DanielCoffey

Just as long as it is not Shoeogorath! Has the author said HOW the effect is achieved? I mean specifics? It would be nice if other coders could sanity check his fix.

One of the benefits of making your own Conflict patch is that you will learn a lot about the tools necessary to maintain a stable game as mods get updated. I found the original SR to be a great education.

As Gopher is finding out... it is enchanted strongly vs undead but not enchanted vs normal enemies at all. He would be better off having a non-undead weapon to deal with the random critters and Forsworn he is encountering.

Just a quickie about my first attempt at lightening Unreal Cinema... I turned off the same main features that were off in the RealVision Performance ENB and reduced all the remaining Quality settings to 2 and got a very acceptable frame rate of mid-40s outside in Helgen and high 50s underground but the card is still working flat out so is still at full heat production so I still get that PCI fan spinning like mad. I will spend some time later today looking at the remaining differences between the two ENB presets and may have some questions. Firstly I will want to raise the deepest black indoors settings as I find the Escape from Helgen far too dark since at that stage we have no light sources. There were times where I just had to let off Flames to see what was in front of me or where Ralof had gone or a corpse had fallen. I will be looking at the shadow settings specifically to see if I can lighten the workload. I agree that ENBs are very personal. I found RealVision's lighting indoors to be very flat, specifically the action where Ralof/Hadvar lowers the bridge under Helgen. The light from the candles against the wall looked very flat indeed whereas Unreal Cinema had deeper shadows and a different light colour which made quite a difference. RealVision was more relaxing because the indoor scenes were so well lit but with ELFX I was expecting a darker experience. Unreal Cinema delivers that, but a little too extreme for my taste. Still, the fiddling is half the fun.

I will have a play with the Unreal settings and see what framerate I get if I switch off the big hitters. At least RealVision-Performance will give me an idea of what would be considered lightweight now. The escape from Helgen was the first time I had used AOS and I must say Alduin is a lot more impressive close up now I have heard him in his full glory! OBIS surprised me at the little bandit camp near the Guardian Stones too. Instead of the usual 1x archer, 1x light and 1x heavy trio of bandits, this time I got a novice conjurer, a mage and some bruiser type. It required almost as much finesse as when I tried that encounter with Requiem at level one last time I started a game. That time I remember sighting on a bandit for my typical distance shot and watching the arrow drop way short. The bandits didn't have the same trouble hitting me though!

I did what you suggested and made a fresh "RealVision Performance 0.231 Data File" mod that contained the particle patch and anything that Realvision Performance needed. That means that I now have the profiles in ENB Manager for both RealVision (performance) and Unreal Cinema (quality) as well as the pair of "data file" mods in MO, only one of which will be ticked at a time. I can now swap between my playing ENB and my screenshot ENB. I was surprised to note that RealVision + ELFX was much lighter in the interiors than Unreal Cinema + ELFX. When doing the escape under Helgen with Unreal Cinema I was constantly bumping into walls and fumbling in the dark for corpses. RealVision was not a lot different from vanilla + ELFX.

Spot on - thanks. That is exactly what I suspected the answer would be. I will be looking for a Performance ENB such as the RealVision (Performance) ENB but will have to see how it looks since that one depends on the CoT/ELFX combo and CoT isn't in the SR:LE list yet.

Thanks for the tips but I have decided to keep Unreal Cinema in its original full version simply for screenshots and will investigate a different performance ENB until I can upgrade to a cooler and more powerful gaming PC. Marking as resolved.

I would like to try an alternative ENB to the Unreal Cinema 0.231 which is in the current SL:RE pack but wanted to keep every thing neat and tidy within MO so thought I would ask what sort of changes I would have to make. I know there are effectively three parts to using the ENB... There is the .dll itself from Boris and there is the preset that the specific ENB uses. Both of these are managed easily with the ENB Manager tool but there is the third part. Unreal Cinema ENB contains the 1.17 data files to do with sun glare, edited meshes and shaders plus the Mindflux Particle Patch. If I wanted to look at a different Performance ENB that didn't come bundled with the Particle Patch and meshes, what would I need to copy from the Unreal Cinema data file to be able to do so tidily within MO?

With every quality parameter set to 2 - Low I am now getting an average of mid 30s which should be fine to be going on with. I haven't turned off the Skylighting yet but will see how that affects the fps. EDIT : Skylighting couldn't be edited from within the game... it was locked but I got at it from the .ini. I didn't see any difference with it on or off but I wasn't sure what I was looking for. I reckon removing it gained me about 1fps tops. Current enblocal.ini Current enbseries.ini

I have just taken DoF off too and gained another 1.5fps. I didn't really like the DoF but I appreciate it helps hide flicker at low frame rate. I'll try the other suggestions and see how it goes too. Under Helgen I was getting low to mid-30s but it dropped to mid 20s as I stepped outside above Riverwood. I have found that the noisy fan is actually the Mac Pro PCI bay fan and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. The GPU fan is barely audible. I found this out by waiting till the machine was cool and then manually set the 7950 fan to the same % as when it was under load and I could only just make it out. There is still a lot of headroom for over clocking the card but that will just generate more heat and force the PCI fan to go even higher.

I would appreciate some advice on what to dial back in order to get a more stable frame rate when using Unreal Cinema 0.229 on my specific machine. I am working my way through SR:LE and have the large majority of the texture mods installed and optimised but have hit a wall of unacceptable frame rate due to (I believe) the ENB. I get a totally stable 60fps without the ENB. My hardware is the 2010 Mac Pro in my signature. It has the 6x3.33 processor which cannot be over clocked but I do have a single Sapphire 7950 3Gb card that I have scope to tweak and I am running AMD drivers 13.9. My monitor is a native 2560x1440. I would prefer to keep it at its native resolution rather than running at 1080p because of the blurriness this gives. In my last SR non-ENB play through I was able to get a perfectly stable frame rate without the use of any AA. I find that with 1440p I don't miss AA at all so am more than happy to play without it. Now the graphics card is air-cooled and I am also limited by the cooling in the Mac Pro PCI bay. There is a noisy and proprietary fan pushing air through the bay and when combined with the GPU fans it is becoming an irritation. The card is the Sapphire 7950 3Gb Flex OC with Boost. It is normally clocked at 860/1250 and self-boosts to 925/1250 in its stock configuration. When running SR:LE it is of course running at 100% load and hits 20fps around Helgen with the fans running at 57% for 72C reported. It is clearly audible through headphones but not excessively so. If I OC the card to 1025/1450 the fans only increase to 62% at 74C but the Mac Pro PCI bay fan starts to intrude and the whole combination is becoming difficult to justify. That extra OC lifts the frame rates to around 24fps with a spread of 20 to 28fps depending on the scene around the inside of Helgen. I should state that I have EFI-flashed and R17 modified the card to make sure I get PCI-E 2.0 5GT/s in Win7-64 with the card. In its stock configuration it would have only delivered 2.5GT/s. I am now looking at options in the Unreal Cinema ENB to sacrifice so that I can get a steadier frame rate of around 30 and this is where I could use a bit of help. I need to know what I can turn down or off to gain performance without giving up the essential character of the ENB. The first thing I disabled was the AA as at 1440p I don't mind losing it. EdgeAA and TransparencyAA are now off and my FPS jumped to a range between 28 to 32 in Helgen. Indoors in the first watchtower during the dragon attack it was a little higher. Everything else is Unreal Cinema 0.229 straight out of the tin... enblocal.ini enbseries.ini

Ugh - that is pretty extreme flickering there... but thanks for the video. You mentioned HDR being a second issue - how does that manifest itself? Are there options to do with lighting that you can't use because of it? EDIT : Oh, it is the Eye Adaptation, yes? Do you miss not having that and does Night Vision still function?

I have no need for multiple screens - I am aware that EyeFinity benefits from extra cards but it is not something I will be trying. I am more concerned about the issues that arise when Skyrim with ENB finds itself with a second GPU and whether I can ignore them, get round them or am stuck with them. I would really like to see a video showcasing the issues and how to mitigate them.

Was the original idea behind Borderless Window to increase stability and reduce micro stutter or just to help with alt-tabbing? It will be interesting to see if we actually notice a difference in that case or whether it was placebo.

Neo - is Realistic Needs and Diseases in your plan for SR:LE? I only ask because Realistic Water Two has an option in its installer for RND Compatibility. Also I think there is an issue with the current version of OneTweak which, in some circumstances, requires an ini edit for BWMode=2. The symptoms are an eternal black screen with beach ball as the Borderless Window fails to complete.

OK, thanks for the reply. How intrusive do you find the issues? Do you feel like writing a brief guide to troubleshoot ENB 0.229+ and 2xGPU set-ups? Even if you just list examples of the key issues and any workarounds (if any)? My situation is that I have a 2010 Mac Pro at 2560x1440 with a flashed and modded but not over clocked 7950 3Gb and I am finding the frame rate in SR:LE too low and the fans running flat out. It is actually the PCI bay fan on the MP that is the noise-maker and there is no option to replace it with something quieter as it is proprietary. I can't increase the cooling in the MP case and if I OC the 7950 then I really will hear the fans. The new 2013 Mac Pro is out of my price range and is not really aimed at gamers away. Despite the fact that they will all ship with dual GPUs they are workstation cards, not consumer gaming cards (even if I could afford the model with 12Gb of VRAM) I am therefore looking at a PC for future gaming. I am not in a position to buy at the moment so am really just re-educating myself about the state of gaming PCs since I have been out of the PC scene since 2007. At the moment I am still fully engrossed in Skyrim and will be looking at the next Fallout title. I will be planning a substantial tower case with a hefty PSU with headroom for a second GPU in the future but based on the state of Skyrim which is my main game at the moment, it looks like I should start with a single GPU. If I was to buy today it would be an nVidia 780 but I hear that the AMD cards are round the corner as are the nVidia 7xx ti cards (as well as the Titan 2). Budget is not really an issue - I will just wait until I can do it right first time but I will need to be aware of the noise potential of a two-GPU setup.

Apologies for necroing this thread... but I am in the same position of planning a gaming PC so wondered about 2xGPU and Skyrim. Has the ENB/2xGPU issue changed at all in the past few months? Neovalen - I see you list a pair of 670GTX in SLI in your signature... have you changed your stance on Skyrim and SLI or do you disable one card for Skyrim?

I have finished cleaning it and updating the Win7 service packs and updates and it took two and a half days to complete. It is now fully updated, completely cleaned with the exception that I have not washed the CPU heat sink and has been rock solid. Slow, yes... but solid. I found that the Magic Eraser block stuff was great for getting the smudges off the monitor and keyboard. Still sounds like a hair dryer though. In my opinion, it needs a fan swap, new thermal paste and some over clocking to, say 4GHz or an upgrade to a Core 2 Quad Q9550 but at least it is reliable in its current state. It is going up on Freecycle this afternoon in the Edinburgh area. It is too noisy to live in this house. The motherboard can handle 4x2Gb DDR2 but the sheer noise means HTPC is out of the question. As a project for a case swap it would be ideal.

Hmm... the Windows User Experience score for the machine was 5.9... and only because of the SATA II HDD. The 8800GTX got a 6.9 and the processor got a 6.6... what are they smoking?

Yeah, if they need to spend cash on the fans or case just to get it suitable for putting in a living room, they can probably get a newer second-hand machine for similar money. Is the Win7 Ultimate license tied to that machine? The reason I ask is that I have Win7 Home on mine. They are both Retail Boxed.

That is what I am leaning towards... no cash spent by me on it, just the time to clean it and then they can use it as a project

I have been given a second-hand PC in working condition from around the 2007-2008 era to clean up, test and pass on to a new home so I thought I would ask what YOU would do with an old PC like this and why. === First the technical specs... OS - Windows 7 Ultimate (retail boxed) Motherboard - Foxconn ELA LGA775, Intel P45, supports Core 2 duo/quad/extreme Processor - Intel Core 2 duo E8500 3.16GHz RAM - 4x1Gb 800MHz DDR2 Crucial Ballistix GPU - Leadtek Winfast nVidia 8800GTX TDH 768Mb HDD - Western Digital Caviar Blue 500Gb SATA II Optical - Freecom DVD-RW PSU - unknown Monitor - BenQ FP202W 20" 1680x1050 Keyboard - generic Mouse - Logitech optical 2-button plus scroll wheel Case - 6x3.5" bays, 3x5.25 bays, broad width, 190mm top fan plus 3 other fans on rear/front CPU Cooler - Zalman 90mm, something like THIS All fans have molex so run direct off the PSU and have no fan speed control since they are not attached to the motherboard. === I should state that the PC is in full working order apart from the front USB/Audio connectors on the case which are broken and the fact that all the fans run at full speed all the time. The PC has been kept on the floor in a house with cats and has NEVER been cleaned out. The CPU heatsink was totally caked and felted up with hardened dust. I did my best with the vacuum cleaner and a paint brush. I got all the cables disconnected and removed the drive cages and gave everything a surface clean. While the GPU looks clean and all the surface dust is gone, I reckon the PSU is still furred up and the CPU cooler would benefit from being removed, stripped and totally washed. I get a smell of baked dust when the PC is turned on. At the moment, the PC is hygienic, cleaned enough to test and in its stock non-overclocked configuration. My intention at the moment is to make sure Win7 is fully updated, all the external surfaces are clean (the keyboard is yuk!) and then put it up on Freecycle as a Case Swap project for someone. I reckon it would do well as a browsing/household computer if the fan noise can be resolved. At the moment, it would be classed as "noisy". So... since I will not be keeping it myself (I have a 2010 Mac Pro), so what would YOU do with it?

Version 2.1 of Book Covers Skyrim is now uploaded on the Nexus. It adds the Czech, Polish and Russian STRINGS as standard, pre-emptively makes the Unofficial Dragonborn Patch v2.0 change to Servos' Journal in all Localizations except Russian and brings new textures and the optimized Better Journal Mesh to roughly the first 30 Skyrim Journals.

There are a lot of headphone review sites you can have a look at. Just decide on your budget and stick to it. Personally I have a pair of Grado SR60 which retail for between £80 and £100. I bought them mainly to use for voice acting work but they make excellent headphones for playing games too. I haven't tried AOS yet but am looking forward to it for my next playthrough.