Any mod recommendations for a new user?

[RedHeadAngel]

39 minutes ago, drsemmel said:

Nat3 is a good choice! I use Rudy ENB for NAT 3 with Enhanced Volumetric Lighting and Shadows (EVLaS).
Yes, ENB is such a drastic change from vanilla imho - I´d be never able to go back again.

There were other mods I got along with NAT and EVLas. I also got Lux, SMIM and other mods for it, and Skyland AIO.

Yes, I know. I've been busy. I have noticed a drop in framerate, though. Is there a way to fix that?

[Karna5]

16 minutes ago, RedHeadAngel said:

I have noticed a drop in framerate, though. Is there a way to fix that?

ENBs rely on post processing rather than in-engine solutions. You can't avoid losing performance if you use post processing because it's work that's done by your PC after it renders the game's engine.

p.s. Worse, ENBs are software and not even handled by your graphic card's firmware. Your CPU does the work of ENBs which, again, is inefficient.

[drsemmel]

2 hours ago, RedHeadAngel said:

Yes, I know. I've been busy. I have noticed a drop in framerate, though. Is there a way to fix that?

Its not really avoidable. If you use ENB (btw. it stresses both your GPU + CPU - in what capacity depends on your settings and how ENB is utilized), lighting- and weather mods and perhaps a bunch of 4k texture overhauls, than you have to expect a drop in framerate. A strong setup can handle all that you throw at it without dropping under 60 fps (within reason ofc - if you want 8k textures and hd lods etc. on top of anything else, that might not work out^^).
What stresses my system by far the most is FSMP (hair and cloth physics), because every npc has physics enabled hair and I also have a ton of physics armor and clothing (all guards wear physics cloaks etc). I can run my skyrim in all its glory on my pc at home, but have a toned down mod setup on my laptop, because that gpu would melt and die.

Try to disable as many background processes as possible (maybe set priority for your skyrimse.exe).
Script optimizations help with microstutters (not related to fps), but i guess your game is not script heavy (yet) ^^

[Karna5]

1 minute ago, drsemmel said:

Script optimizations help with microstutters (not related to fps), but i guess your game is not script heavy (yet) ^^

I'm glad you brought up microstutters because there are a couple of things which can cause them in Bethesda games. One is obviously what you stated, and I'm glad you mentioned that.

The other, however, is mods with too many loose files in a directory. There are pros and cons to BA2 archives versus loose files in Bethesda games.

The game's engine reads loose files as needed meaning it doesn't preload them, and it doesn't carry them around in memory unless something is actually using them.

The game's engine pre-loads ba2 archives and carries those around in memory for quick access, however.

When given a choice by a mod whether to use loose files or ba2 archives, I make the decision based on whether the mod has very many files, especially in single directories (in which case I always pick BA2 archive) or if it's just a clothing mod which won't need to be rendered unless I decide to actually put on that outfit (in which case I always prefer loose files).

The game may micro stutter while your hard drive reads loose files when you first need them. However, that's a one-time stutter per game session since once loaded it'll remember it until no longer needed or until you reload/restart the game.

I mention this because not all micro stutters in Bethesda games are caused by bad performance. Sometimes it's just the PC loading loose file textures the first time they're needed.

[drsemmel]

14 minutes ago, Karna5 said:

When given a choice by a mod whether to use loose files or ba2 archives, I make the decision based on whether the mod has very many files, especially in single directories (in which case I always pick BA2 archive) or if it's just a clothing mod which won't need to be rendered unless I decide to actually put on that outfit (in which case I always prefer loose files).

 

Ya, very true. I try to have everything packed up as much as possible (texture overhauls but also armors/clothes). Its noticeable the most in FO4. (that game runs like sh.. when you have too many loose files)

 

edit.: I forgot to mention: I always assume, that everyone has their games on an ssd and that might not be true - some ppl don´t.
I use big HDs to backup and store stuff, but my modded games wouldn´t even start from a HD.

[Karna5]

13 minutes ago, drsemmel said:

Ya, very true. I try to have everything packed up as much as possible (texture overhauls but also armors/clothes). Its noticeable the most in FO4. (that game runs like sh.. when you have too many loose files)

I'm still at only 268 active plugins for Skyrim AE, so my Skyrim isn't nearly as modded as my Fallout 4 was (which had half a terabyte of mod files installed and well over 600 mods plus several hundred more merged mods). But in Skyrim I do notice the game freezing when I load outfits for the first time, so I follow the same practice I did in Fallout 4 which is to be very stingy with how much I load in memory.

Even though I have an Nvidia 3080 graphics card which handles the graphical end of 4k all-ultra fine, my PC itself is from 2016. And while it was a fast PC in 2016, it's obviously not as fast delivering data from hard drive to CPU as a newer PC would be.

If I continue with Skyrim for as many hours as I played Fallout 4 (which is 10500+ in-game hours), any inefficiencies I allow now multiply as the game gets more modded.

I'm actually more careful with hard drive access than I am with graphical burdens. FSMP doesn't affect my game's performance even at 4k all-ultra. But excessive hard drive reading does

[drsemmel]

17 minutes ago, Karna5 said:

I'm actually more careful with hard drive access than I am with graphical burdens. FSMP doesn't affect my game's performance even at 4k all-ultra. But excessive hard drive reading does

On my laptop-setup the 4k textures and  FSMP hairs and clothes are also not a problem, but that is bc I compromise on other stuff (lower lods, 2k textures for smaller stuff like clutter or weapons and so on). But the full setup is 2700 plugins (246 esp+esm) and it runs stable and has no issues, but my laptop is not up for it (despite it having an ssd and 12 gb vram).
And ofc limiting the amount of loose files does a lot.

So, its the other way around for me - my FO4 has ~200 plugins, is also stable, but a bit quirky sometimes, lol.
But 10k hours - wow! You played FO4 since it came out, I assume. (I started it 3 years ago I believe)

edit.: ok, INGAME hours - got it lol. Sry, english is not my first language ^^

[Karna5]

35 minutes ago, drsemmel said:

edit.: ok, INGAME hours - got it lol. Sry, english is not my first language ^^

Yeah, in-game as measured by Steam. If I added the hours I spent modding it, that would probably add another several thousand over the years. And you're right, it sounds like Fallout 4 is what Skyrim is to you. However, I'm a Fallout 4 refugee since the game broke several months ago (many of the mods I use have not and probably will not be updated to the latest F4SE version since they did that next gen patch *laughs*).

I'm not sore about F4 being broken, though. 10.5 thousand hours of game play plus thousand more modding is enough. I'm very happy to play other games such as Skyrim, CP77, Black Desert and countless others. I'll probably hop into Mount & Blade Bannerlord for a while this week as well since I love that game, just like I've been doing Red Dead Online as well lately. Not having Fallout 4 anymore isn't bad at all, especially since I'm finally pretty happy with how my Skyrima AE game turned out.

I can almost do as much in Skyrim as I used to be able to do in Fallout 4, minus the Flying Saucers and gigantic explosions, of course. (I may have to make an Aggressive Flying Saucer mod for Skyrim someday like I did for Fallout 4.)

p.s. As for English not being your first language, please never apologize for that. I was born in Argentina and am aware this is a global society, not an English speaking only one

[alphafr]

First you need a mod manager

 

Then the mandatory mods, those are the bare minumum

-the Unofficial Skyrim Special Edition Patch (USSEP)

-the Skyrim Script Extender (SKSE)

-SSE Engine Fixes

-Address Library for SKSE plugins

 

For animation stuff like Nemesis + Open Animation Replacer (usualy refered as OAR) are basicaly must have, those don't add animation they're only frameworks a lot of animation mods depends on to function

 

ENB is mandatory with any graphic overhaul but the preset is up to you, if you don't want ENB there is an alternative : community shader pack or something like that

 

The biggest questions is : What do you want to turn skyrim into, how good is your PC, how much graphic or immersion mod do you seek, what aspect of the game you wanna overhaul?

Edited August 23, 2024 by alphafr

[drsemmel]

21 minutes ago, Karna5 said:

I can almost do as much in Skyrim as I used to be able to do in Fallout 4, minus the Flying Saucers and gigantic explosions, of course. (I may have to make an Aggressive Flying Saucer mod for Skyrim someday like I did for Fallout 4.)

LOL I wanna be attacked by flying saucers in FO4 too haha Sounds great. ^^
 

I picked up FO4 again after a longer pause shortly after the big update. I updated to get all the new stuff (I do not want it, but it might be needed for some newer mods) and backpatched. I use Backported Archive2 Support System and
BA2 Archive Version Patcher in conjunction, bc some applications have problems running the unpatched BA2s (like synthesis). Perhaps there is already a newer version of BAE. It works out good with the new mods, no issues so far.
Reason for me to backpatch was, that I have lots of stuff, that will never ever get updated, but I NEED it in my game

edit.: and I can do in FO4 almost anything I can do in skyrim (in skyrim , I have so many "needs" to micromanage - most ppl would turn crazy, lol - its peak immersion ^^