Help for a Beginner with Skrim SE mods

[audiodef]

ncotham,

 

I don't think you should roll back any updates; SKSE64 caught up to the latest update almost right away.

 

But you should definitely not allow Steam to auto-destroy - I mean, auto-update your game files. You can't technically disable updates, but as long as you launch the game with skse64_loader, you can bypass automatic updates by changing your Steam settings to only update when the game launches. Since you launch skse64_loader, Steam won't know you're playing the game and won't automatically bump the game up for available updates - you'll have to do that manually when SKSE64 has a matching update available.

 

I second the advice about textures and ENB. These alone will update the appearance of the game dramatically. There are already photorealistic ENB presets you can download.

 

That follower armor ghost is hilarious. I almost want a mod that intentionally does that.

 

Cheers,

Audiodef

Edited April 9, 2018 by audiodef

[TheWilloughbian]

I differ from 3aq, in that I manually install a lot of mods. Many people would probably freak at the sight of my data folder and the many, many loose files contained therein. But, as he states there are some advantages to MO2 in certain situations. It's just easier for me to have the files in my data folder with all the tinkering I like to do.

 

With the rig you are running you're not really going to need to worry too much about every little optimization. It's mostly people with slower machines that have to deal with that. That's not to say it won't pay off to educate yourself about them.

 

If you're going to use SKSE64, make back ups of your Skyrim.EXE and SkyrimLauncher.exe and stash them someplace safe. Then take measures to keep SSE from updating without your permission. If you need more help with this let me know.

[ncotham]

Well folks, I took the plunge. I installed SEPTIM on top of SSE using predcaliber's videos as a guide, and got some good experience with MO2, LOOT, ENBs, etc... I more or less know what I'm doing now after 162 mods worth of downloading and installing, but, I was a bit disappointed with the end result. It's almost cruel that you have to wait until the very end to install the ENB to see what you've done. I see the mods and ENB loading at the start and at work afterwards, doing what they're supposed to do, but the AA and AF seem off, and character skin colors are off and rather cartoonish. It doesn't really look like the pictures of the SEPTIM gameplay, and I notice jaggies, for example, in the fences in Riverwood. They shimmer as you walk through town looking at them as you go, just as one example. And, there are a number of other visual cues that just weren't up to par with what I was expecting. Maybe I missed some things, but as far as I know, I followed the guide and videos to the letter, and ensured that no mods were installed without MO2's "looks good" blessing. Glitches and bugs abound. Black screen while fighting wolves, wasn't able to pick up some coin purses and other items (they're right there, can't get the game to see them when I move the crosshairs over them.) So, at this point, I'm rather jaded by the entire process. I may try again with different mods and ENBs, but not any time soon after putting in a couple week's work on and off only to be disappointed with the end result. Again, I want to thank everyone for the responses and suggestions however! At least now I have a foundation for installing mods going forward. You guys have been great!

[ncotham]

Hold everything! Just installed SKSE64, made it accessible from MO2, and THAT made all the difference! Everything is MUCH better. I'm suddenly feeling not so jaded!

Edited April 17, 2018 by ncotham

[thibaux504]

Am kinda new at this too. I have a stupid question. Where do I place manual download standlone character files?

 

[TheWilloughbian]

It takes a little while to learn the file structure. Especially with a clean install as there are no loose files in one. Do you have a way to extract 7zip and RAR files?

[ncotham]

@thibaux - I'm not familiar with "manual download standlone character files", but if these files are mods, then a mod manager is the way to go. That's what threw me starting off - I downloaded and unzipped some of the mods and then had no clue where to put the files. Two of the most commonly used mod managers are the Nexus Mod Manager (NMM) and Mod Organizer 2 (MO2). If you're new at this like you mentioned, and like I was early on, then I think mod managers are essential. I used Mod Organizer 2 because it seemed to be much more flexible when it comes to changing up your mod setup after the fact. I used predcaliber's youtube videos as a guide to install the Skyrim SEPTIM mods, and he explains Mod Manager 2, LOOT and SSEedit and how to install them in the first video of an 11 part series showing how to install the SEPTIM mods:

 

If you continue watching the other videos in the series, you'll see how he uses MO2 to check and install mods as he goes along. I found this VERY helpful when it comes to installing mods. Hope this helps you, too.

[Vashra1]

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!

 

 

It sounds like we're on similar quests. In my case, I've been modding SE so my daughter can possibly play it, despite extreme visual special needs. I'm gonna be wordy, as I was planning to write this up for others anyway.

 

Getting rid of most of the blur in Skyrim can be done without too much in the way of mods -- adding in photorealism takes a lot more. I'm not going to address the latter, because it's too subjective depending on what YOU think is "photo realistic." So let's talk about blur and haze:

 

Settings I've learned to deal with because blur/haze/fade/fog is the Devil:

 

0. CALIBRATE YOUR MONITOR. Seriously ...*so* many problems with looks can be solved by just doing that first. Gamma and Contrast being too out of balance creates half the "black crush" and "too bright/blurry/glowy/hazy" people deal with. I've learned this the hard way because my monitor sucks. Windows 7 has nifty tools to handle this, I'm sure windows 10 has something similar.

 

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1. Read up on what it takes to make your video card set your monitor to a higher resolution than your monitor can really "do" so that you can squish it back down via the game settings. This lets you "sharpen" things because of technical crap that sounds like magic to me. I dunno what it does, Google it ;) I just know it works. For example, my almost ancient Nvidia 740 can get me up to 2550 x 1440 even though I am (God help me) stuck with a truly ancient 1600 x 900 monitor at the moment. While my monitor physically can't ever really put out 1080p, stuff sure looks better with the resolution forced up to that 2550 x 1440. I haven't tested it in heavy situations yet, but there's no major stuttering thus far, unless I mod the trees too much -- that hits my performance pretty hard but my system is probably like half what yours is.

 

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2. MODDING INI FILES:

 

BEFORE you download Bethini, use Skyrim's loader to set everything to Ultra AF. Turn the Godrays to max, the shadows, the grass, TAA, everything. Then login to the game (new save old save I don't care) and make sure the Depth of Field slider is turned as LOW as possible. Now look around at some stuff. Too smooth? Quit and try TXAA instead. Still too smooth? Try No Antialiasing at all. Can't tell the difference? God, I'm so jealous. TAA is blurry AF, TXAA is a *bit* less blury, and AA off is *sharp* BUT comes at the price of edges looking *too* sharp in the end. Pick what you like best, though if you get into Reshade and/or ENB, your choices may change to match someone's preset needs (or your own).

 

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3. Now MAKE COPIES OF YOUR Skyrim.ini and Skyrimprefs.ini and put them somewhere safe where they can't be lost/deleted/modified.

 

4. Download Bethini and run it, then pick Bethini (as opposed to vanilla), recommended tweaks, ULTRA (your system is beefy, you'll be fine...*I* can do it on mine).

 

Settings which matter most to you for blurriness are Depth of Field, lens flare, and antistrophic (I probably misspelled that) lens flare. The snow shader can figure in somewhat too, but that one is really personal preference.

 

You really truly want to uncheck the box for Depth of Field so that it's disabled.

This one thing gets rid of a LOT of the blur in Skyrim at any sort of distance.

 

Antistrophic lens flare are the horizontal lines of blurry "light" you see on various things, mostly candle flames. I hate them, and by the sound of it, you do too. Uncheck the box.

The other lens flare is for the more round/shiny blooming effects. I've disabled that one too, though it doesn't necessarily affect looking right at the sun no matter what.

I personally think the "new improved snow shader" also sucks, so I have all that turned off - you will base your decision on what mods you load up for weather and/or snow.

 

REMEMBER THAT ONCE YOU TWEAK YOUR INI YOU *MUST* make any new changes to your ini manually or through Bethini -- opening up the loader will mess up stuff because the loader apparently auto-resets some things you normally couldn't touch except by tweaking, and all of the half dozen guides I've read on the topic say that can be game breakingly bad. In any case, this is why you saved copies of your files....

 

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5. Required console commands (I've not found any other way)

 

After doing all this, login and look around again.

There is a *perpetual* fog in Skyrim. Even if the weather is clear...there is still haze.

 

The only way I've found to kill it is to make a batch file that I just load up right at the beginning of a game in the console commands.

(Batch files are just named text files that go into your Data directory where all the other mod stuff is. You can make them in notepad. You load them inside the game by typing "bat filename" with no quotes.)

 

My batch file for fog is called "see.txt" - it contains the following console command:

 

Setfog 0,55555555

 

This pushes the haze/fog WAY into the distance, but doesn't turn it off entirely. Play around with the second number (I've never had good luck changing the first number) till you find what you like. Sometimes, when I want to see but I want foggy weather, I'll set it as low as 0,20000. Anyway, if you hate what you did and want it reverted, just type "Setfog 0,0" to return to the game default. You can fiddle with this in game on any save to your heart's content and be fine without corrupting anything.

 

This setting will. not. save. with your game file.

You have to do it at least once every time you login or reload.

 

Now...if you want a fun test, type something really high like Setfog 0,99999999

 

Look around, then type tfog

 

As you can probably see, toggling the fog COMPLETELY off via that command **gets rid of some kind of up-close visual effect/shader/shomething** even AFTER you've already pushed the fog back to some insane distance with the Setfog command. I'm still messing around with this to see what's up with that....for now, because I do want my foggy weather to be foggy, I have my fog set as I mentioned above, and accept the immersion breaking need to maybe type in the tfog command or move it farther back now and then.

 

If you want to see how weather is affected by this stuff, you can force the weather to be foggy by typing:

fw 10a7a7

 

force it to clear weather with

fw 81a

 

and force it back to default weather with

fw 15e

 

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6. Poorly coded Godrays (Come ON Bathesda!)

 

Now that you're done messing with outdoor fog, it's STILL not time to actually mod the game....

 

First you get to double check how those Godrays are *really* working out for you. My daughter simply cannot play with the Godrays enabled. Pretty as they are, they absolutely DO add a yellow haze over...everything. If they were precise strips of light that ONLY cast beams from the sky to the ground, that'd be snazzy...but they aren't. I spent four and a half hours messing with this on every possible setting mixed with various fog and TAA vs TXAA vs no AA etc...and taking screen shots. I'm not posting them. Trust me, the Godrays leave a haze. Some idiot at Bethesda apparently said "covering everything in a shade of yellow "brightens" it and makes it look like light is falling on it, right?" I want to devour his soul.

 

Anyhoo... you'll just have to poke around with the Godrays and see which setting you like, but you need to do it here - AFTER you've fixed everything else so far and AFTER you've fixed the fog to your liking. Playing without Godrays enabled at all takes a good bit of the visual coolness out of several places in the game, so spend the time you need to make this look "right" to you. As I said, my daughter simply cannot parse the colors with them enabled, and I have them set to low because the haze gets on *my* nerves if I'm trying to just play the game rather than stand around in/near Riften staring up at the very well lit almost magical trees :P

 

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MODS! (We made it!)

 

I consider Interior Floating Fog Remover (Mod# 4298) to be *essential* if my daughter is trying to play.

It does what it says in the name.

All this mod does is replace the billion nifs/dds for fog/smoke/dust/etc with blanks. That's it. You might even see a performance boost since rendering blank nifs is easier on your system than rendering full ones. Anyway, I'm pretty sure you can install or uninstall it without fear of corrupting a save because it doesn't really change anything (no scripts, no esp).

 

My 2nd favorite is Remove Interior Fog (Mod# 11983) - This changes the default fog values for umpteen interiors. No matter where LOOT thinks you should load it, I'd put it pretty near the bottom of your load order or you'll find some other mods that bother to mention interior areas will revert the fog there back to the game defaults. If you're *really* serious about modding interiors, it's worth putting in the time to resolve conflicts between this mod and your other interior mods. I *think* everything this mod aims to do can also done by enbs and/or reshaders, but it's nice to have it you're not using those yet (or don't want to do so). Barring this, tfog works indoors too.

 

There's a great mod called HD Candle Flames (Mod#15027). In addition to the flames he created being just fabulously beautiful, the mod author luxor8071 took the time to make a blank dds for me, so I could completely remove the candle "glow" around flames for my daughter's visual needs. I recommend the entire mod, as I've tried several and I think his flames look better even than SMIM's version...and that no-glow around the candle flame is a must have for a blur-free experience :)

 

No Camera Filters (Mod# 13735) is also nice for my daughter. It gets rid of a lot of blurring effects. I honestly like the *temporary* blurring effects for immersion reasons, but it's essential for her and you might like it.

 

Remove Blood (Mod#8010) gets rid of that absurd "blood in your eyes" screen effect without messing with any other aspect of blood/combat. No scripts, no esp, nice and easy.

 

I haven't gotten the dynamic adaptation mod (#2135) to work with my load order, but it looks promising. Thus far, I've removed most of my black crush issues with that monitor calibration I mentioned back 13000 lines ago. Definitely bakes some stuff into your saves though -- I feel obligated to warn you that my first CTD came after installing this mod, but as I knew *nothing* about the need to resolve mod conflicts and was running a heavy mod list at the time (that was probably *infested* with conflicts), I won't say it was the mod's fault by any means.

 

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I haven't had time to fiddle with enbs since my CTD above.

 

Reshade worked for me...sometimes... and there are two presets you can find by searching for "clear" - both have pros and cons, so you'll have to mess around and see which you like better. I need to get the bazillion conflicts out of my load order (now that I know a bit more about resolving conflicts hehe) before I mess with reshade again though.

 

I have, as yet, been unable to find a SINGLE lighting mod on Nexus that doesn't make interiors too bleeping dark. I even tried ELFX with the patch someone put up to make said mod "brighter" -- but it wasn't "brighter" enough for *me* (let alone my daughter) which is really sad because of the stuff I've downloaded thus far, ELFX made the outdoors look pretty fabulous. My best luck with interiors was through Luminosity (#16830), but it *did* make a couple of spots (most notably that hideous floor fire in Breezehome) *too* bright *sigh*.

 

Good luck, hope this helps.