Skyrim on Ultra not very Ultra.

[Tessina]

I set Skyrim on max settings on everything, but while it is beautiful it also doesn't look right.

 

The biggest letdown are Shadows being blocky and unrealistic, and so many textures are blurry or very low rez, it is a mix of some things are high rez and other items not even close and it varies.. some armors are high rez others very low rez.. rocks, books, etc.  

 

I have the High Rez DLC and the unofficial High Rez patch. I have tried it with Mod Organizer managing them and without to no effect.  I've also tried to let NIVIDA GeForce Experience take a crack at it and no avail.   

 

Intel i7-4771 3.50GHz

8GB Ram

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650

 

I am not good with manually modifying things and took me a little bit to get SKSE, Uncapper, and FNIS working.

 

Is ENB the only way to make it look good?  I glanced at  it and think I fried my brain trying to figure out how to install it.. or which to choose.

 

 

  

 

[gaggedgirl123]

For texture quality, there are TONS of packs available as mods, I definitely recommend aMidianBorn's armors and weapons. they made other stuff too, but these are the two I use from them. Then there's W.A.T.E.R, XCE Character Enhancement, body packs, you name it!

Also, do yourself a favor and get Static Mesh Improvement Mod. it fixes a TON of objects looking wrong, and doesn't affect performance that much.

 

 

Now, the lighting part... you're stuck with ENBs on that one. The vanilla lighting is HORRIBLE, and no amount of INI tweaks can correct it. It's like Beth WANTED their game to look bad even on high end systems.

 

installation is pretty simple though. get ENBseries from the ENB blog. install it in your skyrim folder. Get your chosen preset (example: Seasons of Skyrim ENB), copy it into the Skyrim folder, overwrite everything.

 

only thing you'll have to check is the ENB version required. if it's anything over 0.221, just get the latest version and you'll be alright. Under that though, take the recommended file on the mod description for the settings you'Re gonna download. Reason for that is that ENB overhauled quite a few things before that version, including the effect of certain values.

[myuhinny]

If you plan on using any ENB's I would suggest getting rid of the NIVIDA GeForce Experience I use to have the NIVIDA GeForce Experience I removed it because it was causing errors when I was running any ENB.

[Mister X]

 

For mods that make Skyrim LOOK more realistic, use STEP - Skyrim Total Enhancement Project.

For mods that make Skyrim PLAY more realistic, use GEMS - Gameplay Enhancement Mods for Skyrim

 

STEP overhaul nearly any optical part, and also provides you a guide of how to make your game more stable, so tweak the .ini files, your graphic card settings, ... to optimize the way Skyrim and ENB can work.

GEMS then offers many mods that overhaul the gameplay but with the intention to still keep it immersive.

 

So my suggestion: Use MO (like mentioned in STEP), then build (at least) two profiles: One for STEP and GEMS mod, for a serious immersive gameplay (but you WILL feel the difference to Vanilla ), the other one STEP and LL mods, to relax after work

[Tessina]

If you plan on using any ENB's I would suggest getting rid of the NIVIDA GeForce Experience I use to have the NIVIDA GeForce Experience I removed it because it was causing errors when I was running any ENB.

 

I just removed it, interestingly though.. even though it is gone and I have Skyrim set to full screen mode, it still opens up window'd (as in is full screen but you can alt tab and it stays in background and acts like it is in a window).  Not sure how that is happening unless a setting within SKSE itself.

 

For texture quality, there are TONS of packs available as mods, I definitely recommend aMidianBorn's armors and weapons. they made other stuff too, but these are the two I use from them. Then there's W.A.T.E.R, XCE Character Enhancement, body packs, you name it!

Also, do yourself a favor and get Static Mesh Improvement Mod. it fixes a TON of objects looking wrong, and doesn't affect performance that much.

 

 

Now, the lighting part... you're stuck with ENBs on that one. The vanilla lighting is HORRIBLE, and no amount of INI tweaks can correct it. It's like Beth WANTED their game to look bad even on high end systems.

 

installation is pretty simple though. get ENBseries from the ENB blog. install it in your skyrim folder. Get your chosen preset (example: Seasons of Skyrim ENB), copy it into the Skyrim folder, overwrite everything.

 

only thing you'll have to check is the ENB version required. if it's anything over 0.221, just get the latest version and you'll be alright. Under that though, take the recommended file on the mod description for the settings you'Re gonna download. Reason for that is that ENB overhauled quite a few things before that version, including the effect of certain values.

 

Will Static Mesh Improvements work with Mod Organizer, I read somewhere don't even try it.. 

 

And realized I should probably post mod list so can see what I have already for recommendations and what I can drop to make room for better mods.  

(some have multiple ESP's)

 

-JK- Crafting Breakdown -Junk Melting Smelting-

Acquisitive Soul Gems

All Black Dark Brotherhood Armor

alteredbeginning

Ambient Seagulls

ApachiiSkyHair

Arcadias Cauldron

Better Animal Footsteps

Bound Arrows

Bow Start

Catlike Khajiit

Character Creation Overhaul

Christchex Better Night Eye

Civil War Overhaul

Climates of Tamriel - Weather Patch (includes Winter edition)

Cloaks of Skyrim

Covereyes

Coverkhajiits

Craftable Arrows and Lockpicks

Cutting Room Floor

Dark Brotherhood - Shrouded Armor Overhaul

Dark Brotherhood Reborn - Dawnstar Sanctuary

Deadly Dragons

Death Alternative - Your Money or Your Life

Designs of the Nords

"Digitigrade Khajiit"

"Dorjiram Female Khajiit Companion

Draugr retexture by JazzJR

EcthelionOtW Dawnguard Weapons

EcthelionOtW Mage Equipment Overhaul

EK_LimitedItems

EotW Mage Equipment Overhaul - College Mage Robes

EotW Mage Equipment Overhaul - Long Mage Robes

EstrusForSkyrim

Expanded Snow Systems - Climates of Tamriel Version

Expanded Towns and Cities

EzE's Artifact Disenchanting

Fires Hurt

Flora Respawn Fix

Fluffkins Immersive Lock Picking Mod

Fores New Idles in Skyrim

Frostfall - Hypothermia Camping Survival

Fuz Ro D-oh - Silent Voice

Gildergreen Regrown

HDT Physics Extensions

Height Adjusted Races with True Giants

Helgen Reborn

Helmet Toggle - Show Hide

Hunterborn

Immersive Animations

Immersive Armors

Immersive College of Winterhold

Immersive Fallen Trees Mod

Immersive HUD - iHUD

Immersive Weapons

iNeed - Food Water and Sleep

Inns and Taverns

JazzJR CoverKhajiits Bodytexture

JazzJR CoverKhajiits Female Bodytexture

Khajiit Follower Kahlee

Khajiit Housecarls

Khajiit Merchants Buy Stolen Items

Khajiit Serana

Khajiit Skaal

Khajiit Speak - Complete Dialogue Overhaul

Khajiit Wife

Khajiit Wild Eyes

KhajiitChild Maisha

Kisa Khajiit nude fur textures

Lanterns of Skyrim - All In One

Locational Damage

Long Bow Retextured

Lorkhans Vision - Night Sky

Main Menu Spinning Skyrim Emblem

Marry a female Khajiit - Brelyna Maryon becomes Khajiit

MFVM - More Follower Voices Mod Plus Khajiit Marriage

More accurate Khajiit chin and lips paint

Morning Fogs

Multiple Marriages-Spouse Dress Up-Rehousing-And More

My Body Is Not Jello - Bounce XML 3.2

Mystical Illumination - Glowing Signs

Nicer-Looking Khajiit

Nightingale Hall Restored - Karliah as a Follower

No heavy muscular walk and idle

OneTweak

Ponytail Hairstyles v3_0

Private Needs

Project Reality - Climates Of Tamriel-V3

Project Ultimatum - Gameplay and Roleplay Enhancement

Prostitutes of Skyrim

"PSVAC 0981

RaceMenu

Rainbows

Rayeks End - Mini Hideout

Real Shelter - Full Release

Realistic Lighting Overhaul

Realistic Ragdolls and Force

Reneers Crime Overhaul

ReProccer - Automated SkyRe patch generator

Riverwood Millhouse

Run For Your Lives

SexLabFramework (includes multiple sexlab mods)

Shooting Stars

SkyFalls + SkyMills

SkyRe Compatibility and ReProccer Patches

Skyrim Coin Replacer Redux

Skyrim Misc Patches Collection - SMPC

Skyrim Unlimited Rings And Amulets

SkyTEST - Realistic Animals and Predators

SkyUI

Smooth draw and Sheathe sfx

Sneak Tools

Sound of Barenziah

Sounds of Skyrim – Civilization

Sounds of Skyrim - The Dungeons

Sounds of Skyrim - The Wilds

Splash of Rain

Strotis Outdoor Toilet Resource

Subliminal Traps 2

Supreme and Volumetric Fog

Supreme Storms for Climates of Tamriel

T3nd0s Skyrim Redone

Talkative Khajiit Spouses

Thalmor only use Elven Weapons and Armor

Thalmor Party fix

The Bosmeric Drunken Huntsman 2.0

The Bow of the Drow

The Paarthurnax Dilemma

The Real Warmaidens

The Scottish Bannered Mare

Thieves Guild and Nightingale Sleeveless Armor

Thieves Guild Requirements - No Auto Quest Start Brynjolf

Training Dummies and Targets

Traps Make Noise - More Dangerous Traps

True Medieval Tavern Music

Ultra Realistic Bow Shoot Sounds

Unclaimed Delivery

Underwater Swimming SFX Fix

Unmanaged: Dawnguard

Unmanaged: Dragonborn

Unmanaged: HearthFires

Unmanaged: HighResTexturePack01

Unmanaged: HighResTexturePack02

"Unmanaged: HighResTexturePack03

"Unmanaged: yogweapons ( no idea what this is or how to get rid of it but disabled the esp.)

Unofficial Dawnguard Patch

Unofficial Dragonborn Patch

Unofficial Hearthfire Patch

Unofficial High Resolution Patch

Unofficial Skyrim Patch

UNP BLESSED BODY- UNPB REDUX PROJECT

UNPB BBP Pregnant Body (beta) by b3lisario

VioLens - A Killmove Mod

Virtus Imperii - Imperial Gear Re-mastered

WARZONES - Civil Unrest

Weapons and Armor Fixes Remade

Wet and Cold (includes ashes)

When Vampires Attack

WhiterunTrees

Windmills resized

Winter Is Coming - Cloaks

Ysolda replacer to Khajiit race

[FauxFurry]

You could try giving InjectSMAA a chance to see if it gives you the look that you want and for minimal FPS drop if any. You might not even think that you're looking at the same game for a few minutes after booting up with it installed.

It doesn't really look good with custom character skin colors since the head always comes out as the default color,though.

 

http://mrhaandi.blogspot.com/p/injectsmaa.html

 

You could also remove one of the Khajiit female texture packs since they do the same thing or maybe both and replace them with a texture pack that doesn't require an .esp file to leave a slot open for another mod. I'm not even sure if Pretty Khajiit is needed when using Cat-like Khajiits but I haven't actually checked it just yet so I can't say for certain.

[Veladarius]

Try this progam, it will allow you to change a number of graphics settings not in the standard Skyrim menu including a lot of shadowing options as well as a lot of others.

 

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/814/?

 

 

[Tessina]

Thank you all for your suggestions, am starting over from scratch and see if I can do this right. ^,^

[Deathbydestiny]

You need to understand, games are designed for consoles these days and as such are limited to the hardware of those consoles.

 

Skyrim was designed and optimized for the hardware of an Xbox 360. The equivalent is about a ~8 year old mid range PC. In addition, many things were done pretty sloppy, for example the shadows.

 

ENB's and retextures are about as much as you can do to help fix this. These things do come at a cost even to newer PCs however

[Leito86]

You're going to need a better graphics card if you want to use a good ENB with acceptable/consistent FPS.

 

I recently upgraded from a 660GTX and was occasionally getting lag/stutters with some of the performance versions of popular ENBs such as RealVision and Project ENB.

[Tessina]

You're going to need a better graphics card if you want to use a good ENB with acceptable/consistent FPS.

 

Working on that too ^,^

[Tessina]

Anyone using Static Mesh Improvement Mod  with Mod Organizer and it works?

[Killing Joke]

Yes, SMIM has no issue with MO AFAIK, what's wrong?

[Tessina]

Yes, SMIM has no issue with MO AFAIK, what's wrong?

 

Was looking to download it as recommended but saw this in the posts area so hesitated.

 

" The software Mod Organizer is not supported or recommended for SMIM. There have been countless reports over many months that Mod Organizer doesn't install SMIM properly and causes purple (missing) textures and other issues. Please try Nexus Mod Manager before posting about installation issues."

 

So before I committed to it I wanted to see if others used it with MO and were having issues.

[Killing Joke]

I don't know if you follow STEP's guide but if you do, they have detailed instructions to install it. I have it installed in different MO profiles with different options and never had any issue so far.

[Tessina]

I want to thank you all for you help, Will be perfect I hope when I get my new card next month but it is a LOT better and I found some things i was missing when fixing things in MO (mainly I was editing things in thier original folders not in MO profile)

[Rayblue]

 

 

NIVIDA GeForce Experience

 

The recent version of this has issues with some older ENB versions, such as 0.236.

[Tessina]

 

 

 

NIVIDA GeForce Experience

 

The recent version of this has issues with some older ENB versions, such as 0.236.

 

I removed that per recommendations.