Regarding Skyrim

[Flowey]

Alright so I've got two questions for y'all and both are regarding Skyrim modding.

 

First : I've downloaded Skyrim script extender in the same location as the Skyrim's.I'm now wondering if I need to launch Skyrim with the script extender or does it have a plugin of its own?

 

Second : I'm wondering how much stuff I can mod with an (is it a or an? fells like an sounds better.I know an is for voyels, but whatever)) r9 390, Sapphire turbo model. I'm presently running Ultra details and shadows settings on medium since I don't see the difference and I've seen it cripple performance in a few other games. To give you a basic idea, I'd like to stay as close as possible to original Skyrim regarding visuals, while still improving the fuck out of textures and stuff so it feels like a true ¨witcher 3 on ultra¨experience. If I do so, do I have more room for quests mod, genuine content mod, frostfall and that kind of mods? 

 

Thx again, and don't hesitate to ask question if you feel confused by my post.I can barely contain myself here, I've waited to mod Skyrim for like 3 years and I can finally start to smell it.

[papapoi]

you should be able to mod the hell out of that card im only running an i5-2500 with a gtx 960, 8gb ram, and have about 20 mods running hires, texture, cbbe(of course  ) , have to give that game another shot with mods after playing fallout 4 with about 30, lol. are you using nexus mod manager?

[TrifectaIII]

You need to run skyrim with the executable included with skse. It isn't a plugin, what it does isn't possible with a plugin.

 

As far as what you can do: that's not really a question anybody can answer for another person. Just keep going until you have to back off. It may never happen. It's far too dependent on which mods exactly you are using. i'm at 300+ mods now and have no problems, but of course if you were to download 300 mods things might be different depending on which mods those were.

[Flowey]

7 hours ago, papapoi said:

you should be able to mod the hell out of that card im only running an i5-2500 with a gtx 960, 8gb ram, and have about 20 mods running hires, texture, cbbe(of course  ) , have to give that game another shot with mods after playing fallout 4 with about 30, lol. are you using nexus mod manager?

Yep, might change mod manager at a later point but since I've never been a mod user before I'm sticking to it for now.

[Flowey]

7 hours ago, TrifectaIII said:

You need to run skyrim with the executable included with skse. It isn't a plugin, what it does isn't possible with a plugin.

 

As far as what you can do: that's not really a question anybody can answer for another person. Just keep going until you have to back off. It may never happen.

Thanks bud.

[Atmos]

you always launch with skse.

you can change pretty much anything, some mods naturally won't work with others, but there's no complete list of whats compatible with what. Look around, install what you like, test to see if it works, and if not then play around with it until you find a good balance.

 

As far as mods that improve the game's look massively, first off. get the 2k hd texture packs, then get SMIMM (literally the best skyrim mod, period.) they work together just fine, and make the game look 10x better by removing all those shitty flat surfaces and textures, without completely killing performance.

 

Modding, especially in skyrim is a game of testing. install what you like, test the performance impact or compatability by launching and seeing if you crash, then rinse and repeat.

 

A good list of mods to install, if you want a not massively changed, but simply more expansive and immersive experience. vvv these are all simply a must have.

Frost Fall

Camping kit of the northern ranger

Wet and Cold

Apocalypse spell book

SMIMM

2k HD Textures

Immersive Armors

Immersive Weapons

Immersive Settlements & Patrols

Campfire

SkyUI

Sounds of Skyrim [The Dungeons]

Sounds of Skyrim [The Wilds]

Sounds of Skyrim [Civilization]

Skyrim Flora Overhaul

Cloaks

[Flowey]

7 hours ago, papapoi said:

you should be able to mod the hell out of that card im only running an i5-2500 with a gtx 960, 8gb ram, and have about 20 mods running hires, texture, cbbe(of course  ) , have to give that game another shot with mods after playing fallout 4 with about 30, lol. are you using nexus mod manager?

Is the bethesda hd textures pack worth downloading? Or are they shitty?

[Aereldor]

If you've been watching Gopher's videos, you'll know what changes to make to the 'ultra' preset in your INI files (name, turning off antialiasing and anisotropic filtering as the ENB covers that anyway). You'll also know NEVER to launch Skyrim with the regular launcher, as that resets values in your INI files. ALWAYS launch it with the SKSE shortcut instead. In fact, delete the regular Skyrim shortcut from your desktop just to be safe.

Skyrim modding is more VRAM-bound than GPU compute power. Still, with an R9 390, you have both. The sky's the limit. However, if you do want to retain the original aesthetic of Skyrim, I'd recommend picking up the Skyrim HD 2k texture pack, as it's the most true to the original game, despite not being the best-looking.

 

However, the biggest difference you can make to the game will be through an ENB, and if you want to stay as close to Skyrim's original aesthetic as possible, I'd recommend the following- 

• Project ENB
• Phinix Natural ENB
• RealVision ENB.

However, if you want something that fixes Bethesda's aesthetic blunders with the weather and lighting system bundled in with an ENB, get Natural Lighting and Atmospherics 2.0 by Confidence-Man. In my opinion, it's the best ENB for Skyrim to date.

[papapoi]

np, i love nexus mm, its easy and straightforward, and the community there is very helpful, have fun modding. and dont forget the extra add on quests

[Flowey]

7 hours ago, Atmos said:

you always launch with skse.

you can change pretty much anything, some mods naturally won't work with others, but there's no complete list of whats compatible with what. Look around, install what you like, test to see if it works, and if not then play around with it until you find a good balance.

 

As far as mods that improve the game's look massively, first off. get the 2k hd texture packs, then get SMIMM (literally the best skyrim mod, period.) they work together just fine, and make the game look 10x better by removing all those shitty flat surfaces and textures, without completely killing performance.

 

Modding, especially in skyrim is a game of testing. install what you like, test the performance impact or compatability by launching and seeing if you crash, then rinse and repeat.

 

A good list of mods to install, if you want a not massively changed, but simply more expansive and immersive experience. vvv these are all simply a must have.

 

Hidden Content

 

IMMERSIVE

 

That word's as much a meme as took an arrow to the knee isn't it?

[Atmos]

1 minute ago, Flowey said:

IMMERSIVE

 

That word's as much a meme as took an arrow to the knee isn't it?

I don't follow...

Well, I kind of do, when people use it sarcastically, but all those mods, and myself included are using it literally. It's a more immersive experience, not ironically, or sarcastically, but objectively more immersive.

[Flowey]

7 hours ago, Aereldor said:

If you've been watching Gopher's videos, you'll know what changes to make to the 'ultra' preset in your INI files (name, turning off antialiasing and anisotropic filtering as the ENB covers that anyway). You'll also know NEVER to launch Skyrim with the regular launcher, as that resets values in your INI files. ALWAYS launch it with the SKSE shortcut instead. In fact, delete the regular Skyrim shortcut from your desktop just to be safe.

Skyrim modding is more VRAM-bound than GPU compute power. Still, with an R9 390, you have both. The sky's the limit. However, if you do want to retain the original aesthetic of Skyrim, I'd recommend picking up the Skyrim HD 2k texture pack, as it's the most true to the original game, despite not being the best-looking.

 

However, the biggest difference you can make to the game will be through an ENB, and if you want to stay as close to Skyrim's original aesthetic as possible, I'd recommend the following- 

• Project ENB
• Phinix Natural ENB
• RealVision ENB.

However, if you want something that fixes Bethesda's aesthetic blunders with the weather and lighting system bundled in with an ENB, get Natural Lighting and Atmospherics 2.0 by Confidence-Man. In my opinion, it's the best ENB for Skyrim to date.

Yeah I watched his videos up until like episode 3, even when running the video at 1.25 speed I couldn't bear the amount of details. I know, I know, it was his purpose the entire time, but whatever, I'm hyperactive man.

 

I've also dusted my old xbox 360 and launched skyrim and HELL NO fuck those 30fps and lightning and textures and pretty much everything but the core game.

[papapoi]

3 minutes ago, Flowey said:

Is the bethesda hd textures pack worth downloading? Or are they shitty?

i just got all the hd mods via nexus, pure waters, hd-2k textures, vivid weather, enhanced blood textures, etc, pretty much everything in the top 20, except those that weren''t compatible or a duplicate of another mod

[Aereldor]

5 minutes ago, Flowey said:

Yeah I watched his videos up until like episode 3, even when running the video at 1.25 speed I couldn't bear the amount of details. I know, I know, it was his purpose the entire time, but whatever, I'm hyperactive man.

Modding Skyrim might be a risky process, and I feel that while unnecessarily verbose, Gopher's the foremost authority on the subject with his accessible tutorials. Then again, maybe that's because I watch 90% of all YouTube content at double speed.

However, while you might brush off a lot of what he says, he does go over several significant details in each video. Trust me when I say they aren't arbitrary precautions- I've messed up my Skyrim reinstallation very seriously and have had to reinstall it several times. You know what they say- measure twice, cut once. Read the fine print (or in this case, watch). It'll help, and it certainly won't hurt. The one thing you do need to have a great, stable modified Skyrim installation is lots of patience. 

[TW1ST3R]

Yes you launch it with the script extender.

 

You have plenty of headroom to mod with a 390.  

 

10 minutes ago, Flowey said:

Yeah I watched his videos up until like episode 3, even when running the video at 1.25 speed I couldn't bear the amount of details. I know, I know, it was his purpose the entire time, but whatever, I'm hyperactive man.

 

I've also dusted my old xbox 360 and launched skyrim and HELL NO fuck those 30fps and lightning and textures and pretty much everything but the core game.

 

The thing about modding is that you should take the time and patience to do it properly, otherwise you can mess up your game to the state where it won't run at all/crashes frequently, or your save files can become corrupted or unloadable after about 30 hours or so.  Sound pretty bad when I say it like that, I'm not trying to scare you off, but I'm just trying to make the point that if you do it right the first time, you minimise the chances of problems arising in future.  So yes I highly recommend following Gopher's tutorials.  It's better to take the time and get it right the first time than to spend far longer trying to fix things in the future when it all goes wrong.

 

 

You should also use a mod manager, it makes mod installations cleaner, and makes troubleshooting easier, and also helps minimise problems you might run into when manually installing mods.  You have two options here - Nexus Mod Manager, which for the most part is rather simply hit install and your done.  Mod Organiser is what I recommend, as it's more refined, has better features, better profiling, localised save file & ini file management, and cleaner installation processes.  Either way, Gopher has tutorials for both.

 

 

 

[Flowey]

Spoiler

 

have I watched the same videos as you guys did? I got to the point were he was explaining plugins and stuff (how basiccly some mods are dependant on others). Does he specificly explains how to make a stable modded skyrim easily?

[TW1ST3R]

11 minutes ago, Flowey said:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

have I watched the same videos as you guys did? I got to the point were he was explaining plugins and stuff (how basiccly some mods are dependant on others). Does he specificly explains how to make a stable modded skyrim easily?

The Load Order/LOOT videos are probably most relevant in that regard.  That and the Mod organsiser videos.  Using a mod manager is one of the most important ways of making sure your game is stable, as manual installations can have different mods overwriting each other.  The advantage of Mod Organizer is that it installs each mod in a separate directory and allows you to order them correctly through its interface.  If multiple mods overwrite the same files, you can therefore pick which takes priority fairly easily.  LOOT complements this by automating a lot of the conflict priority process, optimising the load order to the most stable stage it can by itself, but sometimes you still need to tweak your load order for more obscure mods.  However LOOT only affects the ESPs. ESMs, BSAs, etc. in the load order, and not the actual loose mod files - that's what in particular you have to decide takes priority.  Sorry if that's a little hard to understand, it'll make more sense if you watch the videos.

[BobbyG2]

I recommend using Skyrim Mod Combiner for your textures.  When picking out which resolution to use,  keep in mind what objects the mod touches.  4k res textures is a waste on small clutter and grass, but will be noticeably better than a 1k or 2k texture on a larger object like boulders, buildings, and monsters.

 

Take a look at the S.T.E.P. guide for a good base for you modding. It mostly just touches mods that fix bugs, improve performance, and improve experience like UI mods like SkyUI.

 

Your 390 should be plenty to run a pretty highly modded Skyrim. Just try not to overdo it, as you can mod Skyrim to the point that not even SLI 980ti's can maintain 60fps. The biggest impact will be your ENB. I recommend Vividian and its Weathers pack. You might have to tweak some settings for better performance, though.

[BobbyG2]

2 hours ago, Flowey said:

Is the bethesda hd textures pack worth downloading? Or are they shitty?

Yes, not all textures are improved by mods, so the HD texture pack is a must. Download the optimized textures from the S.T.E.P. Nexus page though.

[Flowey]

35 minutes ago, BobbyG2 said:

Yes, not all textures are improved by mods, so the HD texture pack is a must. Download the optimized textures from the S.T.E.P. Nexus page though.

Opsys, too late

[BobbyG2]

3 hours ago, Flowey said:

Opsys, too late

Whatchu mean? DL the HD DLC, overwrite with the optimized textures, than overwrite with your texture packs.

 

Use Nexus MM or Mod Org. (Better imo) to make the process easier, also makes uninstallation easier.