If I want to start modding Skyrim, should I mod normal or the SE?

[Wadarkhu]

Any hints?

[Kaspar482]

I it depends on what you want to do. If it doesn't involve heavy scripting and skse, mods usually work for both games. If you make a mod for Skyrim, it should work in Skyrim SE.

[Wadarkhu]

Probably want to mod A LOT and all kinds of mods.

[LeddBate]

SE is a lot more stable, so mostly you just have to avoid direct mod conflicts.

 

However, Legendary (Oldrim) has a lot more mods and has SKSE (which SE does not, yet) -which allows you to use mods a lot easier in-game (e.g. MCM menus.) On the flip side, Oldrim is a lot more un-stable. Especially when you add a lot of mods. There are numerous guides on how to stabilize your Skyrim game to prevent CTDs, however. Reddit posts aplenty, the S.T.E.P. guide, etc.

 

So it really comes down to how much effort you are willing to put into modding your game. Right now you can do a LOT more with 32bit Legendary Skryim than SE. However, you'll spend a LOT of time figuring out conflicts and other issues in an effort to keep your game from crashing.

 

As time passes (and 64bit SKSE gets released) more and more mods will appear/get ported and SE will eventually become the "no-brainer" choice. But that's probably quite a way down the road.

[Skagens]

If you want to mod heavily, go for Legendary Edition (Oldrim). If not, go for SE.

[ethruria]

your OS also plays a part it seems. if you want to mod Oldrim, I heard it should be done ideally on Win7 and not Win10 which limits memory allocated to the game.

[kevvic]

your OS also plays a part it seems. if you want to mod Oldrim, I heard it should be done ideally on Win7 and not Win10 which limits memory allocated to the game.

It limit your VRAM to 4GB from what i've heard. Personnaly, I have tried both and skyrim SE work better for me with more mods (more fps, less stutter, less crash). Tbh even with vanilla oldrim I have stutter (I have a gtx 1070 and tried a lot of tweak to fix it :/). I'm running Win10 though, so it "might" be the cause.

[LeddBate]

your OS also plays a part it seems. if you want to mod Oldrim, I heard it should be done ideally on Win7 and not Win10 which limits memory allocated to the game.

 

This is very true. Specifically (for those interested) Win8 (both versions) and Win10 limit the VRAM of DX9 games -which Skyrim Legendary (Oldrim) is, to 4GB. So if you want to mod the hell out of your Oldrim with lotsa 2K textures, you're better off using Win7 which does NOT limit the VRAM of Oldrim.

 

If you've decided to go with Skyrim SE (which is a DX11 game) then your OS doesn't matter much.

 

For those who have both Win7 and one of the other OSes, dual-booting is a good option.

[gaultjohn]

Special Edition.

I play on a 3 year old Wal Mart laptop. Skyrim Special Edition runs very well after following the step guides and keeping my mod list around 130 and avoiding mod conflicts. I was always crashing using regular skyrim and the same laptop. Good luck and I hope you have fun!

Edited May 26, 2017 by gaultjohn