Looking for the top Realistic looking mods..

[PlasmaR]

Interesting, I started a similar thread myself (here) looking for advice about graphics mods, but so far I haven't really got the information I'm looking for.

 

The first issue I found when installing mods was that several of them modify the same files and so you can't really run them both fully at the same time because you have to choose one set of files to overwrite the other set. Like the Skyrim HD mod modifies some of the same files as both the W.A.T.E.R and the SMIM mods, so you end up with a mix of files from all three mods, and I'm not sure if that's a good thing. Would something like that not lead to instability in the game? Or is that just perfectly normal in Skyrim modding?

 

Also there seems to be tons of different advice on how to setup your .ini file, so what's the story with that? Should I take the advice from this Nvidia article: Five Fast Skyrim Tweaks Guaranteed To Make Your Game Look Better, as some mods seem to suggest, or what? What sort of things do you guys do to your .ini files?

 

After I installed a few mods and tweaked the ini file I got some better visuals, but there was also some weird visual artefacts, like a sort of aliasing on background mountains that looked really bad and massive amounts of light glow when you enter a cave (i.e. the sun shining in the cave opening behind you looks way too glowy and unrealistic and takes up most of the screen with blue light).

 

Does anybody have any general advice on graphics mods, like how to properly use them and which ones are the best ones to get?

Edited April 20, 2013 by PlasmaR

[Malosar]

To be honest I've found that just trying a lot of them myself and making my own decision on what I like is the best way to go. The problem with asking what the best looking mods are is that it's very subjective. ENB's are a perfect example. There are lots of ENB's out there with different styles, color palettes, lighting changes, dof methods etc and many of them are very popular. That's because each person is looking for something that suits what they think their Skyrim should look like.

[sgcdialler]

And there are those, such as myself, who prefer to stay away from ENBs all together, if mainly because of the performance hit. Personally, I prefer to use the FXAA post-injector, because it's an overlay and I can change it during a game to suit my taste, just just turn it off without closing the game. As for layer mods over eachother, what I have taken to doing is categorizing mods based on what they change.

As I said in my previous post, I use Skyrim HD, Static Mesh Overhaul, and WATER. I also install them in that order, because each one changes fewer (or different) things, but some of them overlap. So if two mods change the same thing and you prefer one change over the other, install the preferred one last. NMM gives you the option to overwrite some files and not others when you're installing a mod that overlaps with another.

As for changing the INI files, that can sometimes be a tricky experience, for the exact reason you said. About the only thing I have changed in mine is I upped the number of exterior cells to load from 5 to 7, and enabled tree and rock self-shadowing. There is an excellent tutorial on tweaking the Prefs.ini here.

 

As far as looking for the best mods, it may very well be subjective. The old adage "this is not a popularity contest" would immediately apply. However, looking at the mods that are the most popular would be at the very least a good place to start.

[PlasmaR]

I followed the advice from that ini tweaking guide and it seems to have done some good for the visuals, but of course there is some slow down of performance (still perfectly playable, but a bit sluggish).

 

I was wondering if I should get this mod: HIALGOBOOST GPU UPGRADE. It claims to massively increase performance, which is obviously something I'd be interested in, but does it actually work? Has anyone tried it?

 

Edit: Oh also, when I installed the W.A.T.E.R. mod I got a few oddities with lighting, like this...

http://img268.imageshack.us/img268/9632/whiterunsunshine.jpg

 

You can see that the Sun is behind this building in Whiterun, but it's still shining through (or at least the lens flare is still coming through). I'm not sure what would be causing an issue like that, whether it's something to do with the mod or just something with my settings, any ideas?

Edited April 20, 2013 by PlasmaR

[PlasmaR]

Can I get a response to this? Any advice?

[Malosar]

WATER won't add godrays or sunflares, that's usually from a lighting mod or an ENB.

[AsheedMapants]

I agree with Malosar. I doubt a water mod would add lens flare or godrays. What else do you have installed?

 

Also, have you tried any ENB's? I was in the same boat as you, in that I wanted a good looking, yet realistic Skyrim. I wasn't sure about ENBs, but after trying SkyrimTuner Realistic ENB along with a few other mods, I got the exact realistic look I was going for. The end result looks like the screenshots on the last page, but I also have a preset on my monitor for gaming that tones down the color and makes it pretty close to photo realistic. I also was surprised that I didn't take much of a performance hit. I have almost 50 mods installed along with the ENB, and I still get around 30-45 FPS with a midrange PC.