Newbie question: LE or SE?

[Sunmane]

Hello and Happy New yYear!

 

So, I wanted to ask some (potentially not) simple questions or advice here! I haven't played Skyrim in ages, and feel like returning to it! I used to play Legendary Edition only, but that was a looong while ago. I'm wondering whether I should stick to Legendary Edition or grab Special Edition? I know that SE has some huge improvements over LE, including being retooled for 64-bit as opposed to 32-bit, with some improvements in stability and performance. The downside being (at least a while ago) that LE still has a whole lot more mods than SE?

 

I already found some good guides on modding SE Skyrim for both graphics and gameplay. What I'm still unsure on is the lewd modding from LL mods. That's the most important bit to me, and, specifically, I want to mod Skyrim to heavily focus on futas and related mods. So, I was wondering if anyone could help me figure out whether I should stick to LE, or it's worth getting SE and I'd still be able to mod it with lots of LL stuff. (Totally not considering the anniversary edition here as it seems a little... wut? O.o)

 

Thank you!

[Nelnuna]

Hello, i think it would be better for you to stick to LE for now, since bethesda is updating SE, because of anniversary edition, which as you might be able to imagine, breaks alot of mods and makes modding even more of a pain than it can be, alternatively you could get SE and downgrade it to the latest version before anniversary edition.

[ChrisHPZ]

My money is on SSE. I came from LE like so many others. And like so many others, the stability of SSE is far greater than LE. Don't get me wrong, both versions of the game can and will crash. But SSE is an implementation such that it takes advantage of the superior 64-bit architecture. As far as the selection of mods go, of course LE would have a wider selection of such. That version has been around for a lot longer than SSE.

 

As far as the Anniversary Edition goes, I can't comment. I don't have it, and don't plan on getting it. I can say this, a lot of LL mods which rely on SKSE may not work with Anniversary Edition. 

 

As a last bit of advice, I'll offer this. No matter which version of the game you go with, think about the mods you intend to install. Also be mindful of the amount of mods you install. LL mods are developed my incredibly smart people. But at the same time, LE and SSE can only handle so much. It's the nature of programming.

[Sunmane]

Alright! So, I think I'll risk getting SE! But downgrading it or trying to keep it from updating.

 

Thank you!

 

In terms of mods... like I said, I found some graphics and gameplay modding guides specifically LE and SE respectively, so I shouldn't add so much it breaks the game. My main interest is adding sex mods and futa mods from LL, soooo... hopefully those won't break things much either! And yes, LL mods are developed my amazing people. Agreed! ❤️

[coffeeink]

Before AE i would say 100% SE. you can get nearly everything from LE also in SE. To convert a mod from LE to SE is rly easy. + 64 Bit overall is way more stable.

 

If you want to use some Mods here from LL stay away from AE as far as you can. This is a general adivce for System and Software. If there is no real reason for beeing on bleeding edge... than don't.

 

Currently SE is kinda tricky to setup. I would stay on SE and use the Downgrader to go back to SE. Just be carefull to download the SKSe related mods correctly to your SKSE and Skyrim Version. Normally there are allways 2 downloads. in the worst case you need to download a file under "old" files)

The downgrader itself works fine.

 

For me the most important part was SMP. This is way much easier to install and run on SE than LE. Yes you can install it also for LE but as i treid it (2,5 years ago) i was not able to get it running stable.

A big down for some ppl for SE was missing UUNP. Which is also not true anymore since BHUNP is available.

 

Also don't listen to the old myth "you need to run exactly 30/60 fps or you get glitches". This is just outdated statement and i would highly recommend to get as max fps as you can. It rly helps with Papyrus Script performance and esp. Story Event manager. For SE you only need to download a mod like this(https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/34705?tab=description) Since i switched to max FPS and i reduced Environemnetal effects to stay ~90 fps on crowded and 144 fps on easy places (i still need GSync else i have tearing all over the place) .

 

 

 

[Cema]

This is a topic that comes back from time to time. I used to advise LE because there used to be much more mods for it.

 

But lets be honest nowadays lots of modders switched for SE and there are tons of new good mods for SE.

 

I advise SE

[Sunmane]

Perfect! I guess SE it is, then! ❤️

 

Thank you all.

 

Onle last quick question, based on something I just read; the post is from a whiiile ago, so maybe it has changed since, but possibly SE has worse ENB support than LE?

[decaluka]

On 1/1/2022 at 11:17 PM, Sunmane said:

Onle last quick question, based on something I just read; the post is from a whiiile ago, so maybe it has changed since, but possibly SE has worse ENB support than LE?

 

SE ENB has gone a long way, and exteriors can look good if not better than LE. However skin and subsurface scattering still look better on LE in my opinion. They feel a bit more like plastic on SE. But even taking that into account SE is the version I would recommend for support and performance reasons.