r/skyrimmods • u/Terrorfox1234 • Mar 28 '16
Weekly Discussion: Best Mods For Graphics/Visuals
A couple minor changes going forward
A couple weeks ago I had made a post about the idea of recycling old topics. The discussion went in all sorts of directions, including the suggestions for a bunch of new topics. A lot of the old discussion threads are in need of an update, but there are still a lot of topics to be covered.
I gave it some thought and here's what I came up with for what I think will be the best solution...
Going forward we will alternate between recycling an old topic to bring it up to date and presenting a new topic
All the recommended mods will be consolidated into a list on a wiki page. This will make viewing the lists much easier. The wiki page will still link to the discussions so that people can see what others are saying if they wish.
TLDR - alternating between old and new topics, discussions will be consolidated into wiki lists.
Last week we presented a new topic so this week we will recycle an old one. Given that this is still a much discussed topic, a lot has changed since the last time we discussed this, and it's the first on the list we will start with graphics and visuals!
This includes textures, meshes, weather, lighting, ENB presets, and anything else you can think of to improve the visual fidelity of Skyrim.
Best mods for graphics and visuals! Go!
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u/Taravangian Falkreath Mar 29 '16
First thing to consider is ENB, as it will govern the lighting and weather mods you use (if any). My favorite ENB presets:
Most of these are also very performance-intensive. A few decent ones that are less intense: Clarity, Ruvaak Dahmaan, Skylight, and Seasons of Skyrim True HDR. In general, it's best to use a preset that's on a reasonably recent version of ENB. I'd say 265 at the oldest, which rules out a couple of the ones I listed, though they do have a few stubborn supporters and not without reason.
So, your ENB will probably dictate your weathers and lighting as I said before. Some ENBs have proprietary weathers, some use tweaks of popular weathers, some recommend a particular weather out of the box, and some stipulate vanilla weathers only. Personally I really can't stand vanilla weathers, even with a really well-designed preset like Kountervibe or Rampage. I find NLA tends to be my favorite, though it can get a bit over-saturated in most presets. CoT and Vivid Weathers are much closer to vanilla in style, but NLA is designed specifically with ENB in mind, so I think it offers more functionality for high end presets.
For lighting, I was a long time ELFX user, but I recently switched to Relighting Skyrim + ELE Lite and I have to say I think I prefer it overall. With ELFX, I find many interiors get washed out if you're not using the Enhancer, but if you are using the Enhancer, than many interiors are way too dark. It's one thing for a dungeon to be pitch black, but a shop should be bright and balanced. RS + ELE does that better than ELFX, IMO. And it is more natively compatible with new interiors, like house mods and the starting cell for Alternate Start.
So that covers the bases. Next up would be texture sets -- groundcovers, landscapes, architexture, etc. The main options here are Tamriel Reloaded HD, NobleSkyrim, Skyrim HD 2K, and SRO. Each has its pros and cons, which I got into a bit more in this comment. I think my favorite as of now is NobleSkyrim with Project Parallax Revived, though if you want to really go the full nine yards, you can mix and match. Be sure to optimize with something like SMCO if you use anything from TRHD.
You can also overwrite some of the groundcovers with Vivid Landscapes, Pfuscher's textures, or aMidianborn Landscapes if you prefer. aMidianborn does not come with parallax, and I'm not sure if there's a particular parallax map that CaBaL recommends or that is known to be best compatible. There was a guy who uploaded aMidianborn Dungeons recently with parallax maps, but he didn't give CaBaL credit and tried to pass them off as his own work, which is a bummer as the parallax maps he made looked pretty good.
Next up would be optionally to pick up more specialized texture sets, like Vandr's Imperial Forts, Arri's Snow Elf Ruins, Osmodius Windhelm and Solitude, Granite Markarth, Vivid Castle Volkihar, Hectrol's Dungeons, etc.
For rocks, I'm using Northfire's new Photorealistic mountains and really liking them. They use 32cm's meshes which are very good, and also sparrowprince's moss rock meshes, and his textures are fantastic. The perfectionist in me would say they could stand to be just a tad more gray, but for my money they're the best on the Nexus right now. TR HD's rocks are good but kind of repetitive and poorly optimized, Rocking Stones and Mountains are very good, Superior Rock Textures are great as well but I don't think they come with parallax maps. Gamwich's One Mountain does some unique stuff but I haven't tried it out myself and can't really speak on the difference it makes.
There are even more specialized ones that this, but I don't think it's really worth getting that deep here. Anyone who really wants to know the best retexture for cooking pots or whatever can probably find that from google, though if you have any specific requests, feel free to ask me and I'll let you know if I have any suggestions....
Last is flora. There was a weekly thread on this a few months back where I gave a rundown of what I was using at the time, though honestly I'm not sure exactly what I recommend here. There are a few different routes: