ENB? DOF? Why?

[Khazaad]

Just wanted to throw an a few things regarding ENB related mods out there to be kicked around...I can already feel people getting defensive with indignation. Keep in mind these are simply observations, not harsh critiques or negative assumptions.

 

I'm a little confused regarding the communities general opinion regarding the quality/function of many if not most ENB mods. It's harder to qualitatively judge this than you might think. Here's a quick comparison of pros and cons I've noticed that either validate or invalidate many (most?) of these mods.

 

ENB mods MUST be cool because:

 

1. Everybody's doing it! Heavy DL volumes across multiple mods.

2. The preview videos look pretty good, I guess.

3. Everybody likes it, right? Large population of endorsing fans.

4. Everybody is talking about it! Plenty of chatter available.

 

ENB mods MUST suck because:

 

1. A large DL population doesn't mean jack. Hell, MOST people thought bell-bottoms were cool at some point.

2. Honestly, often times I can't tell the difference between the mod's preview videos even when viewed at a high resolution when compared to my own unmodded gameplay.

3. Despite the large amount of endorsements these mods get, there are surprisingly few people who actually verbalize their satisfaction in the discussions.

4. Most of the chatter regarding the mod(s) involves the technical problems people are having.

 

Anybody want to sum up their experiences with these mods? They seem difficult to develop/work with. I assumed the effects would be pretty unforgettable as a result.

 

A quick question about DOF...

 

I understand the realism that the auto-focusing elements are supposed to be simulating but how effectual and worthwhile can these mods be if they have no idea where my eyes are tracking on the screen? IOW: If I'm standing behind a tree using it for cover while actually looking at the environment BEYOND the tree, my true visual target will be blurry!

 

Are DOF modifications more intuitive than that or is this a persistent eyesore?

[Staind716]

First and foremost, ENB mods are like every other mod available, it's a matter of personal taste. I personally like the ENB and after using it would not even consider playing Skyrim without it. ENB has the best ssao currently available for Skyrim. I haven't had any trouble using them. If there are any settings that you don't like they are easily configurable. As for the DOF they assume that you are looking at the center of your screen. While this does make for some nice 3D type effects and helps add to the realism, it is a pain in situations like you describe. I like the DOF more for the screenshots than the actual gameplay. I am currently using the Superl3 ENB with DOF disabled and I am very happy with the results, especially the lighting and magic effects. But that is how I want my game to look which may not be for everybody. That is the beauty of mods, they let everyone configure their game to their own personal tastes.

[toastman42]

Edit: added screenshots with RL and no ENB.

Edit: added Superl3 ENB to my list of ENB mods that should be compatible with Realistic Lighting.

 

I concur with Staind716 - I wouldn't consider playing without my ENB setup anymore, but it is definitely a matter of personal taste. Here is a little more info for you or anyone else who comes across this wanting to know more about all the ENB mods running around:

 

Essentially, there is only one ENB mod, and it is from here: http://enbdev.com. Boris created the tech, but leaves it to others to customize it by editing various config files. What you find all over the place are all user-created custom settings packaged with the original ENB mod. How dramatic the impact of an ENB mod can be varies depending on it's configuration, but it can be quite pronounced. Some ENB setups go for improving the visual quality of the game by enabling settings that use superior post-processing effects to those included in vanilla Skyrim, such as SSAO, anisotrophic filtering, etc. Others go for modifying the look and feel of the game by changing the color palette and lighting effects to make colors super-bright and saturated, or more muted and realistic. I personally have gone the "more realistic" route. As an example of what can be accomplished with ENB, check out these two screenshots I took:

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/imageshare/image.php?id=55571

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/imageshare/image.php?id=56953

 

As for the difficulty of working with ENB mods, basic installation and usage is pretty easy if you don't want to customize it. If you do want to customize, while some settings may be daunting, others are very straight forward to adjust, such as setting SSAO and anisotrophic filtering settings is as easy as editing the ini and changing "ForceAnisotrophicFiltering=true" and "MaxAnisotrophy=16" (or whatever value you want). There is also a great guide on customizing ENB that tells you what options do what that you can download here:

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=8005&navtag=file/images.php?id=8005&tab=3

 

Some ENB options, such as SSAO + Indirect Lighting, can cause a very dramatic performance hit.

 

In the end, using ENB doesn't make Skyrim look definitively "better", just "different", and allows you to tailor the look of the game to your taste (such as giving it a kind of hazy very dream-like appearance, a bright and colorful fantasy appearance, a drab and washed out gritty appearance, etc), as well as allows for players with higher end rigs to take advantage of additional post-processing features. An aggressive ENB config can make the game appear VERY dramatically different.

 

ENB allows for a hot-key combination (shift-f12 by default) to toggle it on and off during gameplay, making it very easy to compare before and after.

 

Final note: my recommendation if you are interested at all in trying it out is to grab one that works with or includes the Realistic Lighting mod found here:

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=7654&navtag=file/images.php?id=7654&tab=3

The Realistic Lighting mod, which doesn't actually add any new effects to the game, it just adjusts lighting effects already in use (and therefore doesn't really adversely affect performance) does more to give Skyrim a realistic appearance then any other mod out there. Here are screencaps with just RL and no ENB:

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/imageshare/image.php?id=44437

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/imageshare/image.php?id=48177

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/imageshare/image.php?id=47363

 

Not every ENB mod plays nice with Realistic Lighting, but some that do are:

Last ENB: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=6578&navtag=file/images.php?id=6578&tab=3

Superb ENB-RL (also called Superl3 ENB): http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=11318#content

Jasmin's ENB v4.4: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=12549&navtag=file/images.php?id=12549&tab=3 (this one wasn't designed for use with RL, but I used it for a while and it didn't seem to interact badly with it).

Edited March 16, 2012 by the_toastman

[Khazaad]

I appreciate the thorough and comprehensive response Toast. You've certainly given me plenty of materials to muck around with.

 

btw: The strong DOF effect on your picture really makes the focal point pop! The differences between the other pictures you've listed and non-ENB modded images are a striking contrast as well.

[Rabbit1251]

Well, I didn't know ENB from Jack. But, Mr.Toastman, you've explained it for me pretty well. So much so in fact that I think that I will give it a go. Thank you for that breakdown.

 

 

Rabbit

[Dan3345]

Personally I really like a lot of ENB's but they don't like me, or atleast my processor.. Kills my FPS, so I choose not to use em.

[Staind716]

Personally I really like a lot of ENB's but they don't like me, or atleast my processor.. Kills my FPS, so I choose not to use em.

If you download them manually some of them have an option for performance mode or you can change some things in your enb ini. If you want to try one that I found had pretty good performance the Superl3 ENB 0.52 version with the optional ssao and no dof might be what you are looking for. The 0.53 version has more of a performance hit for some reason plus I think the 0.52 looks better anyway.

 

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=11318#content

[Khazaad]

Oooookay. So I just got ENB loaded and functional. I'll admit, I was a little humbled by the whole thing after quickly learning that I didn't know my ass from my elbow with regards to ENB.

 

Rather than reliving the experience over this thread, I'll just offer my heaviest endorsement to Toast and his post. Read it, absorb it, use the links provided.

 

BTW: Vorotsov is the angriest pacifist I've ever heard off! For some reason, I don't think it would be half as fun to follow his instructions if it wasn't for his broken english and the "F-the Haters!" attitude.

[toastman42]

I'm very glad you found my post useful! I didn't mention depth of field since Staind716 covered that pretty well. As for performance issues with ENB mods, as Staind716 also pointed out, some of them do have a "performance" option, but really, you can turn any ENB that provides a look you enjoy into a performance version. The biggest eater of FPS is SSAO + indirect lighting, and it is pretty easy to turn those off. Just for the sake of clarity, SSAO = Screen Space Ambient Occlusion = Ambient Occlusion, so when you see settings in the ini file labeled "Ambient Occlusion", those are the SSAO settings.

 

Once you have found an ENB whose effects you like, if it makes your PC beg for mercy, the first step is to see what SSAO is set at. When you start Skyrim and load a game, you should see in the top left corner of the screen where it will briefly display one of three things:

SSAO Enabled, Slow Mode (which means SSAO + indirectly lighting on)

SSAO Enabled, Fast Mode (which means SSAO on, but indirectly lighting off)

SSAO Disabled.

 

To change it, open the enbseries.ini file located in your Skyrim folder, and locate the line "EnableAmbientOcclusion=", and you can set it to either true or false. Setting to false should greatly improve performance. If you want to try SSAO enabled, but don't want it to beat your rig into submission, set EnableAmbientOcclusion=true and then locate the line "UseIndirectLighting=" and change it to false. This enables SSAO Fast Mode.

 

And above all else, just experiment and have fun!

 

Doh! Forgot to mention something potentially important regarding ENB and performance. On some systems, enabling the frame rate limiter in ENB makes it go nuts and limit your framerate to "slideshow", so definitely check the line "EnableFPSLimit=" and make certain it is set to false if you are having performance issues.

Edited March 16, 2012 by the_toastman

[Rennn]

I don't like ENB very much anymore. I used to use it all the time, and on sunny days it was amazing, but 70% of the time (whenever it was foggy, snowing, overcast, raining, or at twilight), the fog and LOD just looked ugly. I tweaked ENB to the brink of exhaustion and I had it almost perfect, but at that point the performance hit was like 40 fps. I never use DOF, by the way, since it's always massively annoying for me. I keep looking around with my eyes instead of moving the screen, but DOF doesn't know that so the blur effect really gets on my nerves after a while.

 

Now I've gotten almost the same results with CLO, some mod to push back the haze over Skyrim, and Nvidia Quality AO, for only about 5-7 fps. It doesn't look as good as ENB on sunny days, of course, but it's fairly close and in most rough weather it looks even better since I get to keep Skyrim's fog and effects.

 

CLO, if you're interested.

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=11479

Edited March 16, 2012 by Rennn