Graphical updates for those who didn't sell their soul for a good computer

[Hazzard_]

So, I've been playing skyrim since it's release on all platforms, including console, and for about two years now, the glorious pc master race. This game can be beautiful; but recently the graphics seem more and more outdated. I've put my graphics as high as I can comfortably go (things like best textures, best distance rendering, ext, but not using silly stuff like ultra detailed shadows) but I'd like a little more. My computer is decent, but not a godsend. So, I'd like to ask you guys, what visual mods are out there that enhance skyrim's appearance without absolutely raping the computer itself. 

[Veladarius]

A performance ENB would give you some visual enhancements and allow you to use ENBoost to boost your performance as well.

[Saviorsrd]

Might help to know exactly what you mean by "didn't sell our souls."  You can get a heck of a lot of power for less than 1000 these days, compared to what Skyrim's looking for at base.

[Guest]

Follow a beautification guide, STEP Core for instance, and stick to 1k textures for landscapes and architecture mods to keep your vram usage in control. Sort out your LODs using DynDoLOD, that fixes a lot of the distant object rendering ugliness like scarecrow trees and boxy architecture when running at default ugrids and with draw distance settings below ultra. Consider using Simply Bigger Trees to fill out a lot of areas in the game, it has a lovely effect without costing an arm and a leg in fps, and it can at least temporarily hide all manner of things you'd rather not have your attention drawn by, like pop-in. 

 

Find yourself an ENB that has a performance profile, preferably one that supports the more recent effects like mist and procedural sun, but disable other expensive effects like SSAO, DoF, Reflections, Skylighting - many ENBs will still look much better than vanilla without these.

 

Use Vivid Clouds and Fog plus it's 1k textures to soften up the distant mountain rendering, mask the z-fighting (flickering) and to give an illusion of depth at the horizon. Consider using a good weather lighting mod. For me that's still Climates of Tamriel rather than Pure Weather, but the choice can often be dictated by the ENB you use. 

 

You can lavish 4k face and body textures on your own character if you wish, but avoid applying them to every other npc in the game or you'll add dramatically to the burden put on your gpu's vram, especially in towns, cities and during those civil war battles. To do that use a custom race that comes with it's own texture folder, stick your souped up body textures in there and keep to 2k textures for everybody else.

 

Same goes for armor mods - if it's a vanilla replacer or the armor is going to be in level lists, stick to less ambitious texture res versions. If it's one off armor and only you're likely to be wearing it, you can probably get away with those lovely 4k textures. 

[Rayblue]

So, I've been playing skyrim since it's release on all platforms, including console, and for about two years now, the glorious pc master race. This game can be beautiful; but recently the graphics seem more and more outdated. I've put my graphics as high as I can comfortably go (things like best textures, best distance rendering, ext, but not using silly stuff like ultra detailed shadows) but I'd like a little more. My computer is decent, but not a godsend. So, I'd like to ask you guys, what visual mods are out there that enhance skyrim's appearance without absolutely raping the computer itself. 

 

Before we go on recommending stuff, what's your PC specs?

 

Sometimes the most playable Skyrim game doesn't have to be on the most powerful PC.

[Shadowscale]

Follow a beautification guide, STEP Core for instance, and stick to 1k textures for landscapes and architecture mods to keep your vram usage in control. Sort out your LODs using DynDoLOD, that fixes a lot of the distant object rendering ugliness like scarecrow trees and boxy architecture when running at default ugrids and with draw distance settings below ultra. Consider using Simply Bigger Trees to fill out a lot of areas in the game, it has a lovely effect without costing an arm and a leg in fps, and it can at least temporarily hide all manner of things you'd rather not have your attention drawn by, like pop-in. 

 

Find yourself an ENB that has a performance profile, preferably one that supports the more recent effects like mist and procedural sun, but disable other expensive effects like SSAO, DoF, Reflections, Skylighting - many ENBs will still look much better than vanilla without these.

 

Use Vivid Clouds and Fog plus it's 1k textures to soften up the distant mountain rendering, mask the z-fighting (flickering) and to give an illusion of depth at the horizon. Consider using a good weather lighting mod. For me that's still Climates of Tamriel rather than Pure Weather, but the choice can often be dictated by the ENB you use. 

 

You can lavish 4k face and body textures on your own character if you wish, but avoid applying them to every other npc in the game or you'll add dramatically to the burden put on your gpu's vram, especially in towns, cities and during those civil war battles. To do that use a custom race that comes with it's own texture folder, stick your souped up body textures in there and keep to 2k textures for everybody else.

 

Same goes for armor mods - if it's a vanilla replacer or the armor is going to be in level lists, stick to less ambitious texture res versions. If it's one off armor and only you're likely to be wearing it, you can probably get away with those lovely 4k textures. 

 

I'd say 2k textures work just as fine as 4k textures. Unless you zoom really close you won't notice much difference between the two.

[Shirobako]

Just get good skin textures and a lighting mod or facelight. High res without lighting/enb is just ugly with more details. Turn off any anti aliasing effects to get more juice out, AA doesn't matter as much if you have good ppi monitor. Shadows don't matter too much, so might as well turn those off too.

[soldier321]

Get this mod http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/63839/?

 

it uses sweetfx instead of enb, sweetfx is not as good as enb but sweetfx came with next to no performance loss for me. where I would regularly run around with 40 fps max with project fantasy (i have an gtx 780 and intel 4670k i think) i can run around with 60

[Guest]

 

Follow a beautification guide, STEP Core for instance, and stick to 1k textures for landscapes and architecture mods to keep your vram usage in control. Sort out your LODs using DynDoLOD, that fixes a lot of the distant object rendering ugliness like scarecrow trees and boxy architecture when running at default ugrids and with draw distance settings below ultra. Consider using Simply Bigger Trees to fill out a lot of areas in the game, it has a lovely effect without costing an arm and a leg in fps, and it can at least temporarily hide all manner of things you'd rather not have your attention drawn by, like pop-in. 

 

Find yourself an ENB that has a performance profile, preferably one that supports the more recent effects like mist and procedural sun, but disable other expensive effects like SSAO, DoF, Reflections, Skylighting - many ENBs will still look much better than vanilla without these.

 

Use Vivid Clouds and Fog plus it's 1k textures to soften up the distant mountain rendering, mask the z-fighting (flickering) and to give an illusion of depth at the horizon. Consider using a good weather lighting mod. For me that's still Climates of Tamriel rather than Pure Weather, but the choice can often be dictated by the ENB you use. 

 

You can lavish 4k face and body textures on your own character if you wish, but avoid applying them to every other npc in the game or you'll add dramatically to the burden put on your gpu's vram, especially in towns, cities and during those civil war battles. To do that use a custom race that comes with it's own texture folder, stick your souped up body textures in there and keep to 2k textures for everybody else.

 

Same goes for armor mods - if it's a vanilla replacer or the armor is going to be in level lists, stick to less ambitious texture res versions. If it's one off armor and only you're likely to be wearing it, you can probably get away with those lovely 4k textures. 

 

I'd say 2k textures work just as fine as 4k textures. Unless you zoom really close you won't notice much difference between the two.

 

 I use 4k face and body because I do  zoom in  close quite often when taking shots. But granted,  it's not that often that the difference is obvious, especially if you screenshoot as you play like I mostly do.  2k is more than enough for most of us most of the time.  

[Guest]

I think I can offer something to this discussion, as I have a rather outdated PC. 

 

Specs:

 

 

• Board: Intel DG42TY (LGA775)
• CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E7300 @ 2.66GHz
• RAM: 4GB Dual-Channel DDR2 @ 333MHz (5-5-5-15 timings)
• Graphics: 1024MB ATI AMD Radeon HD 6850
• OS: Windows 8.1 Professional 64-bit

 

 

 

The system is built on an 8-year-old platform, just barely past the 64-bit mark.

 

ENB - RealLike ENB series 0.113 DLL (Performance Edition)

Textures - Beth Hi-Res DLC OPTIMIZED 1K textures

Meshes - Static Mesh Improvement Mod

Bodies - UUNP UNPB preset + Alt Navatsea Seamless 

Plus about 180 other mods and textures. My Skyrim directory clocks in at just over 30GB. (Small potatoes for some of you, I'm sure.)

 

Screenshots (Imgur Album)

 

And, game play performance is still very smooth, with 60 FPS interior, and approx 30-40 FPS exterior. The frame rate may dip in more complex cells, but I still consider anything above 24FPS playable. I do have some "optimization" mods and tweaks applied, so it really is more so just a matter of researching and doing a lot of trial and error. I do run the game at 720p, because I don't have a widescreen monitor, so if you're looking for higher-resolution, you may need to make adjustments.