Help for a Beginner with Skrim SE mods

[ncotham]

Hi everyone - I suspect you get these questions from nubes all the time, but if some of you expert modders out there can help me out I'd be forever in your debt. I've built a new machine that I think can likely handle almost anything I could throw at it in terms of mods for Skrim SE. Here are my specs:

 

Windows 10 x64 Po

Asus Maximus X Formula

I7- 8700K (in testing, I found I could OC stable to 5.2 GHz with reasonable temps, but so far I don't need overclocking as stock defaults are fine for everything I run. It's there IF I need it for mods, though.)

Kraken x62 cooling

32 GB DDR4@3200

nVidia Titan X Pascal

C: Samsung 960 Pro PCIE nvme m.2 1T SSD

D: Samsung 850 Pro SATA 1T SSD

Currently running at 1080p

 

Objectives:

1. Get RID that stupid blur effect.

2. Maximize the draw distance.

3. Incorporate high res textures.

4. Basically make Skyrim SE as photorealistic as possible with the equipment I have.

 

I've read some of the guides, but they mostly seem geared toward folks who are already quite experienced in modding, and I don't understand a lot of the terminology. Plus, I fully understand that some of you have spent countless hours experimenting and testing to get the look you want, some of you running in excess of 200 mods. Is it possible to do what I want with maybe 10 or so mods plus modifications to the config file? I don't want to add anything new to the game - all I want to do is make the existing game's graphics much better and more realistic. Could someone could point me toward some simple instructions or a step by step guide to implementing the mods I need, and for someone who's never done this before?

 

Thank you!

 

[TheWilloughbian]

There's a lot of different tings you can do. If you want to avoid using mods, then tweaking the INIs is the way to go. http://wiki.step-project.com/Guide:Skyrim_INI

 

There's is also BethINI, which will help you do much of the tweaking in a user friendly fashion. https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/4875/

 

There are also some mods which will increase fog distance. If you want see what that might look like, type setfog 20000,250000 into the console while in an exterior cell on a clear day. You can vary those values, the ones I have posted are rather high end. I think stock is like 0,6000 , which looks like hell if you ask me.

 

In my opinion you will get the some best visual improvement from texture mods, which can be swapped in and out with relative ease. As far as which is/are the best one/s everyone has their favorite/s I supposed. I use a mix of several. Some are close to the vanilla textures just a higher quality, some will give the game a completely different look. You can spend a lot of time looking at texture mods. Some of the Oldrim ones will work with SSE. Though I think not the landscape textures.

 

People geek out and spend lots of time getting the game to look just the way they want. I think you'll find that there is always another tweak to try. It really can become an obsession.

 

If you really want to geek out and your PC can handle it, you might want to look into ENBs. I don't mess with those too much as my rig isn't quite that powerful. It's not a potato by any means, it's just that ENBs are resource intensive. But they can make the game look amazing.

 

Anyhow.. Have fun with it. Give it six months and you'll have a load order with 170 plus mods in it.

 

Oh, and one thing I would recommend is an NPC hair replacer. It will make a big difference. There's a couple good ones.

 

 

[Herbiehv]

Yes I would say ENB too, on the saver side you can try Reshade, it can get rid of any blur you want, has a ton of options for color, sharpen, fake HDR, etc etc. Looks really good. Installing is quite easy, just follow the instructions.

Get some 4K textures ( there are textures for almost every element in the game), new body and skin for your character. Grass, trees..You really need textures, because you can't make a 1K, or less resolution texture look good, at least not close up. Textures don't count in your plugin list, so you can have as many as you want. Make a plan even of what you want with your Skyrim. Get LOOT (for load order) and BethINI, for some necessary .ini tweaks.

I have a Nvidia GTX 1080, I7 4,6 Ghz, and only 16GB ram. I run at 60 fps (capped) all the time with some 250 mods. Your rig should have no problem.

Take it easy and have fun. Just get started and you get the hang of it soon enough, a pc builder isn't scared easily I would say!

 

- obsessed modder here ;)

[ncotham]

TheWilloughbian, Herbiehv - Thanks so much for taking the time to respond and for the suggestions! I made a little progress by installing the Nexus Mod Manager. I had downloaded some mods, but then didn't know how to install them or where to put them. Now I see the Mod Manager handles all that for you, and if tweaks to Skyrim.ini or SkyrimPrefs.ini are required, the then instructions are usually provided in the mod description. So, I'm starting to wrap my head around all this a bit more. I played the 2011 version of Skyrim years ago, but never got into modding at the time. Then a few weeks ago I saw Skyrim SE (2017) was out there with "2017 graphics"! I thought wow, I'm getting that, and didn't bother reading the reviews. Like so many others, I was disappointed with the "improvements". 2017 graphics? *sigh* not so much, eh? That's when I figured I'd get into modding because some of the youtube videos I saw were exactly what I was after when I bought Skyrim SE, but did NOT get.

 

This leads to another question - in the opinion of folks on the forum, am I better off just going back to the original Skyrim and modding it from scratch, or should I stay with Skyrim SE? If I'm going to put in the time and effort, I want to start with the best possible platform for modding. Been fiddling with Skyrim SE on and off for a couple weeks now, and have only made it to Level 16, so I'm not at a point where I'd be losing much by starting over if the original Skyrim is a better option for modding. The original Skyrim is lurking in my Steam games list ready to be installed. What do you guys think?

[TheWilloughbian]

I never had Oldrim.

 

The debate on this subject is endless. It's really up to you. Some say SSE is far more stable. With SKSE64 out SSE is catching up mod-wise. Many of the hardcore modders use both, as the SSE CK can't generate LIP files and mods are not reverse compatible. So, yeah, the answer "both" is valid if you like. I, personally have never regretted choosing SSE. But, then again, I enjoy converting and creating mods.

 

Sorry I can't be more definitive. I guess the choice depends on your reasons for playing the game.

[ncotham]

I kinda figured that would be the answer. Well, there's nothing keeping me from installing and experimenting with both, is there? :-) I can say I've had issues with SSE that I never had with Oldrim, for instance, I've now lost 3 followers. No letters came, and I've fast travelled all over hell and back. They've just disappeared. In one instance, my follower's armor just showed up randomly with no follower inside! It was weird - the first thing she said was "I'm still here..." And this coming from a disembodied follower with no head was a little hard to take. Then the armor and apparel started to follow me around with no walking movement, just gliding about mysteriously. Restarted the game and she had disappeared again. This was with no mods at the time other than the "Unofficial Patch". Maybe cleaning the master files with TES5Edit from the beginning might have prevented that. I'll just have to play around with it.

Edited April 9, 2018 by ncotham

[Herbiehv]

Very weird with the follower glitch, never had such things. I would stick with SSE, new mods are made for SSE, and modders stating they are not building for Oldrim anymore. Also if you want to use SKSE64 (you probably will when you get hooked). be careful though, after the latest Skyrim update there are issues with mods acting strange. Always read descriptions and posts!

But it's like ncotham said: a endless discussion, and you can have both indeed!

[QuagaarWarrior]

If youâre new to modding I would stick with SSE. For a start you donât need to install as many mods to make the game stable and it seems to be more forgiving if you make a mistake somewhere.

My recommendation is to follow a guide. You donât need to install all the mods they recommend if you want to keep your load order small

[TheWilloughbian]

I have never cleaned the master files. It's never been an issue for me.

 

There's that quest in Markarth that will mess with followers. I have run into that. Never had them just had them disappear for no reason though, much less and leave their armour running around.

[3aq]

I highly recommend you follow this guide: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/2846/

SEPTIM though old, is perhaps the best codified and tested for SSE (least from my knowledge)

 

I also recommend you use MO2, I know it's like saying you should learn Linux, but hear me out on this, when you use it you will never look back, and you will never f' up royally and actually have 100% control of your installation, mod order, and game files, all while keeping the initial game pristine clean. NMM doesn't do that. It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.. :/

 

As for specifics you wish to achieve, most of that can be achieved through configuration ini's which can easily be configurable with BethINI (google it up).

 

Also, as you are fairly new in modding, I would recommend you rollback to the previous skyrim se version and disable updates on steam. This way you are able to use the majority of now broken vital mods here on nexus.

 

As for first mod you should install, SKSE64 2.00.6 (the previous version) you can find it in the archives. Then promptly install SSE Fixes: this will allieviate a lot of unneeded stress on your game due to faulty Beth looping script; in fact you would increase fps and processing by 30-40% on average. This is especially important when you are running more plugins because the more plugins you'll be using the more the game will bog down due to the faulty scripting.

 

Aside from that you can find the rest on the SEPTIM guide and update accordingly through your personal tastes.

 

Cheers and glhf on your modding adventures,