mods-are-a-legal-ethical-and-creative-disaster/ Indeed, this is a must read for everyone. This should be mailed directly to Zenimax / Bethesda and Valve for them to wrap their heads around.

Poor Bethesda and Valve just couldn't sit by and see all this wonderful "FREE" content being out there and them not making a freakin dime off of it so they had to go and destroy it all because they wanna make money off all the mods when Fallout 4 comes out. Hopefully though the modding community stands strong and doesn't cave.

Windows 8 is just fine, it's what I use.

It's an ENB issue with a shadow setting. I'm not sure which setting it is exactly but I believe its a blur setting issue in your skyrimprefs.ini. I think this is where the issue is, it may be an ENB setting. I had this issue before after googling it I found the fix and it was just a shadow setting and can be easily fixed. It's not a mod or anything. iBlurDeferredShadowMask Try messing with that setting right there in the skyrimprefs.ini, you probably have it set to 0, try setting it to 3.

Those screenshots are all taken using ELEP ENB + ELE and Relighting Skyrim. ELE and Relighting Skyrim are 2 lighting mods that work very well together.

RCRN corrects the shadows ? Wow. I never noticed but then again I never really liked the overall look of it so I never stuck with it long.

Yeah true that. I run everything else at max graphics at a full 60 fps but Skyrims funky ass engine is a mess. I guess it's all because of the modding. Most other games are optimized and don't have the modding while Skyrim allows the modding we player throw mods at it to kill it lol. Unmodded Skyrim does run great.

RCRN is an option, not my preference in looks though it does cover lighting and weather all in one. If I didn't use any ENB aside from the ENBoost I would probably use ELE, Relighting Skyrim, CoT and something like DERP SweetFX. Unfortunately without an ENB Skyrims shadows are just way too hideous and distracting.

Yeah I agree with you BlackRose on the updating for compatibility. I have updated mobo bios several times in the past and I am very comfortable with it as well (20 years of building and tweaking my own systems). It's not a job to do if you aren't comfortable with it and judging by his system specs he posted the money spent on paying some tech to do the update he would be better off spending that cash on more ram and possibly a relatively cheap 1 gig ddr5 video card. This would gain him far more performance gains per buck than paying some guy to upgrade mobo bios. Going by what the OP said about running other modern games at good framerates I really doubt a bios update would do anything at all.

Sure thing. Keep in mind I use ELEP ENB with ELE + Relighting Skyrim for my lighting. For weather I use Pure Weather. Sorry I don't have any exterior shots. Pure Weather without an ENB can look a little over saturated for my and some other peoples taste but ELEP tones it down nicely and looks very good. If you don't use the ENB I would still recommend ELE and Relighting Skyrim but maybe change out the weather for CoT. ELEP ENB is relatively very lightweight without just using the ENBoost only component of ENB. http://s16.postimg.org/xjfm7doc5/enb_2014_11_07_02_02_41_03_1.jpg http://s1.postimg.org/vgu6u7gb3/enb_2014_11_07_02_03_53_83.jpg http://s22.postimg.org/uz1z2mme9/enb_2014_11_07_02_04_27_17.jpg http://s9.postimg.org/ywxrwiaxb/enb_2014_11_07_02_04_58_27.jpg

Yeah drop the 2k textures for sure. Keep RLO, it looks good and is performance friendly and handles weather if I remember correctly (ELFX looks good but can hit the performance a little). SMIM you can try with and without and see how it hits your frame rates. Out of those 3 mods you listed the 2k textures is the biggest performance hit by far. I have no idea what your graphics card is but just for reference I have a ddr5 radeon 7850 with 1 gig of ddr5 vram 9 (ddr3 vram is really bad) and 8 gigs of system memory and I just use the official high-res texture pack and some other textures and i'm bordering on the performance sweet spot using a very light weight ENB for the shadows. Disabling the ENB only gains me about 2 frames per second (depending on where I am in game).

Creating a restore point will do nothing to save your computer if updating the bios goes tits up. Unless you are very comfortable with bios updating I highly advise against it unless your motherboard has new features the new bios will enable. Updating your bios can go horribly wrong if done incorrectly and very rarely will improve system performance by any real amount if at all. You would probably gain more performance from tweaking your windows services than from any bios update and it is a much safer thing to do. Blackviper has a great site on all the services you can tweak for your system. Turning off all the unnecessary services will free up valuable memory and cpu cycles. Just make a restore point and when in doubt about a service you aren't sure about in the guide just follow the recommended setting or set it to manual instead of disabling. But certainly update your drivers, nothing severe can go wrong that cannot be fixed (bad bios update = broken system). Having said that though without knowing your graphics card you are going to be limited in just how good you can make your Skyrim look with only 4 gigs of ram. There are some options just don't expect miracles. Your biggest gains in looks will come from using good performance friendly weather and lighting mods. Everything BlackRose said in his first post is correct though. Do all of that and you should be able to squeeze what you can out of your system. Any further advice will have to be based on what graphics card you are using. Skyrim Project Optimization is a good mod to add to the list. Going under the assumption your graphics card is not the greatest and you only have 4 gigs of ram I would certainly avoid using any sort of ENB aside from using the ENBoost feature only. Stay away from any high resolution textures and mods that add a lot of environmental objects such as npcs and buildings.

Pure Weather's over saturation is really toned down with JawZ's ELEP ENB with JawZ's ELE and Relighting Skyrim. This is the combo I use and I think it's really well balanced, keeps the esp count down.

Yeah, shouldn't be a problem. You could also put the esp into it's own zip file and reinstall it at a later date using NMM or MO.