Making Skyrim beautiful and playable. (advice needed)

[calranthe]

I just put together a pc for games and one of the projects that I want to get started is a skyrim game that is stable, playable and as a base game using Mod organizer is compatible with the sexlab system.

 

Usually I end up with a game that looks amazing but is not that stable, or goes boom when I start adding the naughty stuff.

 

Does anyone know of a guide for making skyrim beautiful that is not the skyrim beautification project.

 

My computer should now be able to play anything that is actually playable.

i7 4790K

gigabyte z97 G5 motherboard

16gb ddr3

480gb ssd

2*2TB drives

Radeon 290x

 

[flutie]

a good place to start http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/30936/? , half way down to section 5, i followed these steps and it worked for me

[Spectre_15]

If you're looking for a beautiful game, I love Tropical Skyrim mod.  It's beautiful.

[JBloggz]

If you're looking for a beautiful game, I love Tropical Skyrim mod.  It's beautiful.

 

 

And very, very unplayable. Lags the entire thing for me, and my setup is slightly more powerful than OP's (based on the gear you stated). 

[Guest]

Best possible default setup in my personal opinion is Mod Organizer, Core STEP as your default MO gaming profile (plus extended given your specs), and choose any of the STEP packages for a speciality gaming profile. And take a good hard  look over Ewi's  ini tweaks, with a big caveat -  don't just copy them, do lots of research and testing by switching his recommendations on in small batches, then testing for a few days with your different profiles until you're happy it's working for you. 

 

The best thing about a core step setup plus your thoroughly reasoned ini tweaks is that you can add whatever you like in a new profile and you've always got something solid to fall back on when your experimenting goes tits up - which mine does all the time. 

 

As for naughty stuff, a word to the wise, you owe it to yourself to keep Sexlab mods  in a dedicated MO profile, away from general gaming ones. They're fun but can often have a chaotic and cascading impact on a save. That's not a dig at the people who code them, just the nature of what are often pretty complex scripted mods. 

 

The thing about advocating a STEP core approach is that once it's established it can be modified to taste. My setup has strayed pretty fucking far from that "as close to vanilla" mantra they bang on about, but then I expect even the staff do that. 

 

 

edit: just to add - most of what STEP does is corrective. If your rig's got the grunt though, you could use something like the Seasons of Skyrim graphical overhauls, your grass set as lush and thick as you can get it, Simply Bigger Trees for some wonderful dense primeval forests that crowd in on the highways and settlements, and one of the higher spec but still playable ENBs like Confident-Man's Natural Lighting and Atmospherics....that would be a thing of splendid beauty. 

[calranthe]

Some great info will start looking in to all of this.

[calranthe]

Following the STEP system then will create a few seperate Mod organizer profiles for different styles.

[DerekUGA]

I would recommend using the Skyrim Mod Combiner to set a base of textures.  That, along with a decent ENB, can make an outstanding looking world that is highly functional...especially with your hardware.  I just used it last night for the first time and it is basically like STEP in a prepackaged setup that is pretty simple to use.

 

I also still highly recommend using STEP as a guide to get you set up to start modding.