New PC, need graphics mods

[Queen Bee]

So I finally got my new gaming PC working, the parts list is below. Now that I finally have the computer of my dreams, I want to make Skyrim the prettiest it can possibly be. I'll also be installing a lot of other mods, like SexLab and SkyUI and so on, and I'm confident in those, but it's the graphics mods I've never tangled with before due to my previous PC being kind of shite.

 

And so I turn to you, lovely LL community, to recommend which graphics mods will make Skyrim look like a dazzling wonderland of graphic superiority! Lush grasses, vibrant trees, the perfect waters, weather enhancements, sound and music overhauls, the works. Let me know what you think is best, and I'd greatly appreciate tips on compatibility and conflicts. I've never used an ENB before, so some options with that would also be nice. I know some change the colors to make them duller or more vibrant, and at the moment I'm not really sure which one I prefer.

 

Help me, LL, you're my only hope!

 

PC Parts List:

 

 

 

 

256gb SSD

GTX 1070 graphics card

24gb of Ripjaw DDR4 RAM

i7-6700K CPU

Maximus VIII Hero motherboard.

[allsunday]

Great PC specs.  Mine is similar so I guess I might be qualified to help.  The first question for you would be what kind of Skyrim do you want?  Do you want a more colorful/super-fantasy/pretty Skyrim, or do you want a lore-friendly/realistic/rough kind of Skyrim?  Both styles are very different and I think everyone is divided evenly between the two.  For instance, my Skyrim is the former (see picture) and I'm not OCD about keeping the game lore-friendly as long as there are no machine guns, cybernetics, and Thomas the Tank mods (which all exist, by the way).  

The latter can generally be described like this enb here:  http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/24828/? 

 

If you prefer the former, I can help, but if you prefer the latter I won't be of much use.

 

[Queen Bee]

I guess I'm sort of both. I love color, and I want to make the landscape more vibrant, but I also want places that are meant to look dark and scary to actually be dark and scary. For instance, I need a really good lighting overhaul that will make caves and crypts actually dark, to the point I need a torch or a light spell in order to see anything. I love the picture you posted, it's pretty much how I want the flora to look. I've seen quite a few grass mods that add a lot of underbrush, and mods that make the trees look thicker and more realistic, so I'll probably get those as well.

 

For the record, I'm not brand new to modding. There's just some mods I've never used because I didn't have the computer for it. I've already got MO installed, SKSE, SkyUI, and the unofficial patches. I'm installing SMIM right now, and I'll be getting LAL and RaceMenu as well.

[allsunday]

Dammit, lol, accidentally pressed the little thumb button on my super fancy schmancy mouse and it deleted everything I just wrote by going back a page. LMAO!

 

Anyway, for immersive caves I use Blackout - Simply Darker Dungeons. It's great! Just don't forget that Skyrim (32bit) can only handle 4 light sources(mods) at a time so any more than that then there'll be awkward light sources disappearing.

 

My current ENB is Tetrachromatic ENB with the latest ENB binary 308 or something with the latest Nvidia Driver 375.70.

I'm running 2x GTX 980ti with an i7 4790k at 3440x1440p and I'm getting about 45fps outdoors, it's not the best but I don't need 60fps for Skyrim. It's always 60fps+ indoors so I'm not complaining.

 

The Flora/Fauna mods and textures I'm using are most of Renthal311's textures, Tamriel Reloaded, Skyrim HD, aMidianBorn, Vivid Landscapes, 4k Parallax by Pfuscher... hell, any texture mod you can name I'm probably using a texture from it. Yes, this means I've single-handedly picked out the textures I thought were the best and put them in my game. Only took me a hundred hours. Lol, I've got too much time on my hands. I know there's an Optimizer program that does this but manually doing it yielded significantly better results.

 

Other mods I find as important to mention for visual fidelity: Expanded Towns and Cities, JK's Skyrim All-in-One, RealisticWaterTwo, Vivid Weathers, Wonders of Weather, Imaginator, and a ton of sex mods.

 

Yes, I do use all of these mods. Therefore if you want to use Vivid Weathers also with Tetrachromatic ENB, make sure to pick the correct version.