Skyrim SE or Oldrim after 2 years?

[Wakaxo]

Hey !

 

It's been two/three years since I've played my modded Skyrim, and I want to play it again with a fresh restart.
But I don't know if I should start modding on Oldrim or Skyrim SE, because I used to play on Oldrim.
I'd like to have a very realistic game with really good graphics like I did before, but now I really don't know what to do...

 

Does everyone use Skyrim SE now instead of Oldrim for mods ? Are mods better and updated on SE ?

 

Thanks you !

[srayesmanll]

This has been asked and answered numerous times on the site.  And you'll always get the same answers from the same people:

 

Oldrim fans:  Oldrim is better and Newrim sucks.

Newrim fans:  Newrin is better and Oldrim sucks.

 

Here's my simple answer: 

Look at the mods you like in Oldrim (sex and non-sex).  If Oldrim has mods that are not on Newrim and you cannot play without them (or can't convert them yourself), stick with Oldrim.

OTHERWISE, use Newrim.

 

[prologue1337]

Skyrim SE is a way more stable, I run more frames with a shitload of mods

However... a lot of mods are not converted or are abandoned or may never get supported at all

[FauxFurry]

16 hours ago, srayesmanll said:

This has been asked and answered numerous times on the site.  And you'll always get the same answers from the same people:

 

Oldrim fans:  Oldrim is better and Newrim sucks.

Newrim fans:  Newrin is better and Oldrim sucks.

 

You completely neglected the group who just sees the executable as a means to an end and would recommend whatever works best for one's operating system and hardware configuration. I would recommend Special Edition to anyone with a current  system with at least 16 GB of RAM and about 4 GB of VRAM (pretty much what Memory Patches and plug-ins would be needed to even approach in LE).

Most of the mods have already been ported or can easily be ported so some of the arguments against SE are no longer valid but if one has a lower end system or if one has no interest in any of the newer mods which will or can never be back-ported then I would recommend going with LE instead.

[hogsmaws]

from my understanding, (since the last time i looked into it) there are some sex mods and HDT that still doesn't work in SE. i think alot of ppl still play oldrim bc of these issues. i still play on oldrim and then there is the issue where bethesda releases some updates usually linked to the CC and it alters the game's exe (versioning i assume) and then alot of mod authors have to update their mods (usually mods that have MCM). pain in the ass. not sure if this is still the case and if their CC crap still mucks things up but i'd wager it does.

 

hopefully others can provide "constructive" feedback/corrections on top of this.

[Tiress]

11 hours ago, hogsmaws said:

and then there is the issue where bethesda releases some updates usually linked to the CC and it alters the game's exe (versioning i assume) and then alot of mod authors have to update their mods (usually mods that have MCM). pain in the ass. not sure if this is still the case and if their CC crap still mucks things up but i'd wager it does.

Meh321's Address Library for SKSE Plugins made things way easier in that regard. Not all SKSE plugins use it, but hopefully it's just a matter of time.

[Mez558]

On 4/6/2020 at 5:43 PM, srayesmanll said:

Oldrim fans:  Oldrim is better and Newrim sucks.

Newrim fans:  Newrin is better and Oldrim sucks.

 

I don't know of many people that stick with LE because they think SE sucks. There are probably a few that stick with as some of the mods aren't currently working as well in SE (HDT-SMP seems to be the main one I read about) compared to LE.
I would say most LE/Oldrim/whatever users are not so much fanboys of 32bit games, they just they have a game working as they want it to. Switching to SE makes no real sense if what you have works. Saying that, if I had to install from scratch then I would try SE but I certainly don't see any reason to switch while my current install works... Most of the time.

 

But I agree with the rest of what you said. If you're doing a new install you may as well try SE, if you hate something about it then you've always got LE to fall back on.

[slipshot762]

Struggling with this now myself, as I have but did not know a free copy of SSE by virtue of having bought the base game and its DLC in 32 bit format so long ago. A lot of my must have mods are either not converted or have to be altered slightly to convert, for example, jaxonz positioner, vital as a tool to mitigate bugs from a mod heavy load order via being able to select world objects and move or scale them in game; it IS ported but in the port the hotkeys for the various functionalities are replaced, if i read correclty, by spells. I dislike a spell menu cluttered with spells and powers needed to do what the mcm or hotkeys should. Also I had read that as of last update (to SSE or skse64 i'm not sure) some of its functionality is broken.

 

I use a very simple saturation mod instead of enb on oldrim to make things colorful rather than dull grey (works nicely with enhanced light effects) and I cannot seem to find a counterpart for SSE that does the same to my liking without extra steps; what i have found are mods that are essentially settings or config files for another mod which adjusts these things, but if i read correctly its less of a mod and more a 3rd party program like wyrebash, loot, or a bsa extractor, that you must configure and run and then apply its output to your load order. On legendary I have a simple plugin for that, for example.

 

There is now a "mass installer", wabbajack i think its called, that supposedly does whole modlist downloads and installs, but the matter there is finding an acceptable and compatible modlist to do so with and then build upon w/o conflict. There are so many fundamental little things modwise that are integral for me on legendary that do not seem to readily be ported in a reliable manner to SSE. Example, unlocked grip paired with another mod whose name escapes me just yet allows a mage with a staff to toggle that staff between melee weapon with a spell in the off hand and normal functioning staff; i have yet to find a mod solution for SSE on that point.

 

Conversions are not, contrary to what i have seen bandied about, as easy for me to pull off as many would have you believe. Even after opening a mod in CK and saving it or whatever, if the mod touched upon water anywhere one will still have to run a script in sseEdit to make sure the water goes from 32bit format to the new format, and after running the script one still needs to manually drag the scripts effects to copy over in some cases inside sseEdit.

 

I'd love to just go full-sail SSE, sure, but circumstances are not making it easy to do so, it is hard to give up mods you've used for so long entirely or for a similar but not quite the same version that works with SSE, which then might break with an update to either the game or skse64. Its sorely tempting to go to SSE alone, in the hopes that one can then utilize all the mods that add hundreds of npcs or big civil war battles, but to leave behind what feels like fundamental things to get there is really an ashes in your mouth type of feeling. Add to that the fact that some mods released under one version of skse64 might not play nice with the version you have (which may be a dependancy itself for another equally vital mod) and its agonizing, i've lost 3 days trying to dl a good collection of sse mods and still get what i want. The compromises demanded are infuriating. 

 

And as near as i can tell the whole futile quest would net me as a result only "increased stability", which is not very specific in itself, and ignores that my current setup on LE seems to be perfectly stable so long as i do not try to spawn 100 each of imperials and stormcloaks. Like, is that all SSE will truly get me, just the ability to handle more actors fighting at once? Tempting sure but hardly worth having to change and compromise to do it.

 

As of yet I am still undecided. Especially since some mods, abandoned by their authors, will likely never be properly ported.

[shyguy570]

Big mod projects like Beyond Skyrim: Cyrodiil and Skyblivion are being developed for SE specifically. If you want to be ready play these when they finally release then you'll need SE, as it's uncertain if they'll ever work on LE.

[27X]

SE is more stable in certain conditions.

LE has better mods and looks much better.

 

LE has to be modded like an adult with a brain or race conditions will proliferate

SE has CC and broken half assed graphics.

[Highborn]

I spent the last three days trying to mod SE in order to finally hook it up with, but then I gave up. Although it does seem to run smoothly with heavier mods, I couldn't get the visuals right with multiple tries with weathers and ENBs. Grass mods also looked way bad for some reason. So, the graphics in the end was worse than I had with my LE setup. And since I'm running it stable, it didn't seem worthy anymore. Maybe I'll try again in a few months or next year.

[Derpakiin]

1 hour ago, Highborn said:

I spent the last three days trying to mod SE in order to finally hook it up with, but then I gave up. Although it does seem to run smoothly with heavier mods, I couldn't get the visuals right with multiple tries with weathers and ENBs. Grass mods also looked way bad for some reason. So, the graphics in the end was worse than I had with my LE setup. And since I'm running it stable, it didn't seem worthy anymore. Maybe I'll try again in a few months or next year.

Skyrim SE comes with some bloom shaders and HDR effects (which were never in Oldrim). You can remove them using this mod and it'll end up looking exactly like Oldrim.

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/16987
                                           or

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/13718

 

Additionally, ENB also functions differently on SE and had to be re-made from the ground up, which is why it may look different.

[27X]

58 minutes ago, Derpakiin said:

 You can remove them using this mod and it'll end up looking exactly like Oldrim.

 

 

Your pictures state otherwise pretty flatly, especially droll in light of you posting in the LE thread because no one posts in the SE thread, so no little green thumbs.

 

High range tonemapping, scattered source light diffusion and beyond 0-255 range IBL are pefectly doable in LE as well, so maybe some reading is in your future.

[lambient1988]

 

On 4/6/2020 at 9:41 PM, Wakaxo said:

Hey !

 

It's been two/three years since I've played my modded Skyrim, and I want to play it again with a fresh restart.
But I don't know if I should start modding on Oldrim or Skyrim SE, because I used to play on Oldrim.
I'd like to have a very realistic game with really good graphics like I did before, but now I really don't know what to do...

 

Does everyone use Skyrim SE now instead of Oldrim for mods ? Are mods better and updated on SE ?

 

Thanks you !

 

Hey man, I made a similar thread a few years back (https://www.loverslab.com/topic/70529-skyrim-special-edition-or-original-skyrim/).

And looking at the replies over here, I can say that things have not changed much.

 

LE (Oldrim) still has better mod support, it's clear.

 

With regards to performance, I tested both SE (Newrim) and LE (Oldrim) with heavy mods and ENB. I tried to only use the same mods which were available for both.

As it turned out, the performance was literally the same. I saw no boost in FPS on SE (Newrim). In fact, I used the highest grade RealVision ENB on LE (Oldrim) and some standard good looking ENB on SE (Newrim) which was not even half as heavy as RealVision. Yet, both gave me the same FPS.

 

The rig used was:

AMD FX-8350

16 GB DDR3 RAM

2 x NVIDIA 1060 6GB (SLI)

Running on 1080p

 

 

So I went back to LE (Oldrim) as there was no benefit to using SE (Newrim). In fact, all SE (Newrim) did was limit my mod pool.

 

 

Hope this helps.

[donttouchmethere]

4 hours ago, lambient1988 said:

Hope this helps.

That was the best and unbiased answer I saw related to that question ever ?

[Wakaxo]

Wow, wasn't expecting so much answer, I'm really thankful for your messages, it helped me a lot !

 

I've tried this build that seems quite effective, but still it seems that my old skyrim was way better in terms of graphics

 

@lambient1988 your answer is quite interesting ! You make want to go back on Oldrim because it seems like there is a lot more mods on oldrim, even if a lot of them are update for SE

 

 

[hogsmaws]

7 hours ago, lambient1988 said:

 

 

Hey man, I made a similar thread a few years back (https://www.loverslab.com/topic/70529-skyrim-special-edition-or-original-skyrim/).

And looking at the replies over here, I can say that things have not changed much.

 

 

this reminds me of my work environment. we'll be having the same meeting 6-12 months from now.

[Mez558]

7 hours ago, lambient1988 said:

2 x NVIDIA 1060 6GB (SLI

 

Off topic but I didn't think the 1060 came with SLI I mean clearly it does or you wouldn't be running 2 cards (what does SLI even stand for now, did they backronym it to use the same letters?)

I only say this as I was thinking of twin 1060's as an alternative to shelling out for a 1080ti

 

 

[lambient1988]

5 hours ago, Mez558 said:

 

Off topic but I didn't think the 1060 came with SLI I mean clearly it does or you wouldn't be running 2 cards (what does SLI even stand for now, did they backronym it to use the same letters?)

I only say this as I was thinking of twin 1060's as an alternative to shelling out for a 1080ti

 

 

 

Hi,

 

Some basics for non technical people:

If you want to run a game on two graphic cards, both graphics' cards memory will be filled with the exact same memory. First graphic card will render the first frame, second card will render the second frame.

 

Advanced Stuff:

The reason the SLI port (now renamed to NVLink but it's basically the same thing) on graphics card exists is because the memory between these two cards needs to be constantly updated and while they can communicate using the motherboard's memory bus, it simply does not have enough bandwidth, which is why they used the SLI / NVLink port to communicate.

 

 

In comes DifferentSLIAuto: https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/sli-with-different-cards.158907/

 

It basically forces the cards to uses the motherboard memory bus by turning on the SLI switch, which fools the drivers to think that the cards are running in SLI mode. And the low motherboard memory bus doesn't really affect the game that much.

 

Other games might see some flickering, but Skyrim works without any issues.

 

My two 1060s cannot match the performance of a NVIDIA 1080Ti, but they sure do match the performance of a NVIDIA 1080 at a way cheaper price.

 

Unfortunately, SLI and NVLink are dying and barely any games support it these days. So it's obviously a better decision to get a single better card even if the price is higher.

 

 

EDIT: If you plan on rendering on softwares such as Blender, clearly two 1060 will be the better option as they match the performance of a 1080 and you don't need SLI / NVLink for rendering.

[lambient1988]

5 hours ago, Wakaxo said:

Wow, wasn't expecting so much answer, I'm really thankful for your messages, it helped me a lot !

 

I've tried this build that seems quite effective, but still it seems that my old skyrim was way better in terms of graphics

 

@lambient1988 your answer is quite interesting ! You make want to go back on Oldrim because it seems like there is a lot more mods on oldrim, even if a lot of them are update for SE

 

 

 

That's true, I remember that my Skyrim SE (Newrim) looked crap compared to Skyrim LE (Oldrim) because of the lack of vegetation mods like grass, terrain, trees, flora etc.

[Mez558]

22 minutes ago, lambient1988 said:

 

 

In comes DifferentSLIAuto: https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/sli-with-different-cards.158907/

 

It basically forces the cards to uses the motherboard memory bus by turning on the SLI switch, which fools the drivers to think that the cards are running in SLI mode. And the low motherboard memory bus doesn't really affect the game that much.

 

Other games might see some flickering, but Skyrim works without any issues.

 

My two 1060s cannot match the performance of a NVIDIA 1080Ti, but they sure do match the performance of a NVIDIA 1080 at a way cheaper price.

 

Unfortunately, SLI and NVLink are dying and barely any games support it these days. So it's obviously a better decision to get a single better card even if the price is higher.

 

 

Yeah after asking the question I just googled it and found out about SLIAuto.
 

[KristyllLascivicious]

Of course this is all opinion.  Though I think SE is a lot better now for modding than it was originally.

 

LE can look better because of the superior mod support and generally-superior ENB options.

 

That said, the stability on SE is unreal for shitty modders like me who can barely get LE to run.  I started playing Skyrim (SE) again and got pretty much all that I needed to get going (about 70 mods) up and running within a day.  I've had one CTD since, around 40 hours deep into a playthrough.  I think the longest I went on LE running a heavily-modded playthrough was like... two hours, with whatever errors I was having avoiding whatever debug tools I installed.

 

For a casual modder, SE is an order of magnitude more stable and runs way smoother on a fairly modern computer.  3BBB is the easiest time I've ever had installing any kind of physics.  The documentation is all pretty much there and fairly new, too, which helps a lot when googling around to solve problems, rather than getting an outdated explanation/mod dependency on something long-past supported or what have you from an obscure forum in 2012.

 

The biggest issue I have with SE right now is the lack of clothing/accessory mods.  While these *can* be converted from LE to SE, it's time-consuming and my OS skills to fix the meshes are awful.

 

I'm pretty sure ENB stuff is in the works, and given more clothing/armor options, I'd probably stay on SE and never look back.  The stability and simplicity (since we're starting out with a lot of stuff remade-redesigned and fixed from LE) really is remarkable.

[Derpakiin]

On 4/8/2020 at 3:29 PM, 27X said:

Your pictures state otherwise pretty flatly, especially droll in light of you posting in the LE thread because no one posts in the SE thread, so no little green thumbs.

 

High range tonemapping, scattered source light diffusion and beyond 0-255 range IBL are pefectly doable in LE as well, so maybe some reading is in your future.

That's because I play LE.

 

Someone wants their SE to look like LE, I just provide SE mod options for them so that they can enjoy modding Skyrim. There's no need to throw personal insults because you don't like other people playing SE.

[Ronnie Alvarez]

i prefer oldrim due to the new update for skyrim SE AE patch actually makes the game mods break. oldrim is a way to go because of it. Skyrim SE is far more worse that it is.

Edited November 27, 2021 by Ronnie Alvarez

[Ends_and_Memes]

On 11/26/2021 at 7:23 PM, Ronnie Alvarez said:

i prefer oldrim due to the new update for skyrim SE AE patch actually makes the game mods break. oldrim is a way to go because of it. Skyrim SE is far more worse that it is.

I feel this on a spiritual level. I messed up my back up so I had to delete it. So just to get SSE to "work" with most of my mods the way that they were I have to install, use the downgrade patcher and cross my fingers. Somewhat unrelated but I think it is relevant in terms of adult mods. I haven't modded oldrim at all, however over the past year I've been trying to get SSE to work, AND look right. Problem is, try as I might I'm met with neck seam, face discoloration, or neck line, Idk if it's a texture issue, lighting issue, esp issue, or I just need a new computer. (I combed xedit and found that my skin files were pointing to the right textures i.e. textures/actors/character/female/femalebody_1.dds so honestly I have no clue what's going on at this point) Nifskope shows my NIF's are pointing to the right paths for textures too.

 

I've tried multiple textures, BHUNP CBBE 3BA for bodies, Different lighting and weathers mods ENB and no ENB Followed mod guides consulted this site, google etc. I have an rtx2060 6gb and 16gb of ram and my rig is only a year old. I have uninstalled/reinstalled Skyrim SE and MO2 multiple times over the last few months. Spent hours I don't wanna think about making sure my LO is optimal, no textures are being overwritten following every single step for every single mod, and yet even with just CBBE USSEP and ASLAL I have seams and weird looking characters. From my understanding old rim has much better options as far as making the game look right/better. Hopefully some more experienced individuals can speak on this issue but Bugthesda and SSE have made me want to give up modding Bethesda games entirely.

Edited December 18, 2021 by Ends_and_Memes