Having a hard time transitioning to SE

[greyday01]

My game in LE was stable and looked nice. I've been trying off and on to get a mod set up for SE (not AE) but so far it looks pretty bad. The snow in particular is awful. So far I've put in True Storms and Obsidian Weathers. Probably will go for Majestic mountains and Better Dynamic Snow. Thinking about Lux for lighting. Looked at some enb requirements but they all had so many that limits which mods you can use with them.

 

Can anyone list all their appearance mods that play together well?

[anjenthedog]

First, I don't have any answer for snow quality. I chose to make skyrim run on a Spring/summer weather situation.

 

Second, have you watched any You Tube showcase videos for SE' weather/lighting/dressing (trees, shrubs, building variants, village variants, etc) ?

 

That's where I'd start. It gives you a direct feedback idea of what to expect with the various choices.

 

It might help others if you gave them an idea of what kind of video you're running, etc too. I use a 1060SC 6G card and I choose my poison based in part on that card's somewhat limited capabilities (in comparison to the more powerful cards many use)

 

Here's some of the stuff that spices up my skyrim

 

Shooting Stars SE

Half Moon Creek SE

Cathedral 3D Mountain Flowers

Real Rain

Whiterun River Improved

Realistic Water Two SE

Better Water

Bruma Laterns

A Whiterun Expansion

Whiterun River Improved

Blubbos Riverwood (looks great but good luck finding it. Author removed for some reason)

Riften Trees Reborn Pink Cherry Blossom (also no longer available but stunning)

Fish in the Fountain

Splashes of Skyrim

Splashes of Storms

Vivid Landscapes - Special Edition

Perfect Terrain LOD - for vidid landscapes

Seasons of Skyrim - Springtime Overhaul SSE
Static Mesh Improvement Mod

Windy Grass

Realistic Lighting Overhaul

Lanterns of Skyrim

 

If you have a "nice" video card and some savvy (I don't have...too many years not being a gamer), you could look into ENB and some of the more rich "replacers for cities and things like doors and so forth. Mine can't handle much more than it does now.

[greyday01]

I've a good system, it probably could handle enbs that aren't too demanding without a problem. It just so many requirements like Rudy needs Water For ENB, not Water 2, and lots of other requirements that really limit your choices.

 

Right now, I'm looking for lighting, weather, water, mountain, grass and snow combinations that all work together. Gravy would be an enb that also worked with that combo. Other stuff can be added later.

[blitzen]

This is what collections are supposed to be for. I don't know if there are any that have exactly what you are looking for. There might be. I was looking at some in FO4 and it was predominantly people posting their entire load order, which completely misses the mark. Those collections are more useful for seeing what mods people are using that you don't know about yet. If you want to try something simple, start off with Noble Skyrim. If you don't like the snow, search nexus SSE using the word "snow" and sort them by endorsements. I've been using Nordic Snow but there are others that are popular. I recommend looking at Natural View Tamriel for an enb preset. I have Water for ENB installed, but the water isn't opaque enough. It's so transparent and colorless in some places that white water sections can look like foam floating in air. Its main advantage is that it doesn't edit cells like Water 2 does, so you don't need a series of patches for conflicting mods.

Edited August 15, 2022 by blitzen

[Algabar]

Regarding snow: Bethesda introduced a new snow shader with SE, which according to them was "improved" or "advanced". Truth is, the game often looks better with the old snow shader. That's probably what you're experiencing, too.

 

You can easily turn off the new snow shader. Probably the easiest way is to use BethINI. You should use it anyway - it makes editing .ini settings much easier, besides that its different presets are better than Bethesda's ones. In BethINI, go to the "visuals" tab. At the bottom, you'll find the settings for snow. Uncheck everything except for "projected UV diffuse normals". You MUST leave this one checked, otherwise dynamic snow mods won't work...

 

If you prefer to edit your .ini files manually, open SkyrimPrefs.ini. Under [Display], make sure to have these two lines:

bEnableImprovedSnow=0
bEnableProjecteUVDiffuseNormals=1

 

This will turn off the "improved" shader.

 

On a side note: I'd recommend "Simplicity of Snow" instead of "Better Dynamic Snow". IMHO, it looks even better - and it's easier to handle, since it needs less patching.

 

Regarding ENBs and their "requirements": Technically, ENB requires nothing except the base game and the ENB binaries. Some ENBs may also require a mod called "ENB Helper". But that's it. So, nothing listed in an ENB's description is ever a "hard requirement" (as in "the game won't run without this").

 

ENB presets are designed with certain mods in mind. Often, those "requirements" are listed by the authors of ENB presets, because they want to give users the opportunity to experience the preset exactly as it was meant to look. Maybe authors also want to avoid complaints like "...but, my game doesn't look exactly like in the screenshots"...

You CAN always use ENB presets together with a different mod setup though. Results may vary - but testing doesn't harm.

 

From my experience, weather mods are most important, since they have a huge impact on how the game looks overall. That's why I'd recommend to follow the instructions of ENB authors in this point. If you want to use e.g. Obsidian weathers, choose an ENB for Obsidian weathers...

 

Lighting mods are already less important. If a preset was made for ELFX, but you want to use it with LUX, go ahead. I often did something like this. The results were usually absolutely okay. If something really doesn't work together, you can always tweak ENB settings a bit - or use a different preset.

 

Water mods are even less important than lighting mods. The difference between Water for ENB and Realistic Water Two isn't that huge. Sure, they look different. But both usually work absolutely fine with ENB. Again, if something looks odd, you can tweak the settings a bit. But TBH, most ENB presets I know work well with both water mods.

 

So, TLDR: Install the mods you like, make sure your ENB preset fits your weather mod, disregard the rest.

 

On a side note: With this ENB manager tool, you can easily save different ENB presets and switch between them at will. IMHO ideal for testing...