Lighting, Weather & ENB

[statmonster]

What lighting and weather mods do you like with SR?

 

I had been using Cot 2.1 (https://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/17802) with RLO 4.0.7c (https://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/30450) but it was kind of dark at night and in interiors.

 

I upgraded to CoT 3.0 and RLO but now it looks like CoT has been recalled for bug-stomping so I'm just running RLO.  The nights seem very nice with this - perhaps too bright to be realistic but very pretty.

 

(CoT 3.0 Winter seemed very nice - I assume it would make for a much tough start using Frostfall and RND as Whiterun, Riften ,etc. would be so much more inhospitable.)

 

I've also been using Skyrim Project Optimization 1.4.

 

No ENBs yet, and I'm not sure I want to take the performance hit to include one - plus there seem to be so many options that it's not clear which to choose and which play nicely with which weather and lighting mods.

 

What are other people using?  How do you like it?

 

Do you generally use a weather mod (which one?) or the vanilla weather system?

 

What about for lighting?  ENB?

[haelfix]

I haven't found an ENB that i'm satisfied with yet for the new RLO + COT + Skyre combo.  I tried Rezerect's .153 version, its mostly good but there are graphical artifacts.  The old Skyrealism cinematic .119 doesn't really go well with COT + RLO i've found.  It's too bright in some places and not bright enough in others.  No ENB is better, which is a bummer.

 

Will try the other one listed in this thread.

The RealVision ENB that Kal mentioned earlier is the best one I've used personally and I've tried many. It was just updated to 1.4d, to include SMAA and SweetFX and was designed to work with RLO 4.0.7 and CoT 3.1, so I'm looking forward to trying out the new version.

 

To use the ENB detailed shadows, AO, EdgeAA, DoF, and other effects turned on in RealVision, I had to turn off AO and any AA settings in NVidia CP and Skyrim Preferences, including Transparency AA. I did leave AF set to 16x in NVidia CP though and turned off the ENB AF, because with the ENB things looked too blurry in game for me (NVidia looks better). I also have Texture Filter Quality set to High in NVidia CP and I'm not using FXAA.

 

I get around 30 FPS in heavily forested areas, sometimes dipping to 26 or 27, but I can live with it, to have Neo's SR setup + this  great looking ENB. I know it's all personal preference when it comes to ENB, but try this one out if you haven't yet. You can of course turn off things you don't like in game, such as the AO, which seems to affect FPS negatively most of all. I didn't gain much FPS by turning off DoF, shadow details, EdgeAA, etc.

Thanks for this.  This is easiliy the best ENB i've ever seen for outdoor areas.  For indoors, it could be a little better, but I can live with it.  I don't care about FPS, I am still at 50+ with all options enabled.

[rootsrat]

Further to my post above, I tried RealVision today and I must say it's superior to True Vision! Really nice ENB, however the day seems too bright, going to play with it a bit and see what happens.

 

Thanks for finding this, PCG4m3r.

[statmonster]

(snip)...starting tomorrow night I will also likely be playing on a 30" screen. :)

 

Are you planning on increasing the screen resolution at the same time?  I guess here is one place having SLI might help.

[Neovalen]

(snip)...starting tomorrow night I will also likely be playing on a 30" screen. :)

 

Are you planning on increasing the screen resolution at the same time?  I guess here is one place having SLI might help.

 

Yes. Going from 1920x1080 to 2560x1600.

[PCG4m3r]

True Vision ENB looks really nice' date=' need to play around with it more but seen some breathtaking outdoor scenes... starting tommorow night I will also likely be playing on a 30" screen. :)[/quote']

Congrats on the 30"! :) I can't live without mine and it feels more immersive when playing games, not to mention I'm more productive in everything else I do, having the extra screen real estate.

 

I've been playing around with True Vision and some of those screenshots definitely look awesome. I compared some screens I took in game with that and RealVision. In comparison running just vanilla, RealVision seems to have a slightly more bluish tint to it  (not too bad though) and I haven't yet figured out how to get it closer to True Vision's more realistic look. True Vision does look nice and I really like the Cinematic preset too, but when I load it up with SR using MO, there appears to be quite a difference compared to just using it with vanilla and in some weather things appeared very washed out. I think it may have something to do with using CoT, whereas RealVision was created with RLO 4.0.7 and CoT 3.1.

 

The author of True Vision suggested CoT users should try his/her other ENB: Project ENB. Supposedly the Realistic preset in Project ENB is based on True Vision ENB. 

 

The only downside to True Vision and Project ENB is they're based on older ENB v0119, but the author provided some tweaks to use with v0132 in the comments for those who want to try that. It may be just me, but it seems the performance of ENB v0157 is a little better and I can turn on higher SSAO/SSIL settings with v0157, but with v0119 it gives me a bigger FPS hit using similar settings, not to mention there are less "features". It sounds like the author is waiting on the next ENB release, which will supposedly have better AA, so will be looking out for updates.

 

I found another good one that I've been trying out today: Nordic Seasons ENB. The screenshots on the Nexus page aren't as impressive as the other ENBs, but in game I think the days look pretty good (almost like True Vision), but the nights might need some tweaking. This one is based on ENB v0157.

 

So many choices! And here I thought I was finally settled on an ENB, but now I can't decide. Why does this have to be so difficult?! :D

[Neovalen]

Real Vision is actually what I meant when I said TrueVision by accident... doh my bad.

 

My only real gripe is sometimes with the DOF blurring when it shouldn't but like that it seems very light weight.

[Aiyen]

Neo: Just replace the DoF with one you like! And niceness on the monitor! :)

 

PCgamer: v119 has inferior SSAO optimization so you will have worse performance using that if you are using higher SSAO settings...

If you want ENB for the SSAO and shadows etc. use v.157.. if you just want color correction and hardware AA + AO use v119.

Project ENB is made for CoT the others bronze has made can be used but are not really optimized for it.

 

Also in the end you will realize that there are so many ENB presets and none of them have exactly what you want. Another good reason to use v.157. Then you get the ingame GUI to alter the most critical parameters.

[Solist]

Aiyen: I'm just going to start trying out some ENBs, and I am firing up RealVision now but like Neo I'm not a fan of this DoF blur...when you say "just replace with one you like", are you referring to a seperate download from the Nexus, or to a configuration option in MCM? Thanks!

[PCG4m3r]

Neo: Just replace the DoF with one you like! And niceness on the monitor! :)

 

PCgamer: v119 has inferior SSAO optimization so you will have worse performance using that if you are using higher SSAO settings...

If you want ENB for the SSAO and shadows etc. use v.157.. if you just want color correction and hardware AA + AO use v119.

Project ENB is made for CoT the others bronze has made can be used but are not really optimized for it.

 

Also in the end you will realize that there are so many ENB presets and none of them have exactly what you want. Another good reason to use v.157. Then you get the ingame GUI to alter the most critical parameters.

Thanks Aiyen. Good tips! :)

 

And yeah I definitely like the in-game GUI for adjusting settings with v0157. There are just so many settings, it's sometimes hard to know what to change to get that pseudo-perfect look for my personal taste, but at least the GUI makes it easier to tweak.

 

I think I'm definitely sticking with RealVision for now.

[walkman80]

Is there a trick to getting ENBs to load when using SKSE? Whenever I install the .dll and enb files, I get CTD before main menu loads.

 

Edit: Nevermind, Afterburner was causing the CTD.

[PCG4m3r]

Aiyen: I'm just going to start trying out some ENBs' date=' and I am firing up RealVision now but like Neo I'm not a fan of this DoF blur...when you say "just replace with one you like", are you referring to a seperate download from the Nexus, or to a configuration option in MCM? Thanks![/quote']

I think what he meant is that you can use other variations of the DoF setting from the same mod (if the author provided options) or you can grab from other ENB mods if one ENB has a DoF effect you liked.

 

If you're SkyrimTuner's 1.4b or 1.4d version of RealVision, the default "enbeffectprepass.fx" is setup to use Bokeh Depth of Field that was made/tuned by ewi65. If you don't like that effect, SkyrimTuner also provided a "enbeffectprepass-alternative.fx" file that is his/her own tuned DoF. You could simply rename it to "enbeffectprepass.fx" and overwrite the Bokeh version in your \Skyrim directory to see which you like better. You could also get an "enbeffectprepass.fx" from other ENBs besides RealVision to try them out too and just overwrite until you find one you like. Although I'm not sure if that particular file has different settings in later ENB version compared to older versions, so you may want to copy from other mods that also use v0157 (I'm not entirely sure if the version matters).

 

Alternatively, you could turn off the DoF altogether while in-game. Just open the console, then hit SHIFT ENTER to open the ENB GUI. You'll see a little spinning icon (ignore the arrow cursor for Skyrim). Then when you hover over the ENB GUI you'll see a scroll bar that you can use to scroll through all the settings and you can even stretch the GUI to make it bigger. Then remove the checkmark next to "EnableDepthOfField" and you'll have to click "SAVE CONFIGURATION" at the top if you want to keep any changes you make the next time you load the game, otherwise it's only good for that gaming session. Opening the console helps keep your view from rotating around as you mess with the ENB GUI, which can be pretty annoying. :) 

 

I personally wasn't sure about the DoF at first, but the more I used it, the more I liked it. I also had turned off all the Z-Fighting tweaks, so DoF kind of help hide those annoyances. The only thing I don't like is it sometimes blurs out models in the loading screen and also when using the RaceMenu.

[Rune11]

My quest for the perfect ENB has followed much the same route as rootsrat: started with True Vision, ended up with Real Vision.  I used the cinematic version of True Vision for longer than any other ENB (so longer than a few seconds) as I always found it to have stunning exteriors.  I also really like the SweetFX sharpening it uses, and you can enable SMAA through the config files as well.  Even now with all of the newer ENBs it is hard to beat, it still has my vote for best ever ENB so I am looking forward to when he finally updates it. 

 

However, with the more recent releases of CoT and RLO, I have found RealVision to be a bit better of a fit.  I also like having the ability to tweak away with the in game menu in the later version ENBs.  That said, I still find some odd/jarring lighting with RealVision.  Mainly just during certain weather conditions such as heavy fog or overcast days.  I have yet to find an ENB setup that looks good in some of the more inclement weathers. 

[Rune11]

I personally wasn't sure about the DoF at first' date=' but the more I used it, the more I liked it.[/quote']

I will second this.  At first I found it annoying, but it has grown on me and I quite like it now.

[PCG4m3r]

Is there a trick to getting ENBs to load when using SKSE? Whenever I install the .dll and enb files, I get CTD before main menu loads.

 

Edit: Nevermind, Afterburner was causing the CTD.

I read that the latest version of Afterburner (3.0.0 beta 9 I think) works with ENBs, but I haven't tried it out myself.

 

I personally use EVGA Precision X (latest version), but I don't do any overclocking with it. It works fine with any ENB, but I only use it to control the GPU's fan and to see the temp on my gaming keyboard's LCD.

[walkman80]

Is there a trick to getting ENBs to load when using SKSE? Whenever I install the .dll and enb files, I get CTD before main menu loads.

 

Edit: Nevermind, Afterburner was causing the CTD.

I read that the latest version of Afterburner (3.0.0 beta 9 I think) works with ENBs, but I haven't tried it out myself.

 

I personally use EVGA Precision X (latest version), but I don't do any overclocking with it. It works fine with any ENB, but I only use it to control the GPU's fan and to see the temp on my gaming keyboard's LCD.

Good call man. Just updated and it works, thanks.