Enhance my Skyrim without hitting fps too hard

[PvtJkr88]

Hey, I am pretty new to Skyrim on PC and one of the main reasons I got it was to add mods to make Skyrim beautiful and just enjoy it. I have dabbled with adding mods onto my game which I've had some success with but some of them seem to give me HUGE frame drops in certain areas and it really ruins my immersion. I want to be playing the game at 60 fps at all times if possible. So my question to you guys is, what mods can I safely add that won't hit my frame rate too much but make the world look a lot prettier?

 

My PC specs are:

Intel Core i3-2120 CPU @ 3.30 Ghz (4CPUs)

8GB RAM

AMD Radeon HD7850

 

Please be gentle I am new to this :tongue:

[Deleted1308005User]

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/12525 Dynavision, dynamic or static DOF, can be configured easily in-game.

 

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/13049 A bit similar to ENB's? Except this one does not kill your FPS with horrible stutter and lag. And it doesn't make everything look like shiny butterflies and rainbows.

 

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/13531 Ultra realistic world lighting. Does exactly what it sounds like. Makes lighting much better.

 

All these can be combined, first two can be configured in-game via NPC. (Summonable with spell)

 

And all these combined affects your FPS minimally, if at all.

[Celegon]

Custom Lighting Overlay. Similar in principle to Imaginator, and very "fps friendly" too. The screenshoots doesn't do it justice, but it's one of my favorite.

[dayglo98]

you could try Stakado's CinemaScope ENB, it's a very light ENB (No SSAO which is the biggest performance killer on ENB's, and no Bokeh DOF). Still looks very good and I'm at 60 fps MOST of the time. (Mind you I have lots of other graphical mods)

 

My system is quite like yours, i5-2500k (at 4.2Ghz though) and MSI Radeon HD7850

 

http://i360.photobucket.com/albums/oo50/dayglo98/Skyrim/enb2012_11_17_6_2_20.png

 

http://i360.photobucket.com/albums/oo50/dayglo98/Skyrim/ScreenShot8.png

Edited December 10, 2012 by dayglo98

[PvtJkr88]

Ok thanks for the replies guys, gonna check some of these out and let you know how I get on! :dance:

[bben46]

FPS is highly overrated. Movies and TV are at 24fps. Xbox is capped at 30fps.

 

Capping the FPS can actually help with some of those low fps times as the video card has a little overhead to compensate for the sudden change. After some experimentation, I capped mine at 42. Now I run on high graphics settings and zero stuttering.

 

Tweaking your Operating Sys and video card can help a lot also - do them before tweaking the game.

 

Best tweaking advice - http://www.tweakguides.com/

 

 

More on FPS - http://s1.zetaboards.com/bbenlibrary/topic/4942696/1/?x=0#post694365

[LargeStyle]

FPS is highly overrated

Well and truly agreed and seconded. I cap everything to 30 fps max as I've spent a lot of time with Xbox 360 and PS3, and now I'm back on pc I always trade off and unwanted performance for better visuals (unless I can have both).

 

FPS capping can be a pain though, I've used nVidia driver method plus MSI Afterburner, Rivatuner, and I've always had stuttering even if it's running a smooth 30 fps! So I cap it all via my monitor by running it @ 30Hz - its much better and smoother.

[dayglo98]

What? I thought at your age you would know you can't compare 24 blurred movie frames with 24 discrete rendered frames. Oh well, I know I like my 60 fps. To the OP, you can also set shadows to high instead of ultra, as shadows are done on the cpu and can make a big difference performance wise and none visuals wise while playing.