Skyrim Modding Megathread

I don't get what the big deal is with shadows. Whether I crank 'em to max, or minimize them, I honestly can't say they ever cross my mind while I'm gaming. If they cause such a massive performance hit, what possible reason could anybody have to want to max them? Sincere question...
 
fochkoph said:
Something with the shadow modification that totally ruins FPS indoors, it's a known issue and I didn't bother to check if there was a resolution when I tried it a few days ago.

The Skyboost R3 mod is pretty incredible, I gained about 10-15 frames in busy cities. Have yet to crash.
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cheers mate, that did the trick mate
 
shantd said:
I don't get what the big deal is with shadows. Whether I crank 'em to max, or minimize them, I honestly can't say they ever cross my mind while I'm gaming. If they cause such a massive performance hit, what possible reason could anybody have to want to max them? Sincere question...
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Some people are just more nitpicky than others. ;)
 
jonneymendoza said:
Hi. i edited my ini file with these values:

iShadowMapResolution=8192

iBlurDeferredShadowMask=32

fGrassStartFadeDistance=14000.0000

And outdooors it runs fine but when im indoors i take a dramatic framerat hit. i get like 5fps indoors. How comes?

i have a overclocked i7 920 do at 3.8 and my 480gtx clocked at 875mhz.
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8192 killed my indoor frame rate also, but dropping back to 4096 worked just fine.
 
what what have people landed on as a fix for shadows? there's so many different sets floating around.
 
dj_2004 said:
Full Metal Dwemer Interiors:
A mod to keep an eye on if you want to experience the dwemer look as it was in Morrowind.
http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=5124

Dramatic Clouds:
Subtle differences in the various cloud textures to provide a sense of depth to the sky.
http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=4910

And a repeat from before as I think it should be listed in the OP:
JaySuS Swords:
http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=1002
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Thought I added jaysus swords before, thanks for the heads up.

Once I resume classes next week, I may not be able to keep up with this thread. If I overlook anything, feel free to send me a PM and I'll be sure to add it to the OP. I'll try my best to keep everything up to date.

BTW: would anyone be willing to edit the Skyrim banner in the OP? I want "Modding Megathread" added to the image tastefully, preferably in the Skyrim font. I'm away from my main computer atm so I don't have access to any image editing software. Thanks! :)
 
chockomonkey said:
what what have people landed on as a fix for shadows? there's so many different sets floating around.
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Personally I prefer leaving the shadow resolution at 2k and increase the iBlurDeferredShadowMask instead. It softens the edges of the shadows so they don't jump out as "HEY I AM A BLOCKY MESS" and instead blend into the background. It's up to preference really though. The skyrim tweak article on H has good screenshots of the different settings.
 
dj_2004 said:
Full Metal Dwemer Interiors:
A mod to keep an eye on if you want to experience the dwemer look as it was in Morrowind.
http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=5124
Click to expand...

I'll definitely be keeping tabs on that thing.

Dramatic Clouds:
Subtle differences in the various cloud textures to provide a sense of depth to the sky.
http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=4910
Click to expand...

Downloaded.


And a repeat from before as I think it should be listed in the OP:
JaySuS Swords:
http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=1002
Click to expand...

Wow, that's really some impressive attention to detail.
 
dj_2004 said:
How do these mods compare?
http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=4323
http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=1875

I've been using Realistic Colors and Real Nights v14 with HDR but with it on I get about a 10 FPS loss.
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Problem I have with most of these "Realistic Lighting" mods is that they take away all the haze of distant objects which in turn gives you no feeling of distance. Your not supposed to see things as clearly at five miles as you could at 5 feet.
 
Krenum said:
Problem I have with most of these "Realistic Lighting" mods is that they take away all the haze of distant objects which in turn gives you no feeling of distance. Your not supposed to see things as clearly at five miles as you could at 5 feet.
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And often times the dungeons are just too damned dark.

An example of a mod I really liked along these lines was Interior Light Overhaul for New Vegas. That guy did a fantastic job.
 
Drakenfeng said:
Personally I prefer leaving the shadow resolution at 2k and increase the iBlurDeferredShadowMask instead. It softens the edges of the shadows so they don't jump out as "HEY I AM A BLOCKY MESS" and instead blend into the background. It's up to preference really though. The skyrim tweak article on H has good screenshots of the different settings.
Click to expand...

I just took your advice and did exactly that. Left the shadow resolution at 2048 and jacked up my blur to 32. Shadows look perfect without the penalty indoors. Now all I need is a comprehensive HD texture pack then I think I'll be 100% happy with how my game looks.

dj_2004 said:
How do these mods compare?
http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=4323
http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=1875

I've been using Realistic Colors and Real Nights v14 with HDR but with it on I get about a 10 FPS loss.
Click to expand...

I just use the FXAA Post Processing Injector and tweak the levels myself instead of downloading fixed contrast/saturation levels set by another person. It works great!
 
Detailed Chest Texture Replacer:
http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=4457

fochkoph said:
I just use the FXAA Post Processing Injector and tweak the levels myself instead of downloading fixed contrast/saturation levels set by another person. It works great!
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Realistic Colors/Nights looked very good to me but I disliked the FPS hit. FXAA alone still gives a FPS loss and causes microstuttering.

Realistic Lighting is nice looking though I would prefer more contrast. Still, no FPS loss and no microstuttering so I'll be using it from now on.
 
Drakenfeng said:
Personally I prefer leaving the shadow resolution at 2k and increase the iBlurDeferredShadowMask instead. It softens the edges of the shadows so they don't jump out as "HEY I AM A BLOCKY MESS" and instead blend into the background. It's up to preference really though. The skyrim tweak article on H has good screenshots of the different settings.
Click to expand...

This was a good (and quick!) solution for me. Cheers mate!

Also, i tried the realistic lighting mod yesterday... I REALLY want to be able to use one of these mods, but when it's dark it's just too damn dark and ends up straining my eyes. It wouldn't be bad if the light-creating mechanics they had in the game were more useful. Seriously though, just can't sacrifice a hand to hold a torch (the torch light looks really good though), and the mage lighting mechanics so so damn bright it's even worse than the dark.

I can't wait for a polished mod which addresses the lighting without hurting my eyes!
 
m3ta1head said:
Overhaul complete. Hope this is satisfactory.

Again, please notify me if there are any broken/misdirected links. Also point out if I overlooked any particularly important mods. Now that the OP is formatted, adding new mods is pretty simple. :)
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Looks quite good. Thanks, makes things much easier for everyone :D
 
Q-BZ said:
And often times the dungeons are just too damned dark.

An example of a mod I really liked along these lines was Interior Light Overhaul for New Vegas. That guy did a fantastic job.
Click to expand...

I like the dark caves/dungeons. It makes torches useful and cranks the immersion factor up.
 
chockomonkey said:
Seriously though, just can't sacrifice a hand to hold a torch (the torch light looks really good though)
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If you have a follower, you can put a torch in their inventory and when it's past a certain dark point they will hold a torch for you (then put it away for combat).

At least that's what my follower does (Erandur).
 
chockomonkey said:
Also, i tried the realistic lighting mod yesterday... I REALLY want to be able to use one of these mods, but when it's dark it's just too damn dark and ends up straining my eyes. It wouldn't be bad if the light-creating mechanics they had in the game were more useful. Seriously though, just can't sacrifice a hand to hold a torch (the torch light looks really good though), and the mage lighting mechanics so so damn bright it's even worse than the dark.

I can't wait for a polished mod which addresses the lighting without hurting my eyes!
Click to expand...

I agree that some spots are too bright (daylight sky, daylight snow, magelight in certain interiors though it seems to look great in most places). The authors are hoping for a HDR shader to be created then they can address this issue. Even with these problems I'll continue to use the mod as I dislike how bright dungeons and nights are in vanilla Skyrim, and the stuttering that the FXAA injector causes.

Gionight will be releasing his ENB settings sometime so I may give those a try. Then again, I have no idea how much of a performance impact ENB causes.
 
dj_2004 said:
Gionight will be releasing his ENB settings sometime so I may give those a try. Then again, I have no idea how much of a performance impact ENB causes.
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i thought the purpose of the ENB was to improve performance.. though up until i saw Gionight's screens i had no idea that it had an effect on the colors. Can't wait until he posts what he's using, i haven't seen the game look so good!
 
chockomonkey said:
i thought the purpose of the ENB was to improve performance.. though up until i saw Gionight's screens i had no idea that it had an effect on the colors. Can't wait until he posts what he's using, i haven't seen the game look so good!
Click to expand...

I've tried a few of the ENB settings floating around and most of them bring me into the 20-25 FPS range. Without ENB I'm >60 (exterior areas, not near cities)
 
Amazing Ebony Armor Redone:
http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=2544

Daedric Reborn:
http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=3006

HQ College of Winterhold:
http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=2552

HQ Towns and Villages:
http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=3467

43st said:
I've tried a few of the ENB settings floating around and most of them bring me into the 20-25 FPS range. Without ENB I'm >60 (exterior areas, not near cities)
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Is that with ENB AO on? That setting will eat FPS up.
 
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dj_2004 said:
Is that with ENB AO on? That setting will eat FPS up.
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The fast SSAO setting is of minimal impact, it's a bit hard to see a difference with it sometimes. I'm still messing with it. Here's a picture of my current settings, using Realistic Lighting w/o pp, the ENB files from Realistic Skyrim HD, and SkyBoost R3 as my proxy library (that may screw something up, but it seems fine currently).

I spend more time tweaking than playing. :(

 
Yuril Bumpy Cities Pack:
I've been using a few of Yuril's bumpies for cities that have no decent texture packs (example: Markarth). There shouldn't be any performance hit.
http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=5307

43st said:
I spend more time tweaking than playing. :(
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Welcome to the club!

And I just tried your recommendation and the game does look good. Now I must decide if I can handle ~20 FPS in some areas. :eek:
 
Does "Yuril Bumpy Cities Pack" contain all of his cities and road textures?

EDIT

Wow...nevermind...

This pack contains all my work on the Normalmap textures vanilla :

SOLITUDE
MARKARTH
WINTERHOLD
WHITERUN
RIFTEN
Click to expand...
 
dj_2004 said:
Yuril Bumpy Cities Pack:
I've been using a few of Yuril's bumpies for cities that have no decent texture packs (example: Markarth). There shouldn't be any performance hit.
http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=5307
Click to expand...

Don't know how I feel about this one, it makes the textures look really grainy.

I'm going to reorganize the graphical mods in the OP and break it down into sections. After I do this I'll start adding more armor and weapon retextures.
 
m3ta1head said:
Don't know how I feel about this one, it makes the textures look really grainy.
Click to expand...

Do you have a comparison picture? I use the Markarth and Solitude packs and haven't noticed any graininess. I'm not sure how the other cities look as I use texture packs for those.
 
dj_2004 said:
Do you have a comparison picture? I use the Markarth and Solitude packs and haven't noticed any graininess. I'm not sure how the other cities look as I use texture packs for those.
Click to expand...

I'm just going off the screenshots posted on the mod page. I've been away from my gaming PC for the last 3 weeks so I haven't been able to try any of these out for myself.
 
With all these amazing texture mods, I can't for the life of me figure out why these wood textures suck to much.

HU9HW.jpg
 
dj_2004 said:
http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=5307

Welcome to the club!

And I just tried your recommendation and the game does look good. Now I must decide if I can handle ~20 FPS in some areas. :eek:
Click to expand...

Yeah, it can be bad sometimes. I disabled FXAA and I'm using 2x MSAA, it's given me a bit of headroom with the FPS, but not much. You can also try the following in enbseries.ini

[EFFECT]
EnableAmbientOcclusion=true (change to false for better fps)

[SSAO_SSIL]
UseIndirectLighting=true (change to false if you do want to use SSAO)

EDIT: you'll also want to change SunIntensity=2.5 (this fixes the sun issue with the config I posted)
 
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Took me a while, but I got ENB working 'properly'.

tesv2012010415370786.jpg

tesv2012010415013562.jpg

tesv2012010500193874.jpg

tesv2012010416273790.jpg

tesv2012010501491870.jpg

tesv2012010416435717.jpg

tesv2012010501455893.png

I'm using Yadda's ENB Config. The performance isn't exactly admirable and it isn't quite as striking as whatever Gionight happens to be using, but it's quite pretty.
I'm getting pretty much steady 30 frames per second, although it dips and rises up a bit depending on the outdoor enviroment. Indoors run generally (and expectedly) at 60 FPS.

As for settings in general, I set the SkyrimPrefs.ini myself, and I had SSAO disabled in the ENB .ini. But, as you can probably tell, the AO is still there. I had it enabled through nVidia Inspector.
Odd thing about the settings to me is that I disabled FXAA on the Prefs.ini, but I can still see anti-aliasing in my game. I'm not sure why that is exactly, but as long as the performance isn't utterly 'broken', I rather not touch my settings again.

If anyone's interested in my SkyrimPrefs.ini, I can probably upload it somewhere. I'll warn that it isn't perfect though.
 
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