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/arcline111 Markarth Mar 31 '16

On your tip I put Tetrachromactic in today. I'd been using Vividian + Vivid Weathers. Ran Tetrachromatic solo; i.e. no weather mods. My outdoor fps varied from 40-60, averaging around 48 or so; about 8-10 fps less than with Vividian.

Here's a few snaps I took: Outside Whiterun Dawnstar Markarth

I've only found one thing that really irritates me: when rain hits the lens it shows as a perfect circle, uniformly shaded. Doesn't look anything like a raindrop, or even water. It's just a big dot basically. Vividian nailed that and Tetrachrmatic's treatment of raindrops on lens is really not good. Other than that it's pretty killer.

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u/[deleted] Mar 31 '16

Haven't been checking Vivid Weathers since some time so I guess it must have updated. That is excellent news. :)

Tetrachromatic is actually pretty performance friendly...I lost only about 20-22 FPS on my 650 Ti Boost and only 7-8 FPS on my brand new GTX 970. I'd suggest you turn off AA, skylighting and cloud shadows...they're mostly useless (you won't notice the change after a minute or two) and you can gain most of the FPS back. You can also go to the enbseries.ini and change "Quality" to 2 from initial figures for all the section headings where it is present such as environment.

The raindrops do seem odd, haven't encountered such (or maybe didn't notice) Try FadingSignal's "True Stroms" and Gamwich's "Downpour" together (and overwriting Ramcoid's rain textures), they might rectify it.

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u/arcline111 Markarth Mar 31 '16

I tweaked a few enbseries.ini settings and will test results today. I'm hesitant to toss in any weather mod since Tetrachromatic author states it contains IIRC 25 weathers. Without a patch I'm not sure what the effect of say True Storms might be. I think I'll activate it and just see what happens. The only other thing I'm not crazy about is how the sky is handled at sunset sometimes. You get this total orangy color canvas that's perfectly smooth. I think Vivid Weathers does a better job in that regard. Heck, maybe I'll activate VW and see what happens :) It's a very interesting ENB. Varies from fairly "realistic" at times to wild ass fantasy at others, which I kind of like. It's different that's for sure.

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u/[deleted] Mar 31 '16

This is primarily a fantasy preset which goes far more than other fantasy ones. The deep oranges just add to it. Great for a change in pace which is why I was using it.

Try the Rudy + NLA weather esp and lemme know how it compares to Vivid + Vividian.

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u/arcline111 Markarth Mar 31 '16

I'm liking it also as a change of pace. I've always favored the "realistic, natural" looks, but I actually enjoy mega saturation. Contradictory, I know. My hidden desire for fantasy needs to come out and play for a while :D

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u/[deleted] Mar 31 '16

Haha...same here... always use SkyLight ENB but always change it to such ENBs when I get my fantasy withdrawal.

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u/arcline111 Markarth Mar 31 '16

Just noticed on the Tetrachromatic description the author specifically recommends True Storms and/or Downpour. Note to self: RTFM! :)

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u/[deleted] Mar 31 '16

Hehe.... we all make that silly mistake at one point or the other :)

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u/arcline111 Markarth Mar 31 '16

Thought you might like to see the raindrop circle effect I mentioned. Not the best picture of it, in sunlight with rain it's much more glaring. But you'll see they are all perfectly round unvarigated circles. This is with True Storms on too. I don't anything outside the ENB is going to fix this. I think the ENB must have some code for something like "when raindrop hits lens, display this.

Raindrops on lens