VoidNull

ULO+ has been released as a replacement for ULO Insane. ULO+ cut out all the complex shaders from ENB and uses only the inate light and shadow enhancements, along with the tricks of ULO to create an amazingly low impact ENB preset. ULO+ actually runs at a better FPS than ULO Insane. and can be found here: https://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/38982/? Also Updated ULO to version 1.3.2. Better balanced HDR settings for snow. Updated the description and removed the insane preset. Lite: 2% GPU High: 6% GPU Ultra: 11% GPU ULO+: 15% GPU Insane: 16% GPU

ULO Updated to version 1.3.1. No major aesthetics were changed but DPX and sharpen have been removed in favor of enhanced HDR. This causes the image to "pop" more while lowering performance usage. Sharpen was removed as it was causing too much damage to AA and shadows, and the increase of AA required to compensate was not worth the minor visual enhancement of the sharpen effect. Check out the comparison screenshots: CoT + RLO + ULO Disabled https://static.skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/images/37846-1-1373914820.jpg 1.3.0 https://static.skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/images/37846-1-1374351641.jpg 1.3.1 https://static.skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/images/37846-2-1374351642.jpg

Its not the best, but its cheap, tasty and you don't have to make it yourself!

Couldn't agree more. And to call this a "lighting" mod is a complete misnomer. It touches exactly 0 lights. It is not a lighting mod/overhaul. Nothing more than a graphics mod/sweetfx profile. Like you said though, most people only look at results and don't realize that "same" results != same mechanism And? Do you really think the majority of people care about the semantics as long as their game looks better while still being playable? The name is to grab peoples attention... nothing more. ULO is cheap, dirty and effective. Its dunken donuts coffee when everyone else has decided to only serve starbucks. Not everyone wants an $8 cup of gourmet coffee... sometimes you just want a cup of jo' on the go that's a little better than the crap you have sitting at home that you don't have to take out a 2nd mortgage to afford. ENB still exists. All of the ENB profiles still exist. If people want a more purist shader suite there are quite literally hundreds of options available to them. Sadly not everyone has a GTX 680... 2 SSD's and a 4.5GHz 3770k. Some people play Skyrim on their shitty laptops or 5 year old Desktops that were mid range when they bought them. Why should those people not have nice things as well? When did modding become an elitist sport only for the privileged few?

1.2.1 Uploaded along with Grim (Less saturated) and Insane settings.

So some big news. Just uploaded Version 1.2.0 with support for RLO, Vanilla and fixed the over-saturation from campfires issue. We also made hot file and people are voting ULO for file of the month! :D

So two pieces of news! 1: I spent a few hours today making some tweaks to correct the issue of too much contrast in some interioers that were caused by the swap to CoT. 2: ULO was featured in the Skyrim Mod Spotlight! [video=youtube] And thank you so very much again for your helpful suggestions! I will take a look at those ENB profiles and see if I do a decent enough job of recreating their aesthetic!

I wouldn't mind seeing if I can emulate some of the more popular ENB profiles so people have more of a choice in presets to use. What are some good ones?

Yep, it is just a preset for SweetFX and I have never alluded to it being anything more. However, SweetFX is not emblazoned into the public mind like ENB is and simply calling it "Blah SweetFX profile" would have been a great way to have it go completely ignored. The only artistry is that ULO uses a lot of tricks to fake other lighting effects in order to keep absolutely rock bottom performance usage over even other pure SweetFX profiles, let alone the average ENB profile. It does not change the shadows, it does not actually change the in game lighting, it doesnt use real HDR or even ambient occlusion... but it fakes those things at about 80% quality and 7x the performance of ENB. ULO is not designed for people who want the most amazing looking Skyrim ever. ULO is designed for people who want Skyrim to look good without sacrificing performance. So mostly people with Older PC's, Laptop users and those who like the idea of ENB but could never justify the performance loss and would rather turn up other settings. Anyone who has a favorite ENB profile already will more likely than not want to stick with their favorite ENB profile because as you said, ENB can do things that SweetFX does not. ULO is here to fill a hole in the market and service the people that ENB left behind, not to directly compete with ENB. :)

Thanks for the advice! Ive been away from Skyrim for almost a year so I was not up to date with all the popular mods. Anyway, v1.1.0 of ULO has been released and has been optimized to work with CoT. :)

Little bit of an update. Due to popular demand I'm currently checking out CoT and Relighting Skyrim. If my own tests go well then the next version of ULO may be more geared towards those two mods instead of RCRN and ELFX. ULO should work with and enhance just about anything, but if CoT and RS are better then I see no reason not to use them. :) Edit: So I like the look of CoT over RCRN, but im not a fan of the washed out look of ROL. So I will now be working on tweaking more towards CoT + ELFX. ULO will work just fine with either CoT, RCRN, ELFX or ROL, or any other lighting more for that matter... but this is more a case of what the mod will be fine tuned towards.

Not to toot my own horn but I think ULO is on par with 98% of the ENB's out there at a fraction of the performance cost. There are a few exceptions but those ENB profiles come at a staggering hit to performance. I picked Sharpshooters as the Comparison as its the most intensive and most download so almost everyone has some idea of how Sharpshooters runs for them so it acts as a good baseline for comparison. :) If people are interested in an even better looking version of ULO then that can be arranged. However every enhancement comes at the cost of performance and I felt that with the initial release of the mod it was important to emphasize the performance gained VS your average ENB as that's what really distinguishes it from all of the ENB profiles out there. That being said I could use every setting SweetFX has to offer and still only take half the performance hit of Sharpshooters ENB.

I uploaded a screenshot of Vanilla, as requested. Its an Exterior shot, so you can compare it with all Ultra, High and Lite. Edit: Screenshots have been updated to better represent the current version with CoT. This is Ultra: This is the High without the Gaussian Blur: This is "Vanilla" Lighting with RCRN and ELFX: And here is Sharpshooters: Sharpshooters looks stunning but that scene runs at 20 FPS on my GTX 580, where as my Ultra runs at 60 FPS and the GPU is only at 12% additional load from vanilla. If I were going to take screenshots I would use Sharpshooters, but I would much rather play with mine. :)

Hello there! I am the author of ULO and would be happy to answer any questions. ULO is just a highly tweaked configuration file for the SweetFX shader suite, so it supports both SMAA and FXAA with a tiny ini tweak: In the file named SweetFX_settings.txt at the very top you will find the following options. /*-----------------------------------------------------------.  /                     Choose effects                        /  '-----------------------------------------------------------*/ // Set to 1 for ON or 0 for OFF #define USE_SMAA_ANTIALIASING 0 //[0 or 1] SMAA Anti-aliasing : Smoothens jagged lines using the SMAA technique. #define USE_FXAA_ANTIALIASING 1 //[0 or 1] FXAA Anti-aliasing : Smoothens jagged lines using the FXAA technique This is the standard SweetFX layout.  If you wish to add FXAA or Switch out FXAA for SMAA simply make the edit in the config file. 0 is off, 1 is on. SweetFX's SMAA uses a tiny bit more performance than FXAA, and I also exaggerated the FXAA settiogs to enhance the Gaussian Blur quality without causing any drop in performance.