How can you 'stress test' for an ENB?

[InDarkestNight]

In SE, I used to run any ENB I wanted. When I switched back to LE though, I found that my game couldn't handle most ENBs. Well, they all technically ran, but some of them tanked my fps by as much as 40! Clearly that's not a playable state.

 

Testing ENBs is a huge pain. I have to literally make a back-up of my skyrim folder so I can restore it to what it was before (I use ENB boost, along with various other settings that aren't easy to redo).

 

I'm wondering, is there a better way to know what ENBs I can use without just having to test them one by one? Here are the specs of my PC if that helps:

 

Intel® Core i5-6400 CPU @ 2.70 mhz, 4 Cores, 4 Logical Processors

 

8 GB RAM

 

NVidia GEforce GTX 1050 Ti

 

On a side note, would expanding my RAM make any difference at all? I've heard that LE has a limit on how much ram it can use, so expanding it beyond a certain point makes no difference. Keep in mind on SE I could run far more than I can on LE (including 4k textures on everything and literally any enb i wanted, to give you an idea). In LE, I can't seem to run anything more than 2k textures, and I have a hard time finding an enb that doesn't tank my fps by at least 10 or more (most are well in excess of 10).

 

On another side note, does it matter what version of ENB I use? I've seen a number of enbs that require version 3, but no variety of that is available anymore. I've had people tell me it doesn't matter as long as the version was made after the one the enb requires. On the other hand, Boris himself said you need to do some fiddling to get Caffeine ENB working with the current version. This leads me to believe that older enbs simply aren't compatible with newer ones. I have also seen a number of people claiming they were having all sorts of graphical issues trying to get an old enb to work.

 

As for enbs I was thinking of using, caffeine and antique dragon have long piqued my interest. I did try tetrachromatic once, but my PC couldn't handle it (though I did have Spring Forest Overhaul installed at the same time, which also tanks my fps I lot on its own). I've also thought about rudy due to its compatibility with several weather mods, and it does seem to be one of the more popular ones. Can my PC handle any of these, or is it all just a lost cause?

[HeyYou]

LE is a 32 bit application, therefore, even with the large address aware patch, the most ram it can play with is 4gb. SE is a 64 bit app, and can play with as much ram as you feed it. I am not entirely sure how that applies to graphics memory though.

[InDarkestNight]

To my knowledge, video cards have their own ram that's separate from the computer's ram. Its sorta hard to explain what RAM means practically. Probably the simplest thing is it dictates how many objects can be around. RAM probably has no effect on an enb (unless its doing some math behind the scenes). I was thinking that installing more RAM may make my game more stable, though of course as you said it probably wouldn't do much. You post is the first time I've seen someone state just how much RAM LE can actually access. I figured I was beyond the limit based on the performance of LE compared to SE, but I still had no hard evidence that my computer's RAM exceeded what LE could use.

 

Also, I forgot to mention one detail: My game runs consistently at 60 fps, except when I'm looking towards the center of some of the larger cities such as Solitude. Honestly though, I'm not sure what the most graphics intense part of my game could be. I'm not playing with any flora overhauls, or even city overhauls. I was able to run JK's Skyrim, but that has endless compatibility issues. Also, that did worsen the lag I experienced in cities (though not to an unplayable state).