Skyrim Mods - A Comprehensive List & User Support Thread

My CPU is not overclocked, but I'm looking into doing it in the near future (need a new cooler first). Next time I boot up the game, I'm planning to turn down the resolution and see what happens. If my FPS locks between 50 - 60 in multiple environments, then that tells me my GPU is the issue. If I don't experience any changes, then its my CPU. Hopefully I'll get it figured out soon so I can take advantage of some of the great mods.

EDIT: I'm beginning to wonder if RivaTuner's FPS is jacked up. I was getting 15 FPS at one point at the Whiterun Stables and was experiencing zero stuttering.
 
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TimG said:
Which ENB are you using?
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A tweaked SkyRealism Cinematic with nvidia AO enabled. Although I ended up tweaking it a bit more since it didn't look right indoors. I need a better female faces mod though, the one im running looks too smooth and clean.
 
dj_2004 said:
Which blur? The static DoF blur or the "grime" blur that made textures look a bit blurry?

I think ENB can control both.

Edit:
This looks like a good Skyrim Monster Mod replacer:
Skyrim Immersive Creatures
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/24913
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Holy shit yea it does! Those monsters looks badass--i want to kill them!

And i meant the "grime" blur that made all textures look blurry.

Also,
dj_2004 said:
I don't suggest turning off vsync due to Skyrim's time being tied to it.
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Is dumb. I never use Vsync in games because i'd rather have tearing and better frames than no tearing. I wonder if some of my previous issues were caused because i don't use vsync...
 
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Yeah, I think ENB can remove the grime blur as I think that is mainly caused by a low contrast level and whitish imagespace coloring. FXAA also brings along its own texture blurring too so disable that if it is on.
 
dj_2004 said:
I don't suggest turning off vsync due to Skyrim's time being tied to it.

Is your CPU overclocked? Skyrim is somewhat CPU dependent due to it not being coded to take full advantage of multi-core CPUs. I saw a large FPS increase overclocking my CPU but I forget what mods I had running.

There is SMAA if you want to try that instead of AA.
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Because of that vsync nonsense, i'm going to have to do something with my cpu.

Do you think i'd get more frames in skyrim out of a stock phenom ii x4 (3.4ghz) or overclocking my athlon ii x4 (stock 3.0ghz)?

I just spent some money on my pc and don't really want to spend a lot more (like a new mobo/cpu combo)... so i'm weighing either a phenom or a cooler to do an OC.
 
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At this stage of the game what's the story on Ugrids? Is it possible to have a stable game above 5 or is that just a pipe dream?
 
Q-BZ said:
At this stage of the game what's the story on Ugrids? Is it possible to have a stable game above 5 or is that just a pipe dream?
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what sort of CPU/GPU do you have that you are even considering it? i must know!
 
chockomonkey said:
what sort of CPU/GPU do you have that you are even considering it? i must know!
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Intel qx9650 OCd to 3.6 Ghz

EVGA GTX 680

I'm considering it with a wry chuckle because I don't think it matters what hardware someone has. The game's bitchy and especially when increasing ugrids.
 
uGrids set to 7 seems to be the popular choice. At least, Nvidia's tweak guide and a few other places around the interwebz mention 7 specifically.
 
Okay, so I've done some testing and I'm beginning to think SKSE is the cause of my issues. Here are results from FRAPS benchmarks this morning (all benchmarks run from title sequence to character creation w/o interruption or character movement):

Ultra / 8xAA
Frames: 8277 - Time: 298649ms - Avg: 27.715 - Min: 12 - Max: 52

Ultra / 8xAA / HD Textures
Frames: 6839 - Time: 273626ms - Avg: 24.994 - Min: 11 - Max: 50

Ultra / 4xAA
Frames: 11123 - Time: 273127ms - Avg: 40.725 - Min: 22 - Max: 61

Ultra / 4xAA / HD Textures
Frames: 11159 - Time: 277151ms - Avg: 40.263 - Min: 21 - Max: 61

Ultra / 4xAA / SKSE
Frames: 8834 - Time: 271784ms - Avg: 32.504 - Min: 17 - Max: 54

Ultra / 4xAA / HD Textures / SKSE
Frames: 8991 - Time: 275264ms - Avg: 32.663 - Min: 18 - Max: 54

Is this being caused because I setup the skse loader to load from Steam? I used this link to run SKSE as the default Steam launcher: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTcOK0oEDMw

So, is this my culprit? How do y'all start the game with SKSE installed?
 
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I use the SKSE_loader.exe directly from the folder. You may have a mod that relies on SKSE that is asset heavy but it shouldn't be too bad.
 
NickJames said:
I use the SKSE_loader.exe directly from the folder. You may have a mod that relies on SKSE that is asset heavy but it shouldn't be too bad.
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No other mods installed. That's why I'm wondering if its because I go through Steam and Steam is pointed to the SKSE loader.

Also, I should mention that GPU was between 90 - 99% throughout the testing.
 
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So I uninstalled SKSE, ran the benchmark, and got the same numbers as before w/o SKSE running. Then I reinstalled SKSE; however, this time, I went through skse_loader to load the game instead of pointing the Skyrim shortcut in Steam to the skse_loader. Here are the results:

Ultra / 4xAA / HD Textures / SKSE
Frames: 11068 - Time: 275030ms - Avg: 40.243 - Min: 22- Max: 61

Thus, I believe pointing your Skyrim shortcut in Steam to the skse_loader is what causes the framerate drop. Still not sure if that's a good framerate, but it explains the where the 7 - 10 drops in framerate were coming from.
 
Nice find! Most of the stuff on the page has been said elsewhere (Nvidia, etc.); however, I haven't seen the tweaks for Multiple CPU Core PC before. Those look promising since out of the box, the game likes to use one core and drive it hard (so-to-speak).
 
Cod said:
Nice find! Most of the stuff on the page has been said elsewhere (Nvidia, etc.); however, I haven't seen the tweaks for Multiple CPU Core PC before. Those look promising since out of the box, the game likes to use one core and drive it hard (so-to-speak).
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Yeah, I was referring to the CPU tweaks for multi-core CPU's.

I just gave it a quick test and, in the past, I would top out at about 68% CPU usage. With the tweaks I hit 80%. Game felt a lot smoother too.

Some modder resources I'll be adding to the list:
Ztrees new rocks
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/29490

Hoddminir Water plants
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/29486
 
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Cod said:
Have y'all tried any of the so-called "optimizing" mods? I'm not talking about one's that remove fog, use lower resolution weather, etc..I'm referring to mods like: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/13529
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I've used that mod to optimize textures several months ago and it cut few hundred megabytes off; however, I think many of the texture mods are already optimized nowadays. As for meshes, I don't know.
 
Someone help me with ENB's? Is there something you have to install besides the listed mod to get it to work?

If you use the Nexus Mod Manager is there something you have to do besides activating the mod?

BAsically I used this enb:
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/15105

activated it, went into my ini and changed the things it mentions to change (tree shadows to 1, etc)

Hoewver my in-game looks NOTHING like the screenshots posted.

I'm mainly trying to get the "best" looking skyrim I can get.

I have installed the offical HD pack, then I installed the Skyrim HD 2k texture packs (overwriting what it included) then I installed the serious HD texture pack.

I figured with all of those + the enb my game would look as good as those screens, but it looks no where near as good, especially the lighting and things, doesn't even look like it's being used.

edit - Also in the "data files" and things I see nohting about the ENB, even though it's installed via nexus mod manager and it says it was activated, etc.
 
Make sure you download the appropriate ENB version for the ENB preset you are downloading. The most used one is currently v.119 but the latest is .126, they look completely different.
 
Stiler said:
Someone help me with ENB's? Is there something you have to install besides the listed mod to get it to work?

If you use the Nexus Mod Manager is there something you have to do besides activating the mod?

BAsically I used this enb:
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/15105

activated it, went into my ini and changed the things it mentions to change (tree shadows to 1, etc)

Hoewver my in-game looks NOTHING like the screenshots posted.

I'm mainly trying to get the "best" looking skyrim I can get.

I have installed the offical HD pack, then I installed the Skyrim HD 2k texture packs (overwriting what it included) then I installed the serious HD texture pack.

I figured with all of those + the enb my game would look as good as those screens, but it looks no where near as good, especially the lighting and things, doesn't even look like it's being used.

edit - Also in the "data files" and things I see nohting about the ENB, even though it's installed via nexus mod manager and it says it was activated, etc.
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I just went through a similar learning curve with installing ENBs, coincidentally I ended up with Sharpshooter as well after trying several. Couple things that may help you out:

1) ENB cannot be installed by Nexus Mod Manager. Or if it can, its a lot of extra work

2) You have to get ENBseries from this link:

http://www.enbdev.com/download_mod_tesskyrim.htm

and install it as wrapper or injector, I've settled on using wrapper - which just means dropping the 5 ENB files in the main Skyrim directory. As mentioned, there are several versions, which all behave somewhat differently. Most ENB directions will recommend a version, but Sharpshooter does not.

3) Then you download the specific ENB mod and manually drop the files in the main directory (there are also a few that go in subdirectories, lighting etc) and let it overwrite what's there. Where it gets confusing is Sharpshooter has an older ENBseries file (.102), the d3d9.dll included with the download. After attempting a lot of reading on which version to use, I substituted that file with a newer version .113 and it works good as far as I can tell. Some others may work too but some are broken I believe. Another way of wording this is, don't use the d3d9.dll that is included with sharpshooter. Stick with the version you got in step 2

4) Things still looked odd and overly dark, so I followed another recommendation that said when you load the game up, go inside a building and wait for 48 hours, then go back outside. Viola, everything looked bright and great. Some kind of reset effect I guess

5) Tweaks can be made to the enbseries.ini among others to enable/disable certain effects or adjust their potency.

Hope that helps and good luck. I'm finally able to just play and enjoy the game without fiddling with eye candy
 
Q-BZ said:
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/17400 ENB Customizer. Very helpful.
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If you're using a semi-recent ENB version then that mod is pointless as ENB has an in-game config tool built in (Shift+Enter).

Those of you who just copy the ENB dll file to update your ENB, then I'm not sure how well the customizer will work since your enbseries.ini is still outdated (especially if it is from v.102).

Will add to list:
Pumping Iron - Dynamic Muscle Growth
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/29476/
 
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NickJames said:
A tweaked SkyRealism Cinematic with nvidia AO enabled. Although I ended up tweaking it a bit more since it didn't look right indoors. I need a better female faces mod though, the one im running looks too smooth and clean.
Click to expand...

What do you use to tweak that ENB? is there a GUI or perhaps something to explain what each line, in the ini means? I downloaded that ENB (SkyRealsim Cinematic)and tried it out, but I find torches, lamps, etc are way too red.

Also that ENB kills my performance but it does make the game look very nice. Granted I am doing 5760 x 1080 but I am using cross-fired 7970s, I kinda expected my performance to be better, although I am using a ton of texture improvement mods. The ENB drops me from 45-50 FPS -to- ~24 FPS. Does that ENB limit frames by chance?
 
I tried them and didn't notice a difference on a 4Ghz i7-870, 16GB, 4GB GTX670. I didn't check CPU usage but the framerate stayed near the same 40-60fps that I normally get.

I started getting issues like a black screen when entering certain buildings and random CTDs so I removed those ini changes with no effect. I uninstalled a bunch of mods that I don't really use (Followers, Alternate Start, etc.) and let Skyrim regenerate the ini files which seems to have fixed the black screen issue. Now I just need to get the CTD fixed; it happens anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes after loading a save or starting a new game. The main change was adding Dawnguard and Hearthfire and the mods the needed a compatibility update/fix for them.
 
chockomonkey said:
So did this get your official mark of approval?
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I need to do more testing.

Edit:
Did a quick test without the tweaks and, like Bankie, I didn't notice any difference in smoothness. What happened was that I was confusing the performance gain from me updating ENB (I didn't play after I updated until I tested out the CPU tweaks). CPU usage was also the same so I guess I was wrong about Skyrim only using ~68%.
 
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I figured this would be the best place to ask this since it has to do with Skyrim and performance issues.

I'm trying to figure out where my bottleneck is. I've got an average amount of mods, gameplay and texture, installed and I'm running an ENB.

Playing on a 21.1" monitor @1680x resolution. PC specs are in the signature. I get huge slowdowns when entering and leaving houses, whenever I leave a Forrest area, or when I go into 3rd person. Any ideas on how I can upgrade to get this a little more playable?
 
Thanks guys regarding the ENB, got it working now. However performance wise is it supposed to be a huge hit or something?

I was pulling a steady 60fps, now i'm getting 40'ish with a few dips into 30's.

However I also have a VERY noticable "choppiness" even though my frames aren't going below upper 30's, which is weird.

My system is
2600k
580 GTX
8gb ram

Also I did have the overly dark lighting iat first too, tried the waiting, etc and used the map to travel.

Does the ENB stuff conflict with the "realistic lighting and FX" mod, etc?

I noticed the sunrays were EXTREMELY bright, like if I looked in the direction of the sun it was like nothing ibut white blinding light and sunrays everywhere. I truned that mood off and it went away for the most part that.
 
Yea... ENB can hit you pretty damn hard. I think on the website they say it as well. Can't remember because I rarely go there. It's not very well designed.

As for ENB working with realistic lighting and FX. I'd say highly likely. Afaik, ENB is added on top of everything else.
 
Stiler said:
Thanks guys regarding the ENB, got it working now. However performance wise is it supposed to be a huge hit or something?

I was pulling a steady 60fps, now i'm getting 40'ish with a few dips into 30's.

However I also have a VERY noticable "choppiness" even though my frames aren't going below upper 30's, which is weird.

My system is
2600k
580 GTX
8gb ram

Also I did have the overly dark lighting iat first too, tried the waiting, etc and used the map to travel.

Does the ENB stuff conflict with the "realistic lighting and FX" mod, etc?

I noticed the sunrays were EXTREMELY bright, like if I looked in the direction of the sun it was like nothing ibut white blinding light and sunrays everywhere. I truned that mood off and it went away for the most part that.
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What is the realistic lighting and FX mod? Realistic lighting with customization? If so, then they work together as RLwC modifies actual in-game lighting. ENB doesn't. Of course, ENB modifies colors and whatnot, so things can look weird depending on the config.

I suggest learning your way around a enbseries.ini and customization ENB yourself (using a config that you like as a foundation). The in-game ENB GUI is pretty good at teaching people what settings do what. This way you can avoid overly bright sun and strong sunrays, and also remove some of the intensive ENB settings like SSIL and Reflections.
 
Been jonesing to get back into Skyrim lately and thinking of playing a sneaky mage. I'm looking to do something a bit outside the norm and use very little direct damage blastorama magic and not engage in melee a whole lot. Instead, I'd like to focus more on things like charming, misdirection, maybe telekinesis type stuff to get the environment to kill/disable enemies, some summons...stuff like that.

Any suggestions on mods that would help make that a better experience than vanilla? Anything that adds some diversity to the magic system and/or the sneaking/thievery system would be great.

edit: Ooh, and anything that allows for cool spell combos (casting with one spell in one hand and a different one in the other for a single combined effect) would be great as well. I always thought they should have implemented something like that from the start.
 
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dj_2004 said:
What is the realistic lighting and FX mod? Realistic lighting with customization? If so, then they work together as RLwC modifies actual in-game lighting. ENB doesn't. Of course, ENB modifies colors and whatnot, so things can look weird depending on the config.

I suggest learning your way around a enbseries.ini and customization ENB yourself (using a config that you like as a foundation). The in-game ENB GUI is pretty good at teaching people what settings do what. This way you can avoid overly bright sun and strong sunrays, and also remove some of the intensive ENB settings like SSIL and Reflections.
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I meant this one, Enhanced lighting and fx:
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/27043/
 
Stiler said:
I meant this one, Enhanced lighting and fx:
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/27043/
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Similar idea so playing with ENB settings should solve the issue.

Will add to list:
Isilmeriel LOTR weapons retextures
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/29730

Syerscote
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/29381

Insanitys Steel Bow
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/29647

Insanitys Silver Bow
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/29143

Faction: Pit Fighter
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=119305443

I'll also add new images for the current placeholder headers and update my recommended mods list. Should have time this Sunday.
 
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Parja said:
Been jonesing to get back into Skyrim lately and thinking of playing a sneaky mage. I'm looking to do something a bit outside the norm and use very little direct damage blastorama magic and not engage in melee a whole lot. Instead, I'd like to focus more on things like charming, misdirection, maybe telekinesis type stuff to get the environment to kill/disable enemies, some summons...stuff like that.

Any suggestions on mods that would help make that a better experience than vanilla? Anything that adds some diversity to the magic system and/or the sneaking/thievery system would be great.

edit: Ooh, and anything that allows for cool spell combos (casting with one spell in one hand and a different one in the other for a single combined effect) would be great as well. I always thought they should have implemented something like that from the start.
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A good place to start for what you want is:
Apocalypse Spell Package
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/16225

And one of my favorites (blink/teleportation spells may already be included in Apocalypse Spell Package):
Psijic Teleport Spells
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/8535
 
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