Should I switch from oldrim to SE

[Aylis]

On 2/9/2021 at 2:35 AM, evilelf said:

unless Bethesda irreparably breaks some compatibility with certain mods in the future...which is always a distinct possibility.  

Which usually gets fixed within two weeks. Also keeping a backup of the Skyrim.exe usually helps even with an unwanted update.

 

Thankfully it is very rare to have to remove a mod 'cause the OA isn't active anymore and the mod broke. The two times that happened to me i found replacements (like 'Fertility Mode' replacing 'Being Female').

[COLOCO]

(request)

Skyrim port of This!?

 

[Altwen]

I went ahead and got SE since I'm starting over on a new machine anyways and yeah, it's way better. I've probably only had 1% of the crashes I had on LE and an even bigger mod list pushing 200+ with no real issues. Just about everyone should be running on 64-bit by now anyways and SE looks great too. I don't even run texture mods because I like the vanilla feels and otherwise graphics are a secondary issue to me.

 

Oldrim is ten years old but SE has been upgraded to match newer technology. It's a no-contest unless you're already really entrenched in Oldrim and probably know enough to where you wouldn't be asking this question in the first place. If you refuse to upgrade then you'd better learn how to back port new mods yourself because I think it's unfair to expect mod authors to do it for you. I'd expect most of the new groundbreaking mods to be SE only/initially from now on.

[Alexh2856]

small question. today, as far as MODs are concerned, is Skyrim LE or Skyrim SE better?

[eyeballjones]

I'll just add my two cents now. Currently two days into special edition trying to port/reinstall my mods from LE, and it's been extremely difficult. But it is a new environment, so I could just be unfamiliar with how it works. I think with the current ENBs in SSE, LE looks way better. I can update this opinion as I slowly familiarize myself with SSE, but I think I will be sticking with LE for the time being. 

[Pinute]

6 hours ago, eyeballjones said:

I'll just add my two cents now. Currently two days into special edition trying to port/reinstall my mods from LE, and it's been extremely difficult. But it is a new environment, so I could just be unfamiliar with how it works. I think with the current ENBs in SSE, LE looks way better. I can update this opinion as I slowly familiarize myself with SSE, but I think I will be sticking with LE for the time being. 

 

That's exactly what I did over the last couple years - fiddle about with SE while playing mostly ultimately aborted games on LE. My end result in SE is a game that now looks as good at most things and better in some, particularly lighting and view distance. I've lots of room to improve, too, my game environment is simplification of a Lexy build from mid 2019 and there's been some recent quality artwork I've added already. I've played around 120 hours with only some scripting hiccups and a couple animation related crashes. The game plays so well that I've ended up tuning down sexlab and playing Skyrim (mostly) legit for the first time in years. I'm on the path to kill Anduin!

 

My advice, for what it's worth is two fold: first, do pretty much exactly what you've just said. SSE modding is just different enough that taking your time will help prevent getting burned by a slight change. My second piece of advice is that SSE is mature enough, both at Nexus and LL, that you should try to get already ported mods or newer replacement ones made for SSE rather than convert yourself. One, you get to ask for support and two, a lot of the SSE equivalents are better designed simply because modders know a lot more than they did even 4 years ago. Of course everyone's got their favorite mod no one's converted - mine started as a form 40 esp that's been in every game since 2013, and I broke my rule for LE's version of Convenient Horses because.

[Nathala]

I recently switched from Oldrim to SSE and I'm finding it very frustrating to have a load order of heavy mods like I did on Oldrim for some reason. I must be doing something wrong, because I've been running into infinite loading screens on SSE with a much lighter load order than I had on Oldrim, where I never got infinite loading screens with a much heavier load order. I'm tempted to jump BACK to LE if I can't find a nice middle ground or figure out what I'm missing/doing wrong.

 

Edit: I just tried a new load order with as many compromises as I was willing to make, and made it about 50 minutes before running into infinite loading screens. It doesn't matter where I try to load into, I get stuck at on a black screen as ambient sounds play.  All my searches for fixes lead me to Skyrim LE specific solutions and SE fixes I've already tried. Any idea why I only get infinite loading screens after I've played the game for almost an hour?

[FauxFurry]

HIMBO does not exist for LE and Kreiste does not even have LE to make the backport so unless you want to wait for a proper Male SOS Bodyslide (and do not want to go with SMMB and the headaches that go along with that), SE is the best way to go. 

[FauxFurry]

3 hours ago, Sir Cumsalot said:

I recently switched from Oldrim to SSE and I'm finding it very frustrating to have a load order of heavy mods like I did on Oldrim for some reason. I must be doing something wrong, because I've been running into infinite loading screens on SSE with a much lighter load order than I had on Oldrim, where I never got infinite loading screens with a much heavier load order. I'm tempted to jump BACK to LE if I can't find a nice middle ground or figure out what I'm missing/doing wrong.

 

Edit: I just tried a new load order with as many compromises as I was willing to make, and made it about 50 minutes before running into infinite loading screens. It doesn't matter where I try to load into, I get stuck at on a black screen as ambient sounds play.  All my searches for fixes lead me to Skyrim LE specific solutions and SE fixes I've already tried. Any idea why I only get infinite loading screens after I've played the game for almost an hour?

SSE Engine Fixes updated to the most recent version should prevent that from occurring any longer. 

[Nathala]

23 minutes ago, FauxFurry said:

SSE Engine Fixes updated to the most recent version should prevent that from occurring any longer. 

 

I've had SSE Engine Fixes installed for a while now and the problem still occurs. I've installed it correctly, so unless there is a specific setting I must tweak, I'm not sure what to do with it.

 

EDIT: and yes I do have the most recent version.

[Swanky]

It should already be activated, but you might want to work your way through SSE Engine Fixes' .toml files to make sure all fixes you need are also enabled. They should be by default but you never know. If that doesn't work, you might want to open a technical issue here in the forum to keep the topic clean.

 

 

 

... I just completed my 90th hour of playtime on my character and I can now safely say that for me the SSE is far more stable than the original version. I just completed a 4 hour sessions with nothing more than having the reset smp physics once. After installing various (engine) fixes this game behaves a lot better than Oldrim and save for 1 (non-gamebreaking) bug that I encountered in the Soul Cairn everything that went wrong with my game I could track back to what caused the error and fix it. Of course there's still the occasional hiccup from a mod but that's to be expected.

This also means that I could also finally complete both Dawnguard and Dragonborn DLCs for the first time, and very hasslefree at that. I am currently completing a couple of sidequests for each to clean up, then will head on to the modded content addons. I think I'm going to start with something light, like Evil Mansion, before moving on to Bruma.

[Nathala]

On 3/1/2021 at 5:32 PM, Swanky said:

It should already be activated, but you might want to work your way through SSE Engine Fixes' .toml files to make sure all fixes you need are also enabled. They should be by default but you never know. If that doesn't work, you might want to open a technical issue here in the forum to keep the topic clean.

 

I poked around in the .toml some more and tried a few changes (I have "MemoryManager" set to "true"), I got some rocky instability at first but that seems to have magically gone away. Refreshing my .ini files with BethINI again might have been the key, since I was testing the game with my normal suite of heavier mods, running around with +300 speedmult, no clip, and God mode turned on opening and entering random doors and caves and I have not experienced an infinite loading screen after an hour and a half (that's a solid testing methodology, right?). However, ILSs would only appear for me after about an hour of play, so I am still not absolutely sure if I am in the clear yet. I'll start a legit playthrough attempt soon and edit this post with an update if it's going well after a few days. If I run into an ILS again and can't make it go away with more testing, tweaking, and load order adjusting, I'll open a technical issues thread about it.

 

I also ran into my first complete system crash in a few years today while testing, so that was an experience!

 

EDIT: Guess I'm opening a technical issues thread. The fixes I thought were working let me down in a new playthrough. First location I entered the game froze on a black loading screen, sounds still playing.

 

EDIT 2: Here's the technical issues thread I made!

[onen]

19 hours ago, Sir Cumsalot said:

I also ran into my first complete system crash in a few years today while testing, so that was an experience!

I had the same problem a while back, with a large load order after an hour or so of play, infinite load screen while entering a cell.  I'd alt tab out and check used memory and it would always be around 11GB used for skyrim out of 16GB.  So i figured the game was just running out of free memory.

[dankmemesxd]

I thought LE is good and as stable asSE. Which is maybe true, but SE seems more atable atm, but Im stuill testing. I recently made the jump and im blown away by how smoother SE. The menus open up quicker, game launches faster (enb cache), smp libraries are better optimized for noobs like me and I went from having 40 fps in whiterun to 60 (probably even more because im capped at 60. 
 

The ENBs look worse, not so much the environment, but lighting on skin, but SE looks good enough to satisfy me.

 

To get started with SE, I recommend phoenix flavour and then fiddle it around to your likings (ofc that requires some self thinking and conflict resolution)

 

but since I made the jump, I am not thinking about going back

[Rekuna]

I think in most situations, especially for casual gamers, SSE is just all round better. I can tell you that I do not miss having to start my game and load into 'coc qasmoke' just to load my game without a CTD, or save in a small cell when I want to finish playing. LE also seems to just 'give up' more easily and CTD when it's not happy. SSE is extremely forgiving by comparison and even when i'm sloppy and install mod after mod just to experiment and test them out a crash is just extremely unlikely.

 

At the moment in my current playthough i'm dozens of hours in and i've not had a single CTD, something that literally never happened to me in LE. It is so refreshing exploring Skyrim and engaging in huge civil war battles and not constantly panic saving just to be safe,

 

There are obviously more mods for LE, but I think for the most part all the big ones have been done and most others can be manually converted. I think the only thing i'm missing is the HDT hair for 2B Nier Automata outfit (outfit is fine) and other than that i'm awaiting on the official Requiem and just using the unofficial port from here until then.

[crowownsford12]

I made the switch a year ago and haven't looked back.  The game base is better, runs smootherr and is visualy better without mods. The LE does have more mods but there is so many taturials out the the even my slow to learn dumb ass can convert mods now.  It has also got me into learning  how to make my own mods. The all rournd experiance has been joyfull. The CTD are far and few inbetween i have 450 mods and a enb andit is still running smooth at 55FPS.

[Mortalstrike]

SSE is superior at this rate.

 

This question was somewhat justifiable at maybe 2018-19,  not anymore at 2021.

[Durante]

On 12/3/2020 at 5:56 AM, asianboy345 said:

I recently switched to SSE myself and agreed with pretty much everything you posted

 

I will, however, add onto the SSE cons list, since there are a few:

 

- SSE's ENB is not as extensive as LE's, as such, SSE generally do not look as impressive when fully decked out. This is most prominent on the characters' skins and has been an issue since SSE launched. While Boris constantly update his SSE enb, til this day it's still not up to the same level as LE's ENB. Rudy ENB on LE for example looks 10x better than Rudy ENB on SSE. I'm sure with time and continuous update by Boris, the SSE ENBs will get better but right now, LE's ENBs rule the day still

- Lots of old .dll mods cannot be easily converted to SSE and must be re-made basically by the mod author. I personally missed a few really good ones like Armor Appearance, Dynamic Enchantment and Green Tea (most by Felisky the author of Dynamic Animation Replacer now that I think about it...). Although I'm sure replacements or straight ports of those might come someday.

 

This bothers me greatly. I cannot unsee the graphical differences having installed on both LE and SE rudy and somewhat similar mods. On SE stuff isn't as sharp, colours are off, lots of it is blurry-cartoonish, game definitely looks better on LE. FPS is more or less the same.  However, its a tough choice, since LE for me was often crash prone due to memory issues, I thought I had that fixed after getting a gaming rig but it seems I only delay the inevitable.

[WhatRules]

Yes. The more people who switch, the better. Not only will you have better performance and graphics. You will also contribute to a more united community. In the best of worlds all future mods are made for SE.

[WhatRules]

On 3/9/2021 at 8:42 AM, Durante said:

 

This bothers me greatly. I cannot unsee the graphical differences having installed on both LE and SE rudy and somewhat similar mods. On SE stuff isn't as sharp, colours are off, lots of it is blurry-cartoonish, game definitely looks better on LE. FPS is more or less the same.  However, its a tough choice, since LE for me was often crash prone due to memory issues, I thought I had that fixed after getting a gaming rig but it seems I only delay the inevitable.

 

It's blurry because of TAA. Either you turn off TAA and use the ENBs AA, or you make the TAA sharper(don't use both). First, check if your ENB has a setting for sharpening and increase the strength. If that looks good, you have your fix. Otherwise reset the sharpening to default and try typing this in the console:

 

taa hf 0.7

taa ps 0.45

taa po 0.45

 

Feel free to try different values until you find what looks good for you. Then you can make a txt file with those commands and place it in the Skyrim directory. You run that each time you start the game by typing bat and the file's name, so name it to something really short.

 

The only problem with TAA is that it takes slightly more fps than other techniques, but it's worth it. If you gain fps from a switch depends entirely on your system and your mods. I have a high end system and could install a lot of 4k textures and still have higher fps than in LE. LE was a nightmare for me performance-wise, because it can't even use half of my RAM or cpu threads. I had a lot of stuttering and crashes, while in SE plays smoothly most of the time.

 

For some extra fps in interiors(or maybe cities) I recommend this mod: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/14084

[monsta88]

Quote

Should I switch from oldrim to SE

 

Yes.

[Kain82]

I at first was forced to switch to SE when I couldn't play LE on my then brand new Windows 10 PC, and never looked back.  That was four years ago and back then there hardly any good mods for it. LE had all the best mods.  But now SE is catching up it even has it's own SE exclusives like 0Stim and many other mods.  overall I find the experience in SE enjoyable the game hardly crashes even with a ton of mods installed like I have.

[FauxFurry]

Being able to save and reload a mod heavy file in the middle of an open field or well populated city is a nice bonus to all of the other improvements. No more needing to use the testing room to pre-load or saving in small cells is required.

[Psalam]

23 minutes ago, FauxFurry said:

Being able to save and reload a mod heavy file in the middle of an open field or well populated city is a nice bonus to all of the other improvements. No more needing to use the testing room to pre-load or saving in small cells is required.

I wouldn't know about this with SE. But with a properly laid out LE game (see https://www.loverslab.com/blogs/entry/7521-conglomerate-01-installing-skyrim-stability-fixes-tools/page/4/?tab=comments#comment-54408 ) I am, and have been for a couple of years, able to do that very thing.

 

[Durante]

On 3/11/2021 at 2:08 PM, saltshade said:

 

It's blurry because of TAA. Either you turn off TAA and use the ENBs AA, or you make the TAA sharper(don't use both). First, check if your ENB has a setting for sharpening and increase the strength. If that looks good, you have your fix. Otherwise reset the sharpening to default and try typing this in the console:

 

taa hf 0.7

taa ps 0.45

taa po 0.45

 

Feel free to try different values until you find what looks good for you. Then you can make a txt file with those commands and place it in the Skyrim directory. You run that each time you start the game by typing bat and the file's name, so name it to something really short.

 

The only problem with TAA is that it takes slightly more fps than other techniques, but it's worth it. If you gain fps from a switch depends entirely on your system and your mods. I have a high end system and could install a lot of 4k textures and still have higher fps than in LE. LE was a nightmare for me performance-wise, because it can't even use half of my RAM or cpu threads. I had a lot of stuttering and crashes, while in SE plays smoothly most of the time.

 

For some extra fps in interiors(or maybe cities) I recommend this mod: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/14084

 

Thanks for the advices. I've tried the game without TAA, but its not it. The colours and sharpness up close themselves are different from LE Rudy, all together SE Rudy was built differently, their ENB folders are of different sizes too.