Is there any such thing as a good ENB for lower-spec machines?

[Ches]

I'd love to use an ENB for the sake of taking higher-quality screenshots, but I can't afford to lose more than maybe five FPS -- I can only barely manage 30fps as is (I can play the vanilla game on high settings at a resolution of 1366x768, which gives me 25-30 fps on average).

[Ark of Truth]

Nope, ENB improves graphics at the cost of FPS.

[Ches]

Nope, ENB improves graphics at the cost of FPS.

 

I know, but are there any good ones that adequately enhance the game while keeping that FPS loss to a minimum?

[FastestDogInTheDistrict]

There are - but if you're struggling to hit 30fps in pure Vanilla with no texture mods, you might struggle to find one that looks good but still gives adequate playability.

 

"Shrutesh" has done some good ones - ZONER's High Performance ENB

 

                                                            - ZONER's Sky-Real ENB

 

If it's just screenshots you're wanting to do, those might be good options. I'm not sure what they would be like for general playability if your machine is having such a hard time, but they might be worth a try.

[Cyndi]

Realistic Lighting Overhaul might be a good alternative to an ENB if you want something for playing.  Performance hit seems minimal, (I actually find I get slightly better fps in some places using it) and kinda essential for me, as I don't use an enb at all.  It does make things much darker though, as they are aiming for realism. 

You might also want to check out "the configurator".  After a little tweaking with that I managed to get textures up to very high, and I'm on a laptop.  Its like a much more comprehensive set of settings to adjust for graphics.  It does it by editing one of the ini files, and makes back-ups in case you do something silly.

 

 

RLO: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/30450

 

Configurator: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/814

[Ches]

Thanks for the help.

 

 

Realistic Lighting Overhaul might be a good alternative to an ENB if you want something for playing.  Performance hit seems minimal, (I actually find I get slightly better fps in some places using it) and kinda essential for me, as I don't use an enb at all.  It does make things much darker though, as they are aiming for realism. 

You might also want to check out "the configurator".  After a little tweaking with that I managed to get textures up to very high, and I'm on a laptop.  Its like a much more comprehensive set of settings to adjust for graphics.  It does it by editing one of the ini files, and makes back-ups in case you do something silly.

 

 

RLO: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/30450

 

Configurator: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/814

 

What changes did you make exactly to bump yourself up to very high/ultra?

[Cyndi]

I found the biggest performance eaters for me were the particles. Turning the max # of them down did quite a bit, I didn't want to turn them off however, there are a few things that just don't look right without them. 

I also lowered decals and the decal draw distance a bit.  Grids I think I dropped down to 3.  Grids (UGrids actually so I'm told) tells skyrim how many cells to load around you at once (it might do other stuff too, idk for sure) I forget off hand what the multiple of it is, but 5 grids is like 20 or 25 cells, and all the stuff contained there in. Which is a whole lot of stuff for your system to load.

FXAA, and MSAA, didn't make a big difference for me visually, but they played hell with load times so those went off.

Personally I didn't care about animated trees so those went off, and I lowered my grass density too.

 

Basically, if I didn't care about it, I lowered it or turned it off. If I didn't know what it did, I looked it up then decided, or played trial and error.

Break it down into things that are important to you vs not so much, and things you don't need at all. Then adjust them accordingly. Try to only do one or two things at a time though, so you can see which ones are really affecting you. 

 

A good thing to do while you are trying stuff though, is open the video directory of your skyrim folder, and move the .bik file somewhere else temporarily.  This will keep that intro thing from playing every time you open up the game.  Just makes relaunching the game a few times a lot less tedious while you see where you can cut down, and where you can't, or don't really want to.

[Ches]

Awesome.  Thanks for the help.

[Ches]

For the record, Zoners High-End ENB (highest quality) and RLO seem to be working just fine for what I need.  A bit of an FPS hit, but nothing that can't be overlooked.  Thanks again.