9800X3D+5090 Loses to Skyrim modded.

[diegoaccord]

Damn. Failed to keep 60 minimum. 

It's about 17 higher min than 7700X.
 

 

[diegoaccord]

Here is a screen from 7700X+5090

[emothxughts]

Eh, when everything is in 4k textures + crap load of script mods, everything loses to modded Skyrim.

 

That second screenshot is also a pain to look at, everything is too bright.

[Stahlmann]

There is no such thing as a PC that is fast enough for unlimited Skyrim modding. If performance drops so much, here are the main reasons:

 

Physics:

Since most physics require the SMP mod, which is very intensive on your CPU, try the FasterSMP mod, which does exactly what it says. It optimizes the physics distribution and turns it off for actors and items where it's barely noticeable, like when they're far away or behind you. Physics is especially performance intensive if you use mods that make all NPCs have physics hair or clothing. I'd recommend limiting that to the player character to keep performance reasonable.

 

ENB:

There are obviously a lot of different ENB presets in Nexus to suit every taste. However, feel free to further configure the ENB by opening it's configuration menu and playing around with the settings. The first thing I do after installing the ENB is to disable each shader one by one to see which ones are the most performance intensive. Then either leave some of them disabled if there is no noticeable difference, or tweak the sub-settings for some of them. One such subsetting is the "bigrange" setting in "complexfirelights", which often causes a big FPS drop when you're near a cluster of candles, for example. You'd be surprised how many ENB creators leave the PrePass shader on, for example, even though it does nothing in their configuration and still costs performance.

Also, it looks like you're using the ENB light mod, which is also extremely performance intensive and requires careful selection of effects to avoid cutting your FPS in half.

 

ReShade:

I would especially recommend staying away from the ReShade RTGI shaders. They don't add much imo, since they're not real raytracing, so they won't add effects that other shaders can't do. But they cost as much performance as real raytracing. It's kind of a lazy way to add a bit of visual fidelity for the people who can afford to lose a few more FPS.

 

Upscaling:

You can also use the Skyrim Upscaler. It's a paid mod, though, and requires a Patreon membership to be invited to PureDark's Discord server, where you can download DLSS mods for some games, including Skyrim. You also can't pirate the mod or copy it from another user, as it needs to be activated before it works.

 

Frame Generation:

You can use Lossless Scaling, which is a paid app on Steam, to use up to 4x Frame Generation for most games, including Skyrim. 

 

 

I have to add that I don't like the ENB either, the contrast is way too high which leads to those blindingly bright stones. My favorite shader setup is to just use Rudy's ENB, no additional reshade, and keep the ENB light to a minimum. I also like to keep things lore friendly. For example, there's no lore that says Deathbells should emit light, so I don't need it. I also don't need trees in Whiterun because it's built on a hill in a tundra, not a forest. But it's all a matter of taste.

 

In the end though, even a top of the line PC like yours requires the user to actually tweak the game if they want to mod it. Just checking all the boxes and downloading 16K textures for everything will result in a negligible visual difference and terrible performance. Even on a PC such as yours, I'd recommend 4K textures for most things, 8K for big creatures like mammoths and dragons, and smaller items like weapons can even get away with 2K while still looking great. Textures for  Landscape and buildings should also stay around 4K. Everything higher will lead to longer loading times, even if you have enough VRAM, and isn't really noticeably better. 

 

Feel free to ask if I can help you any further. I have years of modding experience with Skyrim, and right now have around 1000 mods installed - most of them for graphics - and my 4080 comfortably plays it over 60 fps. And no, I'm not using premade modlists such as Nolvus.

 

One last note, if you actually want to play over 60 FPS and prevent wonky physics and randomly flying items, you need additional mods for that.