At last switching to ENB, but what things I have to pay attention to?

[Sunja44]

Proceeding from this thread: http://www.loverslab.com/index.php?app=forums&module=post&section=post&do=reply_post&f=37&t=20611&qpid=493549

 

Most people here and on Nexus always talk about "different" ENBs, but as far as I know now, they actually mean ENB presets and for every preset you need Boris' ENB mainfiles, newest version is 0.213 for TES Skyrim. After you dropped the .dll files and config into your Skyrim folder you need a preset, there are dozens around on Nexus. In Addition you should install ENBoost to improve memory usage.

 

Just for info, I got rid off RCRNv36 and will switch to CoT.

 

Ok, here a couple of questions:

 

As far as I understand that, Boris' ENB delivers something similiar like a specialized driver setting for a single application, TES Skyrim. As far as I understand that, ENB delivers much more as a standard Nvidia driver could inject to the Skyrim engine, even injecting stuff by Nvidia Inspector can't deliver such results, but:

 

-How does ENB behave to adjusted driver settings in the Skyrim options in the launcher, to overrides by the Nvidia Control Panel or to overrides by Nvidia Inspector? Should I reset them in total and switch off? Can I leave them be (AA, AF, FXAA, SSAA, Ambient Occlusion etc.), because they have no effect anyways, because they get overriden by the ENB?

 

-Does ENB work with SLI setups? Any points to pay attention to?

 

-Anything else I have to take care of? I don't have an On Screen Display setup, but have tools running like MSI Afterburner in the background to mirror sensor data (GPU temperature) to my G19 LCD display.

 

-As I understand that right now, my install order is ENB from Boris' site, then ENBoost and then an ENB preset. As far as I know ENBoost will make more use of your VideoRAM and so relieve normal RAM, so I guess it was great that I bought the 4GB version for each of my 2 Geforce 670 GTX cards. I guess I have to pay attention which version of a base ENB I use, because some presets are just made for older versions of Boris' ENB?

 

Anything else?

 

 

 

 

 

[Groovtama]

1. I'm using the Nvidia Inspector for tweaking Skyrim in the Nvidia driver is a little bit more precise. AA and AF in Nvida Driver are somehow a little better than the games ones (the game ones can be set to disabled), FXAA and SSAA and AO can be disabled in Driver and Game Settings (just leave the nvidia default ones is enough), ENB comes with better results in the same functions. Some ENB presets come with SweetFX that also gives SMAA which is far better than FXAA.

 

2. ENB works with SLI had it a long time myself, the most Nvidia Driver Bugs are out.^^ Some ENB functions don't work currently with SLI (temporal AA for ex.) boris writes that in the changelog.

 

3. About the Monitor stuff just pay attention that Rivatuner Injector thing is not running and try to detect the game, if not you will CTD because that thing doesn't really support ENB, but with the G19 solution you should be fine.

 

4. For Installion I recoomend an ENB Manager (http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/24402/?) makes un/installing and switching ENBs a piece of cake.

 

4.1 ENBoost is just a enblocal.ini that is tuned on performance/stability. I would just take an ENB that isn't old, 0.199 ENBs and newer are all fine. Compare the values in enbseries.ini and enblocal.ini to the default one in the ENB 0.213 pack so that all values from the default ones are in the one preset you want to use (textcomparer essential tool^^). Then fine tune the values in enblocal.ini to your graphic setup.

[azmodan22]

You are correct, the enbs that you download are just presets. You always need the main enb files by Boris.

One thing you should pay attention is how the enb looks at night. Many try to hide that as they just turn night to complete black.

 

About the ENBoost i have no idea, I dont have it installed.

 

I also have MSI Afterburner running in the background both for the sensor data and to tweak my GPUs fan speed. No problems with MSI.

However, ENBs and Crossfire (i was using a 5970Black edition but now I am back to my 4890) dont sit well together. I dont know if you will encounter the same problems with SLI, but still they are fixable.

 

Regarding AA,FXAA etc you can leave them one. I think they are overiden by the enb anyway. 

 

Still when choosing and enb there is only one way to be sure it works for you. In Game. 

The easy thing to do is make ...say 3 saves. One out in dayligh, One inside a house/inn (witrun is good for that testing because of the fire), and one inside a cave. You can also make one outside at night.

 

So the trick is easy. install the ENB that "looks" good from its screenshots, and start loading the saves you made to see where the catch is. If everything looks good.. Keep it :-)

[Shaydow]

You can also just download Boris ENB and make you own settings. This is most easily achieved by running Skyrim after installation, open the console first, then hit Shift + Enter ( the reason you open the console first is that if you don't, anytime you click on the ENB menu you will say swing your weapon etc. It is just easier to " pause " the game with the console to work on settings ). Now begin poking around with options. Any option you change you like, remember to hit save settings, any you don't, just put it back as it was and don't save it.

 

I admit not everything is as straightforward as this, but I found making my own ENB settings is better. I can find the perfect balance of what I MYSELF think looks good and how it impacts the performance of the game.  If you have any questions on any particular settings, well, thats what this section of the LL forums is for, so don't be afraid to ask.

[Sunja44]

Thx, this will help a lot.

 

...but as I got rid of RCRNv36 (an incredible well made mod, the weather system is very diversified), I needed a new weather mod and installed CoT and have a few questions:

 

I have a question concerning load order in combination with other mods (that might have an influence on CoT). So far my load order looks like this:

Skyrim.esm
Update.esm
Dawngard.esm
Hearthfire.esm
Dragonborn.esm

...other .esms

CoT.esm (last .esm)

...other.esps

-footprints.esp
-footprints-ash.esp
-WetandCold.esp
-WetandCold-Ashes.esp

...other.esps

SupremeFog-CoT.esp (this does cover only a few fog templates of CoT not all, I know)
mintylightningmod.esp
MintyLightingMod_CoT_Patch.esp
ClimatesOfTamriel-Dungeons-Hazardous.esp
ClimatesOfTamriel-Interior-Warm.esp
ClimatesOfTamriel-Nights-Level-1.esp
ClimatesOfTamriel-Dawnguard.esp
ClimatesOfTamriel-Dragonborn.esp
EnhancedLightsandFX.esp

(not installed the ELFX-Enhancer option, because It is beta and compatibility is not ensured for other lighting/shader changing mods, at least it was so for RCRNv36, no idea for CoT or ENBs though)

ELFX-Exteriors.esp

ELFX-Dawnguard.esp

...other .esps

SoS-Civilization.esp
SoS.Civilization-PatchCoT.esp
SoS-The Dungeons.esp
SoS-The Wilds.esp
SoS-the WildsPatchCoT.esp (last of all .esps)

Does this look about right? As far as I know there is only a SoS (Sounds of Skyrim) patch for the hardcore variant of dungeons, not for vanilla or hazardous.

..and how should the load order be, if I install CoT Sounds in addition to SoS? I know there is a SoS compatibility patch for that, but I arranged that below and above SoS in the load order and when starting Skyrim by SKSE thereafter, I do not even see the Bethesda intro, because I CTD.

As a last question I would like to know, if Immersive Thunder http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/1702/? will work with CoT or if there is a possibility to let it run alongside (CoT thunder isn't bad, but Immersive Thunder is better)

 

PS: As the very last question...is there any method to get Dramatic Clouds to work with CoT? As far as I know CoT comes along with its own cloud textures, but in my eyes the Dramatic Clouds are nicer. Problem: CoT commands the distribution of clouds and this results in the effect, that you have Dramatic Clouds textures, but you will have rain even if only a few clouds show up on a less cloudy day.

 

Mabye I leave Dramatic Clouds out and go for Real Clouds, that mod seems to be absolutely great for ENB users.

[Uno]

I always recommend Bronze's presets. This one is updated, compatible with COT and (kinda) performance friendly : http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/20781/?

[Sunja44]

Looks nice, but before I have to install this ENB stuff correctly and already encountered issues. I installed the newest version 0.213, wrapped option. As soon as I see the black DOS box appearing while starting Skyrim via SKSE launcher I will CTD after a second, no chance to watch even the Bethesda intro. I use the wrappped ENB version, not the injector one at moment. 

 

I deinstalled Nvidia Experience, I made sure that the RIVA tool from MSI Afterburner is set to off for anything. MSI Afterburner is running in the background just for fan control, no monitoring into trays or OCD at all. In addition I have HWiNFO64 running in the background for monitoring some CPU and GPU values and sending them to my G19 LCD display. HWiNFO64 can do that alone, no need for a running profile in the MSI Afterburner RIVA tool. Oh yes and I use FRAPS for ingame fps.

 

Any idea? As I use SKSE and use Steam version of Skyrim, do I need the injector option of ENB maybe?

 

UPDATE: Ok, I dropped the injector version into my Skyrim folder, started the normal Skyrim.exe launcher once to let it detect my grafic card, turned everything in the options to off concerning AF, AA, Transparency AA, FXAA and Ambient Occlusion, did the same for Nividia Control Panel and Nvidia Inspector. The only settings I kept was Vsync and my SLI profile in Nvidia Inspector.

 

After that I added skse_loader.exe to the according entry in the embinjector.ini

 

At last I ran the ENBInjector.exe and then started Skyrim by SKSE and nicely appoached the ingame menu, loaded a save and now I am in game. Problem is I have no idea how Skyrim should look now with the default enblocal profile Boris adds to his releases. I have to say, at moment I see something like vanilla light and loads of jaggies and I am not overly impressed, but have tons of performance left :-) Is there a simple method to  ensure that ENB is truly injected and running in game?

 

Another question I have....if I use the ENBinjector version, are there any things I have to pay attention to when In add presets? is there a difference between a preset made for the wrapped version and a preset made for the injector version?

 

UPDATE: Ok, I realized that you are able to force Supersampling settings by the enblocal,ini and AF will be forced by that too. I let Nvidia 16x AF override application AF and it seems to work, same for 1x2 SSAA for normal AA and 2x SparseGridSSAA for TRAA. Higher values will cause problems to load save games.

 

With those settings on I actually realize a more beatiful Skyrim and especially a more colorful one. Performance is about 50-60fps in a crowded Whiterun during daytime.

 

[Groovtama]

Concerning load order I would put Lighting/Weather mods to the end, because they sometimes change cell properties and mods that placing objects in cells may overwrite that properties back to Vanilla again. That's why to the total end, only bashed/SkyProc/Compability Patches after it.

[jess19]

Okay, here are my thoughts:

 

If I'm understanding you correctly, you're migrating to CoT / ENB / ELFX, from whatever it was you were using before for lighting -- so you're trying to figure out which mod is doing what exactly, since you dont really know what the baseline CoT or baseline ENB looks like.

 

So...

 

1) Disable the night level, warm interior, and dungeons ESPs from CoT. Each one of those plugins modifies lighting -- but you're already using the lighting edits provided by ELFX and ENB. When you use all of this stuff together, you're just kinda creating this jumble of lighting edits and each mod is overwriting each other randomly, in random cells and random spots. (I realize you're not using the ELFX Enhancer esp, but still.)

 

2) You probably should try to find an ENB preset that's actually compatible with the lighting mods you want to use. Realvision is probably the most popular at the moment, and the "Option B" preset and specifically designed for use with both CoT and ELFX together. You don't HAVE to get an ENB preset, but honestly it doesn't really make sense not to, since the default ENB is configured for vanilla lighting -- which you're obviously heavily modifying with CoT and ELFX.

 

The biggest thing here is disabling the night/interiors/dungeons plugins from CoT. Each one of those plugins modifies cell lighting already, but when you load ELFX, you're just modifying that stuff again -- AND ELFX changes both how ambient light and lighting sources (candles, fires, etc) behave. It's not really surprising that you're having trouble telling which mod is doing what. RLO, for example, specifically states to not use the extra plugins from CoT with it -- and since RLO and ELFX essentially do the same thing...

 

If I were you, I would STRONGLY suggest going at this one step at a time.

 

1) Load CoT (without the extra plugins), take some screenshots. CoT lighting is very, very close to vanilla lighting -- just subtle changes. Take screenshots in both exteriors and interior cells. I would suggest outside the Riverwood inn, and then inside the inn.

 

2) Afterwards, you can load up ELFX, and take some screens again. 

 

3) Only after you get an idea of what CoT + ELFX does to the game would I load the ENB. ENBs are much more drastic than any lighting plugin, since they change shadows, have adaptive ambient lighting, and completely change how light interacts with surfaces. I really would use the wrapper instead of the injector -- wayyyy too many people have issues with the injector, especially with the amount of external changes you made with inspector, driver settings, the enb .ini files, the skyrim .ini files from laucher...not to mention having another .exe hooking onto the game with afterburner. Frankly, I just wouldn't expect the injector to play nice with all that. I'm sure some people get it to work smoothly, but for now, I'd say be safe and then re-examine later if you want, after you get everything stable.

 

I personally use CoT, ELFX (with enhancer, without exteriors) and Realvision ENB (the preset designed for use with them both). I was under the impression that the exteriors plugin was the one that wasn't complete, not the enhancer...but I could be wrong.

 

EDIT: I was wrong about load order -- the base ELFX should be before CoT, but the enhancer should be AFTER.

 

[Sunja44]

Thx to all, I got that stuff running at last.

 

Just one word: Uninstall/delete/trash/kick the most annoying application ever off your PC before you start to install ENBs + preset. It's called Nvidia Experience and just fucks up even an injector set up. This application - even if disabled in the tray - does enable itself each time again when you start an .exe and it does that even if you disabled streaming....

So it prevents the wrapped version from starting Skyrim by launcher completely (you won't see your main game menu...) and if you have the injector version installed you can't load save games (CTD shortly before you might enter the game), or you need several attempts to do so.

 

I have the injector version installed now, but will try the wrapped version soon too, it should work now without Nvidia Experience installed.

 

In addition - and as I have no idea how an ENB behaves to .ini settings, Skyrim launcher option settings, Nvidia Control Panel options and Nvidia Inspector options (I assume, many will be overriden, but maybe leave them enabled prevents some features of ENB from working) - I disabled AF, AA, Transparency AA and AO completely in each tool and in the Skyrim.ini). I just left Nvidia Control Panel VSnyc enabled (it should be better than Skyrim's own) and the SLI settings in the Nvidia CP and Nvidia Inspector.

 

@jess19: Thx, I already found a comment somewhere on the internet, that CoT dungeon, night and interior options do effectively the same as ELFX. Either you use CoT options OR you use ELFX (or RLO). I just installed CoT's default options and ELFX. After getting rid of Nvidia Experience I installed Boris' newest ENB preset 0.213 (added the SKSE launcher to the process list) and the according main file from Project ENB for CoT and just dropped this main file and the performance option A (SSAO + DOF) - without any other options or texture folders -  into my Steam/Skyrim folder and override to all. 

 

I started Skyrim and already realized the Sweet FX and SSAO effect on the loading screen model, a few jaggies, almost not noticable...and then I have to say I entered a new world, THIS Skyrim is amazing. I calibrated my monitor before (but only sharpness, gamma and contrast, colors are default RGB) and I maybe need some more saturation.

 

A few issues I still have...

 

1) at moment it's raining although I have a clear night sky :-) Could it be that CoT isn't only incompatible to dramatic clouds (because CoT comes along with its own clouds) but with Enhanced Night Skyrim too? the later mod is just a texture replacer, nothing else.

 

2)...and I am still riddling about installing CoT Sounds and installing the compatibility patch for SoS, especially load order...

 

3) I lost somehow my Bethesda intro screen when I start Skyrim and my [PRINT] key does not do any screenhots anymore :-)

 

PS: Minty's Ligjhting mod works absolutely flawless in combination with CoT lightning after installing the compatibility patch...and I have to admit, the thunder sound from Immersive Thunder isn't needed, the CoT thunder sounds great.

 

I played Skyrim before with RCRNv36 and its FXAA and pretty tough grafic settings forced by Nvidia CP and Nvidia Inspector (16 AF, 2x SSAA, 4 SGSSAA for TRAA, high quality filtering and AO on quality) and I wonder....because I actually have a tiny fps increase, a slight one but it's there in some spots.

 

Besides that...I just have to say this memory tweak in 0.213 is awesome. I sprinted all over Skyrim and I had not even a small stutter and entering my home again (loads of items and NPCs, the RAM load is brutal) works well, formerly I needed sometimes two attempts to enter.

[Sunja44]

FINAL: This Skyrim is awe inspiring.

 

I still use the ENB 0.213 version but changed to the full grafic version of the ENB CoT preset options and am running through whole Skyim for hours now watching the SSAO effect on skins and rocks and structures, watching the water and sunsets and spell effects, the very subtle DoF effect and I am not satisfied yet. I am sprinting with almost no stutter at 50-60 fps Vsync capped for minutes (!) through tundra, swamp, ice and even dense woods, drinking stamina potion after stamina potion and not a single fucking CTD or freeze. There seems to be no issue at all for Nvidia SLI setups. 0.213 should prevent temporal AA for SLI setups (I have to admit I have no idea what this grafic procedure actually does), but SweetFX and SSAO does the job already, there are almost no jaggies and even Skyrim's infamous pixelated shadows are mostly gone. It's absolutely amazing how ENB improves the effectiveness of your texture mods - and the main ones are lite versions - even more. Skyrim 2K HD structures, Real Snow, Real Ice, WATER, SFO grass and trees look even more impressive.

 

If this CoT preset is still a performance friendly one and delivers such an effect, while still having 60 fps almost the whole time, I wonder what there will be possible at all....

 

All I have to say is, Boris is a genius.

 

Result: http://imgur.com/a/Msogo#0

 

I turned down ingame brightness to zero (was recommended by Bronze who made the preset), maybe I increase that a bit again. Maybe I play bit with saturation too.