Why I don't use Enb and should you use it? (fps comparison)

[Altwen]

Should you use enb or not? If your gameplay consists mostly of taking screenshots then I'd say yes. It can look much better than the vanilla game if tweaked correctly and since the major downside to enb is decreased fps, it won't matter in photos.  If you want to play the game normally with an enb then it really depends on your machine and your tolerance for low fps. I'm running a Radeon 5600xt and play at 144fps with a 144hz monitor. People will tell you running at greater than 60fps is pointless but I can attest it's not. That is, so long as you have a monitor with a high enough refresh rate to actually display it. If you're used to/don't mind 60 fps then that just means you won't need as much hardware to run an enb cleanly!

 

I normally don't run enb but I've been playing around with it again recently and find that I lose a solid 50fps. Normally I run 144fps in interiors and 90 outdoors, this drops to 90 and 40 respectively with enb enabled. 40 fps shouldn't be acceptable for anyone, especially if you're used to a solid 90+ at all times. This is why I don't use enb, the loss of fidelity is simply not worth it for the stunning still/closeup moments. Mind you, I'm losing 50fps on average, this doesn't even account for actual fps heavy scenes where I've seen it drop to 30 or less while enb is enabled.

 

I'd say if you want to play at 60 fps with enb, then you should first be getting at least 120fps at all times outdoors without enb. If you play on 144 like me you'll probably need to be able to push 150 at all times outdoors. Of course fps is subjective and some people don't care about it at all, go you! I, however, can not go back from 144 to anything less. The smoothness of motion, the heightened control, the sheer immersion is worth more to me than textures and shadows.

 

In order to unlock your framerate you will need to add bLockFrameRate=0 under [Display] in your Skyrim.ini (documents/mygames/skyrim) I highly recommend using Bethini for editing your ini files. The next thing is to set fMaxTime=x under [Havok] where x equals 1 divided by your desired framerate. So fMaxTime=0.00833333 for 120fps or fMaxTime=0.00694444 for 144fps etc. In bethini, this setting is simply labeled as fps and you can set it to the literal fps number you want and it'll do the math automatically. If you need something to track your fps, you can use something like MSI Afterburner, enb itself if you have it installed and press numpad *, or from steam>settings>in game there is an option to show fps counter there.

 

Skyrim has this weird thing where it doesn't run higher than 60fps even if your ini settings are changed, I always have to alt+tab out and back in to the game for my ini cap to actually take effect. I usually do it on the main menu before I load my game and when I don't, I can immediately tell something isn't right. Movement of the camera, motion, everything is just choppy at 60fps. I've made some videos in an attempt to show the difference between 60fps and beyond. My capture software only allows recording of 120fps so I can't capture the full glory of 144fps but I have set the playback to 50% and 25% so you can see the differences and they really do add up to a cleaner look in fast motion.

 

ENB on/off comparison: 120fps capture 50% speed (60fps) 25% speed (30fps) its the same exact scene, one side with enb off (shift+f12) and the other side with it flipped on.

You can see how the left side has smoother motion whereas the right side is constantly stuttering because of the lowered fps. Note that her looks under enb shouldn't be indicative of an optimized enb appearance as she was made to look good in vanilla, not enb. 

 

Sex test: 120fps capture 50% speed (60fps) 25% speed (30fps) the number in the video is the fps the game is effectively running at. Its the same scene shot one after the other, the right was taken first without tabbing and the left was taken after simply alt+tabbing out and back into the game, thus enabling my full 144 framerate.

Again you can see, particularly at 25% speed, how much smoother the image is at >60fps

 

Gameplay test: 120fps capture (90fps effectively) 25% speed (30fps) l loaded up an old save right before a giant encounter. Again same thing, one is capped at 60fps and the other is uncapped but I only get about 90fps outdoors.

This is a scenario where your fps will be at its lowest, I suspect enb would've made this unplayable. The differences here are hardly noticable, but if you skip to 0:40 you can see the left side make a quick turn that is surprisingly smooth compared to the one the right makes at 1:02. I've found that these quick movements with higher fps makes a difference between your eyes becoming completely unfocused during the turn, or a more immersive feeling like you're actually there. Theoretically, the higher the fps the faster you could swing the camera without being played a slideshow.

 

Hopefully you can now see why fps matters and can make a more educated decision about whether or not to use mods which significantly lower it given the promise of increased visuals. Note also that there's no reason to push higher than 60fps if your monitor can't display it i.e. 60hz monitor or if your computer settings are not set to utilize greater refresh rates (right click desktop/display settings/advanced display settings/adapter properties/monitor)

 

[27X]

So much nope.

 

I mean where to even start.

 

There are almost zero facts in your prognostications. Like... just none. All bullshit.

 

1. ENBs can be made to run after whatever framerate needed, and this has nothing to do with "smoothness". Nada.

2. If you're having frametime hits with ENB your hardware sucks, your ENB is jank, or both. Simple as.

3. Havok Fix exists. Havok fix works. SMP can also be made to run rather swiftly.

4. Having any frame jitter with or without ENB is again a hardware problem.

5. Bethesda's engine has enforced input smoothing and interpolation on by default so this "magical ultra responsiveness" you speak of doesn't actually exist without both ini level and render-to-screen level of modding. Period.

6. The best and most ironic part is under dxvk Skyrim LE's >frametime< resolves 50% faster than SSE using the same hardware or install platform, so you're not even using the right version for "ultra smooth smoothness so smooth you can smooth a smooth thing" smoothing.

 

 

[Altwen]

1 hour ago, 27X said:

There are almost zero facts in your prognostications. Like... just none. All bullshit.

lol I knew this would become a half-assed shit post. So you're telling me that in the videos both sides are equally smooth? It's just my imagination that at 60 fps I immediately notice and tab out to get my 144 back - and it looks way smoother? I'm speaking from experience, I'd rather play on 144fps than 60 because it looks much better to me. 

 

I don't know why people get so worked up about this topic, this is how I like to play and why. The point is to share my experience and possibly help someone make a more informed decision about modding or if they possibly want to push >60fps.

 

"dxvk Skyrim LE's >frametime< resolves 50% faster than SSE using the same hardware or install platform" This doesn't mean anything to me, I'm not playing LE because the last I remember it was very unstable, but maybe I just got way better at modding since then. I personally lose 50fps using enb and I've stated my hardware right there in the post if you'd read it.

 

Edit: I have finished the post. I'd love for you to look at 0:40 in the left frame of the gameplay test and tell me there's no difference compared to the right frame at 1:02

[27X]

I'm not worked up at all.

 

You're just conflating interpolation smoothness with actual frametime resolves, which isn't a thing.

 

The reason I know this is because if you had done ANY research at all you'd know Gamebryo Bethesda is hardlocked at 64fps. Period. 60 is not a thing, it's simply the closest common hardware cap to Bethesda's rendering model.

 

You'd also know Bethesda doesn't use delta timing, because they don't want to incur the expense of completely retooling the engine to use it.

 

https://gamedevunboxed.com/understanding-delta-time/

 

So your magical fairydust theoretical numero is actually 128, not whatever number you listed.

 

Secondly, these are the things that make gamebryo go faster:

 

1. RAM bandwidth. This is king in Bethesda games. All of them. The faster fully loaded ram reports back to the CPU a change has occurred at the bit level, the faster the next change can be made. This matters more in Bethesda games than rendering speed; point of fact is, this actually affects rendering speed.

 

2. Sustained GPU bandwidth, round trip. Again this matters more than actual raw speed. The faster a GPU reports back to the CPU drawing is done, the faster everything else can move on.

 

3. PCIE Lane all this magic horseshit is traveling on.

 

4. CPU Cache speed.

 

5. RAM Speed.

 

6. GPU speed.

 

Notice what's not listed here? Monitor. Keyboard. Mouse. Controller. Overlay software. Injection software.  The reason they aren't listed is they are WAAAAAY down the list, and so is capture devices and input/output thereof, and the only caveat to that is Boris has spent literally half his adult life making ENB play nice with Gamebryo, and the part where you jammed two other pieces of software without a dedicated offloaded capture scheme in between said ENB and the game is entirely an anecdotal you problem, not a factual universal problem.

[Altwen]

30 minutes ago, 27X said:

I'm not worked up at all.

"All bullshit. - your hardware sucks, your ENB is jank, or both. - "magical ultra responsiveness" you speak of doesn't actually exist - you're not even using the right version for "ultra smooth smoothness so smooth you can smooth a smooth thing" smoothing."

 

Nah that sounds like perfectly civil conversation. I'll give you one thing, I don't 100% know everything about the inner workings of the creation engine and it seems like you definitely know more so I respect that. I don't respect you basically taking a shit on my post in the process, you could word things a little nicer to not seem like you're trying to be hostile.

 

I'm also not trying to shit on enb, just stating my experience and why I choose not to use it. I like to think my skill at modding and probably my hardware is above average, although I might not be 100% accurate about everything, so I think what I have to share will generally apply to most users. You maybe right and I'm only getting 128 fps despite Afterburner, Skyrim, and enb itself reporting otherwise. Either way, it looks better and I think the videos prove that.

 

I didn't say anything about mice, keyboards, game controllers, or responsiveness. This is specifically about lowered fps and its effect on visual quality. I do personally think higher framerate leads to a heightened reaction and immersion, that's just been my experience in switching to 144hz in general, not only in Skyrim.

 

I'll admit, I haven't tweaked every little setting in enb, I have no motivation to as I prefer vanilla looks anyways. Like you can see in the first video, my character would have to be overhauled to look good in it, probably all my followers, NPCs, textures, and on down the line. This is why I tend to avoid visual replacers in general. I've said what I have to say, take it or leave it, if you really want to know everything about how the engine works then obviously research it yourself, this is based on my experience and partially my own subjective opinion. hope its useful or at least entertaining to somebody.

 

I've used enb default directly from boris, and enb re-engaged full quality and the fps hit is about the same. 

 

Card: Radeon RX 5600 XT 1740mhz

Processor: Ryzen 5 3600 4.2ghz game boost

Ram: 16gb cl 16 3200mhz 

Motherboard: pcie 3.0

Monitor: freesynch enabled 144hz

[Scrab]

4 hours ago, Altwen said:

In order to unlock your framerate you will need to add bLockFrameRate=0 under [Display] in your Skyrim.ini (documents/mygames/skyrim) I highly recommend using Bethini for editing your ini files.

Use SSE Display Tweaks for this sorta stuff, non?

 

FPS hit is kinda high with ENB for me too. I wish it would really be "only" 20 FPS but I lose significantly more with it, though it just looks so much better >w<

Wish I knew if Im missing some important step somewhere sigh

[Azailahab]

I may be misinformed, but I thought the game physics are designed for 60fps, and that that allows for 16.6ms per frame which is what is used for script functions. So if you are running at 120fps you only have 8.3ms per frame to run script functions which will lag out your frame rate and mess up the timing of events that are relying on scripts running. 

 

Again not an expert on this in any way whatsoever, just that was my understanding of how frame rate was designed with physics and scripts.

 

I use ENB and tons of heavy graphics mod in all my builds, they are huge builds, lots of mods using scripts fairly often. I originally tried some settings and mods to allow for higher frame rates, but the timing events using scripts and loading new areas resulted in heavy lag, mistimed events, and sometimes crazy physics like objects flying across the room etc. What I have read in literally hundreds of posts on this indicates there is a lot of misinformation and misunderstanding on how it all works. With that in mind I have decided all my builds are using 60fps as the default frame rate which seems to work best for me. So by setting my FPS limit at 59.6fps I usually do not experience any drop in framerates due to graphics, the only time my frame rates tend to drop is when there are a lot of scripts firing off (by that I do not mean having a lot of mods with scripts which is not really a problem, just if too many are working at the same time, they only have the 16.6ms to complete them per frame.) 

[Guest thepredatoralien]

That's because ENB sucks for Bethesda Games but especially Skyrim Special Edition.

27x might say what he wants but wether you have 4GB VRAM vs 6GB VRAM vs 8GB VRAM the more Postprocessing effects you add the more the Engine slows down.

And the more stuff you have in your load order, even optimized stuff the more that slowdown increases.

This is because Papyrus Scripting itself is outdated and slow.

 

Its like with background tasks. Load X number of NPCs within a cell with X CPU and load the similar number of NPCs within a cell with a better CPU. Guess what? No difference!

Its the TASKS you add, no amount of VRAM, CPU speed and RAM will ever make Papyrus Scripting Language function faster and thus the Engine Limits itself there.

 

Everyone seems to think, oh look i don't run ENB i must have a Potato... Really? Then why do i run games like Black Desert Online Remastered Graphics on almost High with all its Particles and its 100+ Times better and Crazy Physics and Hundreds of positioned NPCs in some places not to mention alot of Players with over 60 FPS always?

 

Skyrim Engine suffers just like Fallout, Oblivion, Morrowind suffered. Its just somewhat better.

ENB is a Hack, it has become quite better throughout the years but if you really want to play with alot of Quest Mods/ Combat and AI Mods/ Physics Mods, as soon as you add ENB on top it goes lower than 60. Especially with Sexlab Framework mods on top of your Roleplay and Immersion modding setup.

 

ENB for SkyrimSE Gameplay wise sucks! The ENBdev Boris himself said it! PERIOD.

Whoever disagrees is a Stubborn obsessed with OCD Eye Candy Idiot that spends most of his time watching High Poly 16K Stone Pebbles and walks from Riverwood to Whiterun (WALKS) without turning around because the world is stuttering around him!

Go eat those High Poly Mushrooms now XD

 

And one note. The Game was designed to run around 60fps with its own HDR and Postprocessing and Physics. See System Requirements: Minimal/ Recommended/ Highest. If you add Texture mods and ENB you exceed the requirements. Since when does a 10 years old game require 8GB of VRAM to manage and run smoothly?

 

And guess what again. I tested with both 2000series and 3000 series (Nvidia RTX) and compared with 1000 series and ENB etc. SAME HYPED SHIT!

(Stick with your 1000 GTX series or the 1660 for those who have it, don't throw it away, you wont regret it)

 

Do i even need to mention Skyrim VR and how it can't be modded properly?

 

My advise: Run a High Quality Weather Mod,Texture mods for Environmental stuff, 4K for Large objects only like mountains and stay within the 1K-2K Range for the rest, High Quality Lighting, Good monitor calibration and LODs. All you miss is Subsurface scattering and wet shader reflections. The Latter is covered by good and well made Texture mods. (Guess what: None of that will have a noticeable FPS impact, ENB will) Ironic isn't it...

[Guest]

Honestly i am not understanding the discussion. Is 60fps not enough? I remember the days when fps were in single digits.

My game runs smooth with ENB and i have an outdated gfx card.

For technical aspects, i understood that anything above 60fps will glitch the game. So its locked for a reason. But i am not that tech savvy.

[pinky6225]

On 12/8/2021 at 3:39 PM, wutpickel said:

Honestly i am not understanding the discussion. Is 60fps not enough? I remember the days when fps were in single digits.

My game runs smooth with ENB and i have an outdated gfx card.

For technical aspects, i understood that anything above 60fps will glitch the game. So its locked for a reason. But i am not that tech savvy.

 

Also get 60 FPS with a ENB and don't really get why you want more tbh but i believe you can edit the skyrim.ini

 

[HAVOK]
fMaxTime=0.01666667

 

To account for running at a faster frame rate

 

Whether you'd notice a difference i suppose would depend on monitor and your eye sight, doing a FPS test when i first got this PC to check it was working okay 3dmark was saying it was capable of like 400 fps on one of the tests but other than bragging rights (if your into the my pc is better than your pc stuff) i doubt you'd ever see that

[Guest]

@pinky6225 Well, i can see why someone like to get the most out of it.

Not sure if we can experience higher fps anyway. Meaning anything beyond 120pfs.

My weak point is my monitor. Its just a inexpensive Dell. At one point i like to upgrade that with a good GFX card to go along with it. But that is off until prices drop to normal levels.

As long it is smooth, i am fine with it. But everyone is different. If i can make it better with what i have, i try it out.

So i will check out your suggestion.

My eyes sight is not that good anymore. Afterall i am wearing eye glasses. Have to live with what you got.

 

Got to admit that i got just recently, after all these years, into ENB. I like what i see. But i have to experiment to get the right kind of results. Lesser because of fps than of esthetics.

 

 

 

[venomr]

12 hours ago, wutpickel said:

Got to admit that i got just recently, after all these years, into ENB. I like what i see. But i have to experiment to get the right kind of results. Lesser because of fps than of esthetics.

 

 

Be sure to look into reshaders as well. I don't exactly understand the specifics, but they seem to alter the base colors of skyrim directly so you don't lose any FPS at all. Using an enb + reshader together will probably make the greatest result, but there will be a lotta tweaking.

[coolfreaky]

i think you did a nice job trying to compare results in different situations .

 

But you are mis-leaded by your results .  i am defending enb as it shows great potentiel with L E engine . and a low spec PC .

 

The contrary is more difficult as you need more comprehensions on ini settings .  that is one raison to load pre-sets for different adjustments .

 

- you should have done a full test with a low end PC  with and without Enb , with and without ini settings to see the gain .

 

- you should do a full test with a high end PC armed with different pre-sets and different ini settings .  to see different quality issue .

[Dampse]

I have a humble gtx 1660 ti and I can run an enb just fine, max settings, ingame object distance to 20 or more, actor distance 15, grass 10k, full parallax 2020 4k and 8k textures, complex particles cranked, shadows on high sss on high, reflections high, always 60fps interiors but I do get a slight slow down in areas like falkreath n such but not so much that it's even noticeable tbh. I don't even get much stutter in 8k whiterun 2022 tbh, just when it loads initially during npc rush hour. I'm running 3600mhz cl16 ram now instead of shitty 3200 cl19 i had before which made the biggest difference to my choppy fps and it actually completely eliminated it, I use HBAO instead of enb SSAO though as it's no brainer to which is better. I think I only miss out on little tweaks like complex grass by using hardware AO over enb though but the performance boost and horizon occlusion is a clear winner.

[TheWilloughbian]

On 3/22/2021 at 3:59 AM, 27X said:

I'm not worked up at all.

 

 

Dude. you been going all weekend. Does someone need to call the WAAAmbulance for you? You're getting awful pissy over nothing. XD

Don't get me wrong, I don't really have any beef with you, but you have been on the offensive for days now. You might just have to get over the fact not everyone is going to know as much as you. I mean for pity sake, do you have to be so mean?

 

On 3/22/2021 at 5:01 AM, Altwen said:

"All bullshit. - your hardware sucks, your ENB is jank, or both. - "magical ultra responsiveness" you speak of doesn't actually exist - you're not even using the right version for "ultra smooth smoothness so smooth you can smooth a smooth thing" smoothing."

 

 Ignore him/her/it. He/She/It has had a hair up his/her/it's ass all weekend. His/Her/It's information is most often useful, but rarely comes without several pounds of salt.

[TheWilloughbian]

As for your question Most people just use the high end ENB settings for screenshots rather than gameplay.

 

[27X]

34 minutes ago, TheWilloughbian said:

 

Dude. you been going all weekend. Does someone need to call the WAAAmbulance for you? You're getting awful pissy over nothing. XD

Don't get me wrong, I don't really have any beef with you, but you have been on the offensive for days now. You might just have to get over the fact not everyone is going to know as much as you. I mean for pity sake, do you have to be so mean?

 

 

 Ignore him/her/it. He/She/It has had a hair up his/her/it's ass all weekend. His/Her/It's information is most often useful, but rarely comes without several pounds of salt.

March 22, 2021

[TheWilloughbian]

24 minutes ago, 27X said:

March 22, 2021

I see I'm late to the party. So, it's been much longer then, that you have been holding this resentment for someone whizzing in your cornflakes XD

[TheWilloughbian]

6 hours ago, 27X said:

March 22, 2021

 

 Gonna make some noise,,,

[walkingwounded]

Preconceptions:

1. This game is a decade old, it will have limits.
2. The game engine is designed around a 60 fps experience (as shipped). If you are complaining about only getting 90fps..that sounds like you problem.
3. Performance below 30 fps is to be avoided. You can play SSE under 30 fps, but it gets a lot less fun under 20fps.
4. ENB's are optional

For myself, using integrated graphics and getting an average of perhaps 30-40fps using med/low settings, the only reason to use an enb is for improved interior lighting and perhaps some nice weather effects (both subjective). I find some ENB's can make water look really good compared to vanilla though (waves, translucency, reflections, etc).

 

If you have modern hardware and are getting a reliable 60fps in Riverwood and Whiterun, then using an enb is entirely up to your personal preferences (most will make the world look more vibrant or better lit). If performance is a problem an ENB will likely not improve your experience.

 

Also keep in mind that ENB presets are just that (presets), tweak away.

 

Since I run with an igpu/apu ENB's are of little use to me, though I do like and have used ENB's that improve interior lighting. I'm also willing to play at 30fps and be okay with it.