Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

magick

In the last week I went back into the world of Skyrim, oh how i missed it. Im using the vanilla version, no mods, add ons, im just wondering what mod people are using for hd / more atmospheric effects?

Kiith

Here's a video showing the top 20 Syrim mods. All are a must have imo :P

Some of this is slightly nsfw btw...

Kiith

Seriously though, there's a ton of mods that are actually great. Check the Steam Workshop page, or the top all time mods on the Skyrim Nexus.

Black Swan

Kiith wrote: »

Check the Steam Workshop page

That's my source for now, given that I installed Legendary with it.

Taylor365

Shams wrote: »

In the last week I went back into the world of Skyrim, oh how i missed it. Im using the vanilla version, no mods, add ons, im just wondering what mod people are using for hd / more atmospheric effects?

Nexus mods.

Real-vision enb. YouTube it and clean up the puddle of saliva you leave on the ground from being like this: :eek:

I've done half the work

Taylor365

Some pics. Still working for that perfect look :P

Black Swan

Cool! These are Nexus improvements. Is Nexus the best way to mod Skyrim, or can you do as well with Steam? I loaded Skyrim with Steam. I am still relatively new to Skyrim, so please excuse my ignorance.

I only have Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Legendary edition released April 2013). Was in the electronics section of a large department store yesterday, and they had all the previous games leading up to V. Are these older games worth playing? Would they run on Windows 8, or would I have probs? I would suspect there may be a patch for 8, but if so, would it be even more buggy by patching and running on 8?

Kiith

The Nexus has a wider selection of mods, and often they are updated more frequently there. Most of the main ones are on Steams Workshop though, and it allows for very easy updating of mods. I tend to use a mixture of the two. Steam for the more standard mods, and The Nexus for the more complicated and massive mods.

The bundle is the Elder Scrolls Anthology, which has ever game of the series. Some of them are definitely worth playing, though they've not ages very well. I think they will all work on Windows 8 (they got something similar to the GOG treatment i think), though i can't say for sure.

MadYaker

Morrowind and Oblivion are both great. Morrowind in particular hasn't aged well but there are mods to improve that aspect of it.

Burgo

MadYaker wrote: »

Morrowind and Oblivion are both great. Morrowind in particular hasn't aged well but there are mods to improve that aspect of it.

Speaking of Morrowind;

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/12/05/more-o-wind-skywind-puts-morrowind-in-skyrim/

Taylor365

I started off with only using steam mods, but they only allow a certain size of file (Not sure, think its 100mb). The nexus mods file size is infinite. I have some mods that are near 2GB! It is a lot more complicated than steam (Steam is stupidly easy: select mod and there you go).

You need to do a bit of research to get the mods working in Harmony (What you want skyrim to look like/which mods work with each other).

I'm going for as photo realistic as possible. I'll try get an over-saturated pic when the sun is beaming. It's crazy how realistic it looks.

I'm currently not happy with grass though. I have 3 or 4 mods for it but i feel 1 or 2 are being over-written and the result is a bit pixely.

Give nexus a go. Makes it a whole new game!

Taylor365

Have had some trouble with freezes. Turns out I'm running out of VRAM now and again. Using optimizers and monitors hopefully i can meet a good medium.

Had to say good bye to my saves though

Some new pics :P

EoinHef

Taylor365 wrote: »

Have had some trouble with freezes. Turns out I'm running out of VRAM now and again. Using optimizers and monitors hopefully i can meet a good medium.

Had to say good bye to my saves though

Whats your gaming rig like? Must need a fair bit of grunt for that!!


Can anybody link a video/guide to using the nexus?

Is it like dayz commander? As in it will work with steam?

Taylor365

EoinHef wrote: »

Whats your gaming rig like? Must need a fair bit of grunt for that!!


Can anybody link a video/guide to using the nexus?

Is it like dayz commander? As in it will work with steam?

With all the hi-res textures the game can demand in excess of 3GB VRAM!

I have a 2GB card. Skyrim is reaching 1.8GB so far without a freeze but i expect it to peak over 2GB when there's a good bit of non-scripted action on the screen.

Best tutorial would be from this guy. He runs a whole series on it and pretty easy to follow:

Chairman Meow

I spend more time modding skyrim than i do playing it at this stage

im aware the ancient BB software that powers boards.ie doesnt support spoiler boxing large images or automatically resizing them, so ill just post a few large ones, apologies if it stretches your screen

Dave_The_Sheep

Chairman Meow wrote: »

I spend more time modding skyrim than i do playing it at this stage

What ENB shader/settings are you using for those screens?

I had a bit of a falling out with Skyrim recently, uninstalling and reinstalling one single mod (that was loaded but not working - realistic needs and diseases) messed the whole thing up after I'd spent a few hours setting it up from scratch. The game just crashed on loading a savegame or starting a new game after that. That was twice in two days I had to go from scratch so I lost patience, uninstalled Skyrim (and the various backups I'd made pre-modding).

I kept the mod files, that's about it. Which was a pity, I was getting some good role-playing out of the game - I just wanted to get Frostfall and Realistic Needs and Diseases working properly so I could really immerse myself in it. But no.

Chairman Meow

Those are using Realvision ENB, but 2 different presets for depth of field. Im afraid ive no idea which one is which now, but one is using a dynamic bokeh and the others a simple bokeh

Cravez

Dave_The_Sheep wrote: »

I had a bit of a falling out with Skyrim recently, uninstalling and reinstalling one single mod (that was loaded but not working - realistic needs and diseases) messed the whole thing up after I'd spent a few hours setting it up from scratch. The game just crashed on loading a savegame or starting a new game after that. That was twice in two days I had to go from scratch so I lost patience, uninstalled Skyrim (and the various backups I'd made pre-modding).

If you want to have a seamless modded Skyrim (or Fallout, Oblivion) experience then there's a bit more work involved than just applying the mod and firing away. You'll need the following tools:
- A mod manager to easily install mods (e.g Nexus)
- Skyrim Script Extender
- B.O.S.S (Better Oblivion Sorting Software)
- TES5 Edit

1) Install all your required mods via Nexus or another mod managing tool.
2) Drop the Skyrim Script Extender files into your main Skyrim directory.
3) Run B.O.S.S - BOSS detects the appropriate file ordering for your .esm and .esp files to prevent conflicts (conflicts can cause Crash to Desktop, Crash on Screen).
4) The B.O.S.S end report also tells you if any of the .esm or .esp files require cleaning. It can also tell you if any of the .esp files etc do not need to be activated as another .esp file may contain the same code. Duplicated .esp/.esm files may cause conflicts.
5) Clean your files using TES5 Edit. Cleaning the files remove identical reference files between .esp & .esm files. Having Identical references between mod files can cause conflicts and cause the game to crash.

You can see a tutorial on TES5 cleaning here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fw3g_N1jcZQ

*Note: If you are having crashes as soon as Skyrim loads etc. Run TES5 Edit and select all files and let the program run. It should notify you if a particular .esp or .esm is causing the crash.

6) After you have cleaned all your files. Run skyrim via the Script Extender .exe file. It can be run via Nexus Mod Manager also via the Launch Skryim option.

You should now have a much more stable and enjoyable modded Skyrim experience. I honestly went down to constant crashes to barely any when playing Skyrim very heavily modded after cleaning the files.

Dave_The_Sheep

That's a great post, for anyone thinking of running Skyrim with mods. I'm actually going to copy it and send it to a mate who's thinking of modding Skyrim.

I was using Mod Manager, SKSE, BOSS and all that. The only thing I wasn't using was the TESVedit. I've a reasonable amount of experience modding Skyrim, I've been running a heavily modded version for a fair while. What annoyed me was that I had the game running stable and fine, and it was great fun with all the mods. Realistic Needs and Diseases was applied, there were no crashes, and it appeared in the Mod Congifuration menu - however for some reason it just wasn't actually working in the game - I wasn't getting prompts to eat, or any debuffs for not drinking, etc.

So, I took a backup, of both my mod config and also my Skyrim directory, and the My games\Skyrim folder. Using NMM, deactivated the mod. Reactivated it. No conflicts, warning from NMM. Ran BOSS. Happy days, one red warning which was about an ESP that was included elsewhere (but which hadn't caused problems before at all). It refused to load and crashed when entering a game - save or new. So I kinda lost it at that point (I'd been at this for a day or two and had reinstalled three times for various reasons) and threw my toys out of the pram.

I will possibly go back to it and use the TESVEdit tool you mention to clean all my files if I do (I'd read about it before but didn't have massive problems). It would be great to have Frostfall, RND and Hunterborn working together (along with all the dozens of other mods I have on there).

Taylor365

Dave_The_Sheep wrote: »

I just wanted to get Frostfall and Realistic Needs and Diseases working properly so I could really immerse myself in it. But no.

Of all my worries, this was the least of them. What is not working for you?

I've spend 2 Skyrim days in a tavern waiting for feckin blizzards to pass over. :rolleyes:

Edit: Dirty edits aren't THAT much of a problem (although cleaning is a straight forward process). Proper installation and consistency are key. If you start a game, then add/remove mods, the game might not be 100% stable. Best thing to do is find what you want, install them all, and start a fresh game. Make sure you have the hardware for the job though. Some settings no computer on earth can handle (looking at you uGridstoLoad!)

Dave_The_Sheep

It was crashing whenever I started a new game, or loaded a save. Tried analysing the logs created at the crash time, but they were ... verbose.

It's likely just some problem combining Frostfall, RND and T3nd0s (with a side order of Tytanis thrown in) in that I hadn't gotten a compatibility patch. If I go back to it, I'll do some reading on the Nexus forums and go from there with the TESVEdit.

I was looking forward to some actual Skyrim role playing, I've finished the game as an OP God a few times already, so no desire to do all that again. Just play with different types and characters for a few stories I've got going in my head for them. Getting the immersive mods seems to be a good way to do that. Even if it does make the blizzards a pain in the f*cking hole. I've heard of people finding it insanely difficult getting out of Dawnstar to walk to nearby locations. Sounds like fun, for a while anyways.

Cravez

Previously I would have done what you were doing - Mod manager, Script Extender and B.O.S.S only at first. Cleaning the IDR's or 'Dirty' files with TES5 there was dramatic improvement in the game's stability etc. Definitely worth doing.

Taylor365

Dave_The_Sheep wrote: »

It's likely just some problem combining Frostfall, RND and T3nd0s (with a side order of Tytanis thrown in) in that I hadn't gotten a compatibility patch. If I go back to it, I'll do some reading on the Nexus forums and go from there with the TESVEdit.

I was looking forward to some actual Skyrim role playing, I've finished the game as an OP God a few times already, so no desire to do all that again. Just play with different types and characters for a few stories I've got going in my head for them. Getting the immersive mods seems to be a good way to do that. Even if it does make the blizzards a pain in the f*cking hole. I've heard of people finding it insanely difficult getting out of Dawnstar to walk to nearby locations. Sounds like fun, for a while anyways.

I wasn't using the mods above in bold and it worked fine for me (using ENB, overhauls, and 80+ mods). It is a complete game changer esp when you disable fast travel of any sorts. You thank the gods when you come across that lonely Inn to rest your noggin for the night and warm up :P

Dave_The_Sheep

At the risk of blowing up your mods, I'd say take a look at T3nd0s, if you haven't already. Overhauls the perk system to make specialisation more interesting - there's some great perks in there - and even has a perk section for use with Frostfall - makes you more resilient to the elements. Never used that one though, since I never got Frostfall working. Downside is, there's a lot of perks, so you might need to give yourself more (I did). Oh, and you might end up like me, with an unplayable mess.

dreamers75

This all I have installed.

No issues running the game

Agricola

dreamers75 wrote: »

This all I have installed.

No issues running the game

COT and and ENB work together? I thought they both did the same thing....

humanji

Screw the lot of you! You've got me reinstalling Skyrim and it's mods. And I had plans for the rest of the month...

Black Swan

Went back to play old Dragon Age for a bit, and discovered that Skyrim is so much better.

Taylor365

Agricola wrote: »

COT and and ENB work together? I thought they both did the same thing....

CoT and RealVision were built to work together.

Had to downgrade my Skyrim HD textures mod from 4k to 2k. Game was running at 2000mb VRAM constantly.

Might have to step back the ENB if that doesn't bring down the VRAM usage. I want to actually play the game now :P

Dave_The_Sheep

Happy days. Went back and got Frostfall, Hunterborn, RND and SkyRe working together. I have to say, it's f*cking awesome.

Not great for trying to become God and finish the main quest, but great for a little bit of role-playing. You really have to plan any long journeys, make sure you have the required supplies, guess distances and times, etc. I haven't gone north yet, to the harsher climate. Will be tough.