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?

[Neovalen]

Just got my 30" Monitor hooked up, so far so good. :) No dead pixels and image looks great.

 

Playing around with Real Vision ENB.

[walkman80]

I messed around with RealVision as well as E ENB Final (which I just happened by on Nexus). I actually like E ENB outside but it does give a more fantasy feel which a lot of folks don't like. RV is pretty good, too.

[Aiyen]

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!

DoF is a separate shader effect with separate settings in the enbeffectpresspas.fx file. 

This means you can use a DoF from another ENB preset if you like it better. Just overwrite the one in your skyrim dir. 

It is a common misconception that people think that all the files in a preset "belong" together. If you find one in another preset that you really like.. just use that. 

The same works for rest, including the textures. 

The only one that you really need in order to preserve a preset is the enbeffect.fx and the enbseries.ini. 

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.

The loading screen issue cannot be helped.. since sometimes the models are just in the wrong spot of the screen. 

The racemenu issue can be helped.. if it blurs while making a new char you are using a DoF that does not have the Focus point set to around the middle of the screen. Another possibility is that they have set settings that cause objects at that range to start to blur as well. 

Alternatively.. you can just disable DoF during the generation process and enable it after. 

Edit: Nevermind, Afterburner was causing the CTD.

Use the injector version of ENB instead. 

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.

Many of the CoT and CoT/RLO "compatible" presets have only done a bare minimum of testing weather transitions and weathers when they are first released.... I guess the authors just do not know about the sw and fw commands in the console. Also even with that there are so many combinations and transitions that it is pointless to really check them all. Fog Is mostly a SSAO problem. If those settings are not optimized for foggy weather you will get some very ugly shadows etc. This is mainly because ENB alters the transparency of the the fog texture. Again if the author has never tested with a foggy weather he/she would not know about it during first release! 

 

I messed around with RealVision as well as E ENB Final (which I just happened by on Nexus). I actually like E ENB outside but it does give a more fantasy feel which a lot of folks don't like. RV is pretty good, too.

If you want a more fantasy like preset... there is a small "trick" that works for SOME presets!

 

Get SweetFX and activate its HDR, Vibrance, Curves, Dither, and Lumasharpen features in its settings file. 

Then in the enbseries.ini file in the first line set EnableProxyLibrary=true and then in ProxyLibrary= "d3d9_SFX.dll" Where the stuff inside the " " is the name of the SweetFX .dll file. If you get it fresh from the nexus it will have the same name as the ENB .dll so you need to rename it. I added the _SFX to the name. 

 

These settings cause the saturation and contrast etc. to increase, which gives really sharp colors and contrast to help give that fantasy feel. Now again... it only works on some presets, not all.. if you have a preset that is very blueish etc. then this would mainly just make the blue more extreme and properly make it look worse.

In general the SweetFX settings are easy to play around with and can "fix" issues you might have with the colors looking a bit to bland etc.

 

[PCG4m3r]

@Aiyen:

 

Would you happen to know what ENB settings I could adjust to reduce the cost of a given setting, but not remove the setting entirely so that the feature is still there? I really like RealVision and I want to keep all the cool stuff about it turned on, such as Bloom, Adaptation, SSAO/SSIL, Detailed Shadows, Sky, and DoF, but I'm hoping I could tweak something that will not impact my VRAM as much, while still  retaining a similar quality to the ENB out-of-the-box.

 

With all the default settings turned on (except ENB's AF - I turned that off in favor of NVidia's AF), I get a playable 27-30 FPS, but then after not too long I get the annoying CTD randomly due to ~3GB VRAM usage. Without the ENB, I don't reach the limit and can play for a long while without any CTD.

 

I read somewhere (maybe this thread) where someone mentioned that Skyrim's shadows are handled by the CPU, but when you throw ENB into the mix, it somehow has a greater impact, probably due to ENB's Detailed Shadows I'm guessing.

 

I've gone as far as changing:

• Changed uGrids from 7 to 5 (hated to do that, but need stability)
• Removed all Z-Fighting tweaks in INIs
• Removed any extra INI settings I had added at one point for threading and other stuff (that never proved to make a difference)
• Changed all *ShadowMapResolution* settings from 4096 down to 2048 and even set iShadowMapResolutionSecondary to 1024 (would prefer not to go below 2048 though)

I'm running 2560x1600 res with single GTX 680 4GB VRAM and 12GB system ram with i7 990X 3.4GHz Hexacore CPU. I know I can lower my res without changing ENB settings and that does help, but 2560x1600 is the native res and anything less just doesn't look as good. I also don't overclock GPU or CPU.

 

Any tips you ...or anyone...has would be great! I just want to get this stable with RealVision ENB so that I can finally start playing!! :)

[Aiyen]

You can get the effect at reduced cost ... if you like increased flickering while moving and/or in certain weathers.

 

In the enbseries.ini find the following under SSAO/SSIL

SizeScale=0.50

SourceTexturesScale=0.50

 

By reducing them you lessen the performance impact of the SSAO texture since it becomes smaller, and also take up a bit less VRAM.

Before you do that then make sure the quality settings are set to 2 however... the impact of doing that is less then the above but the gain not as high.

 

You can use the same under Reflection to get even more performance at the cost of quality.

But again the effects get really noticeable once you get below 0.50 but it is up to you! :)

In general you should have about 100Mb of RAM/VRAM for ENB however so I would recommend that you find some textures to reduce rather then doing this if you still have instability.

 

I have mentioned that shadows are done by CPU multiple times around the STEP forum, since people seems to think it is done by the GPU as in certain other titles... but sadly not. Keeping the shadow settings at 2048 and 1024 is enough for the exteriors... you do not need more. The quality improvement is so small compared to the cost.

 

Depending on your DoF file then open it and see if it has a quality number and make sure it is on one of the lower settings. DoF can require so much computing power that they can reduce even the best computers to slow moving turtles.

In my file it is

#define DEPTH_OF_FIELD_QUALITY 1

Where there are options between 1-7 with 7 being silly perfect DoF but properly you can only go ingame... setup a screenshot and then get out again.

 

Detailed shadows: You can change the quality parameter in the enbseries.ini to 2 for better performance -1 for best quality. Same for Skylighting

 

Bloom does not really take up much performance wise so I always keep its quality at 0 in the enbseries.ini.

Adaptation does not have anything performance wise attached to it.

 

But again most of these options do not really affect the memory part of your card but rather the GPU. But there is a bit you can change. I would still recommend that you lower some texture sizes since that will give you more.

I assume you have halfsized the normals of the AV mods... also optimize them into better compression. You will not really be able to see it most of the time, and it provides immense benefits memory wise.

 

Hope that helps, otherwise just throw me a PM.

[PCG4m3r]

Thanks Aiyen! Great info and much appreciated. :)

 

As far as textures, I did process the following through DDSopt and half-sized their normals:

• Vanilla and HRDLC
• Skyrim HD2K
• SRO
• Serious HD
• SFO
• TreesHD
• Hybrids Plants
• AV mods

I haven't bothered to DDSopt weapons, armor, or anything else though. I will try some of your suggested tweaks.

 

Thanks for your help!

[statmonster]

I had thought the AV mods didn't like being DDSOpted.

[Aiyen]

The issue I had with it turned out to be due to ASIS not the DDSopting if that is what you are referring too :)

 

And well they do not really like it as such being character mods more or less... but the sad fact is that AV swallows a lot of memory to perform what it does.

[statmonster]

What's the ASIS issue?

[Aiyen]

If you run ASIS and AV without adding AV to the ASIS exclusion list, then for some bizarre reason some of the textures will not be used ingame. Mainly noticeable with wolves and mammoths.

When you check your AV list you can count how many individual textures you should see... then go ingame and spawn 20 wolves.. if you do not see at least one of every kind you have the problem.

[statmonster]

Interesting.

 

Does this just affect the ASIS Spawn mod or all of them? (I ask becuase I'm only using Perks, Spells and Potions).

 

Does the exclusion get added to the main ASIS.ini or to one (or more) of the others?

 

Thanks for any help with this.

[Aiyen]

Yes i have it added in the ASIS.ini under mod exclusions. Even if it does nothing on your system it cannot harm since ASIS have absolutely nothing to do with the AV.esp anyways since it does not add anything but textures to the world.

[Aiyen]

Okay I guess it is about time to get some more input!

As I have been saying on earlier occasions then I am working on my own ENB preset!

 

I do believe that it has now reached a point where I would like others to beta test it before I release it on the nexus!

So if anybody is interested then please do throw me a PM!

 

For the general description:

I guess it is a sort of middle ground between the really realistic but often rather bland and desaturated looks, and the vibrant and very saturated fantasy presets out there.

 

Here are a few screenshots that are more or less equal to how the current build looks.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/u8jdnmew2g0yk9g/Screenshot7409.jpg

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ydv082df6hv1ed4/ScreenShot97.jpg

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/e6ghfqjccl8x7dg/Screenshot17857.jpg

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/7od26pp4jydkfii/ScreenShot105.jpg

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/nkfe9iimgxliz2e/ScreenShot54.jpg

 

I will be providing all the custom textures I have made that helps some of the bad issues I am aware of, but I am sure there are many others! I will make a much more detailed installation note tomorrow, for the people who are interested.

The specs "required" are similar to what is required for SR...

[Neovalen]

Looks good, count me in on the test! Have yet to find one to suit me yet. ;)

[Rune11]

I would happily test it as well, your screenshots look very good.  "In between," those 2 extremes you describe is right where I prefer an ENB to be.  I'm liking RealVision right now...but it still lacks a certain undefinable something, especially in some of the transitions.