Low Performance Modding Guides ?

[MisterB1969]

Are there any modding guides to set up a decent skyrim game for a low performance computer ?

I only ask, cause I've been trying to produce a playable and stable game for 3 years maybe, and just so tired of it.

[ymf331]

i'm sure there are, but there are quite a few things you can do...

 

in my case my hardware bottleneck is my gtx 550ti, so i use optimizer textures on any textures i change (half-size normals seem to be the key). as long as the file size is the same or smaller than the original textures, the game runs better. regardless of how much better everything looks with a well-made texture. in this way i was able to use vividian enb with the low settings, turn on enb water and still have a decent framerate while at the same time changing about 1/2 of the textures from the vanilla game.

 

a couple other mods i really like for performance are grass on steroids and enhanced vanilla trees. both are really great examples of performance-friendly mods that make a huge visual impact. i don't use it personally because i prefer smim and elfx, but something like enhanced textures detail would probably work too.

 

good lighting seems to do more work than anything else, visually speaking. since you seem to have created some mods i'm sure you're capable of going through and whipping a few together for maximum effect. i've personally not had any performance problems for such great benefit.

 

this time around i'm going for slightly larger textures, and i'm going to set up sweetfx and skge to hopefully look at least as good as a minimal enb while shooting for a steady 60fps. 'course, carefully going through the .ini files and making wise decisions helps quite a bit, too (which the grass on steroids ties into as well).

 

besides all that, if your problem is your cpu clock speed, maybe utilizing all your cores when starting skse up would help. here's a guide that seems to... actually answer your original question... but also has a section explaining this!

Edited June 12, 2017 by ymf331

[MisterB1969]

I have GT 420, which i know is pretty sup-bar especially for SMIM. I've got the optimizer textures, and Hialgo boost. And I've developed qjuite a list of performance mods from the Nexus. That isn't much of an issue I suppose ,its more some of the game system mods that work well together ?

 

I suppose I am also wondering what is a good order to put mods into:

 

Game Graphics First

Game Patches Next

System Mods

and then patches for the mods. ?

Edited June 12, 2017 by MisterB1969

[ymf331]

for that, the only thing that's helped me was checking every plugin in tes5edit for conflicts and patching them together. if you do need some tips for that i pretty much went full-on screenshotted guide on someone yesterday. my cpu isn't the best, an amd 6-core 3.5ghz, but no real issues with the setup in my modwat.ch besides a tiny bit of script lag at times. textures shouldn't matter as far as order goes, but there are some good guidelines for ordering in the "prevent forest fires" topic in the technical support subforum.

Edited June 12, 2017 by ymf331

[MisterB1969]

Yeah, i know how to do that with Tes5Edit. But honestly, I don't want to do that either..

[ymf331]

yea it sucks real bad. but honestly that's kinda' like the keystone that holds the plugins together. probably in 3 years of modding you would've saved some time overall, amirite?

Edited June 12, 2017 by ymf331