Skyrim - ENB Suggestion

[anzeroth]

Hello,

 

I would be grateful if someone could help me out pick the best ENB for my system.

By "best" I refer to the ENB which creates a perfect balance between performance and graphics for my Skyrim.

 

 

 

Here is my Speccy screenshot: http://speccy.piriform.com/results/I3WAImMPsNCaRAlLln1dFlb

 

 

 

Thank you in advance :smile:

[lordmonkus]

I run an AMD Phenom II X6 1050T @ 3.3 GHz, 8 Gigs of ram and Radeon HD 7850 1 Gig video card and been using Phinix ENB with good performance lately. I used to avoid ENBs and only use SweetFX before trying this ENB out.

[anzeroth]

Thanks for the suggestion!

 

I tried it and my framerate never went above 30 in the plains outside of Whiterun.

 

Any other suggestions?

[ISHOTGUNJENI]

I am gonna try RealVision ENB one day, maybe you can try that one too as it has a performance option available and a guy on YouTube called Gopher done a review on it and it looks kinda nice :wink: .

I have similar specs to you except for the Graphics Card and the processor as I have a GTX 670 4GB and Intel i7 2600 3.4GHZ but the GHZ is the same.

If you do try RealVision ENB let me know how it was for ya :D

[mikejaxer]

RealVision works out really nice for me.

My FPS averages about 35-50 out and about and about 25-45 around towns.

I run a 670 factory OCed, 4GB ram (Upgrading to 8 soon) and AMD Phenom X4 Quad Core 3.4 GHz.

It's definitely my favourite ENB so far, but I've been meaning to try out some more.

[lordmonkus]

Hmm that's unfortunate it was such a hit on your framerates. Have you thought about maybe avoiding an ENB all together and just going with a straight SweetFX setup instead ? I used to use the Ultimate Lighting Overhaul sweetfx before switching over to Phinix ENB because of how performance friendly it is and still looks great. Like I said in my previous post I used to avoid ENBs because they murdered my framerates using high resolution textures and lighting mods.

Edited September 8, 2013 by lordmonkus

[Hyacathusarullistad]

In the same line of thought as lordmonkus, I suggest combining Climates of Tamriel, Realistic Lighting Overhaul, and Dynavision. Combined they replicate all the worthwhile features of a simple, vanilla-style ENB with a fraction of the performance impact - I run the same set of mods, along with ~100 others, with no noticeable performance impact at all apart from slightly longer loading screens.

[Halendia]

HD 6970 + 16 GB + AMD FX 8359 - Kountervibe ENB

 

I've manually tweaked mine for best preferable performance, if you're willing to do that, there's no stopping you.

Edited September 9, 2013 by Halendia

[anzeroth]

Thank all for the suggestions!

 

I tried the Ultimate Lighting Overhaul mod, which dropped my FPS 1-2 points and had a very nice visual effect.

I also tried the Kountervibe ENB, which was very performance friendly, but not really my cup of tea.

 

In the same line of thought as lordmonkus, I suggest combining Climates of Tamriel, Realistic Lighting Overhaul, and Dynavision. Combined they replicate all the worthwhile features of a simple, vanilla-style ENB with a fraction of the performance impact - I run the same set of mods, along with ~100 others, with no noticeable performance impact at all apart from slightly longer loading screens.

 

Could you post some screenshots please? And also your skyrim configuration (AA levels etc)?

 

Lastly, the Realvision ENB worked really great for most of Skyrim (40 - 45 fps at most areas) with the exception of outside of Whiterun which make my FPS drop to 32... Can anyone clarify to me the reason? ~

[lordmonkus]

There is also Ultimate Lighting Overhaul Plus which is made by the same person as the mod I linked previously and is the same thing just with a little extra eye candy using ENB which is of course a bit more of a frame rate hit than the basic ULO. You can then further tweak the ENB side of it to personalize it a bit more if you like. I don't have any screenshots but I can give you a basic rundown of my graphic setup.

 

Using Skyrim Configurator I turn off the games AA and Anisotropic Filtering

Game at 1680 x 1050 resolution

High quality shadows @ 2048 res

High quality textures and various texture packs @1024 resolution, I don't use the official high res ones.

Static Mesh Improvement Mod

Climates of Tamriel

Enhanced Lights and FX

 

With the system specs I posted above and Phinix ENB I get 60+ frames per second in dungeons and out in the world. In cities also using Inconsequential NPCs (which do hit the frame rates a little) I am in the 40ish range, when I was using just ULO in cities I was at 50+ in the cities.

 

The biggest hits to framerates are gonna come from using ENB, high quality shadows, high res textures and SMIM (not necessarily in that order). After that it comes down to what kind of texture mods you are using (if any) and what sort of look you prefer (grim realism, saturated fantasy or just an enhanced vanilla.

 

Personally I found the best balance of looks and performance came from the 1k texture packs, medium shadow settings, SMIM, CoT, ELFX and ULO. The texture mods with lighting really add a lot more to the game than an ENB alone.

 

Edit:

Just wanted to add I think my video card may be better than yours and I do run a lower resolution @1680x1050, your speccy info says you run @1920x1080. Im inclined to believe that if you want to run an ENB you may be stripping out so much of the eye candy that just a straight up SweetFX like the ULO I linked before is the best way for you to go. Give the ULO+ a try though, it may perform well for you. I also don't know what your tolerance for lost frame rates is. I personally never want to run under 50 in combat so I tend to favour more on the side of performance over looks.

Edited September 9, 2013 by lordmonkus