GUIDE ENB Guide

[z929669]

For the record' date=' any final frame rate consistently above 20 FPS (in all situations) is acceptable. Few people using Baseline STEP with any ENB will consistently get over 32 FPS.[/quote']

Have to chime in' date=' because this is purely subjective. I personally can't stand anything close to 20FPS.[/quote']

well, you are spoiled with that uber card of yours on that ivy bridge chip :P Clearly, you did not play a heavily modded TES3-4, where you were happy to get over 20 FPS

AA and AF are definitely redundant if using most ENB' date=' and this saves a good amount of FPS. I don't even find that SMAA has a noticeable effect on top of ENB (but it doesn't hurt to use it anyway).

 

I would like to test loswering texture and shadows in Skyrim Options as well to see if any gain can be reclaimed. I suspect that ENB can significantly reduce the need for these performance killers.[/quote']

The first sentence above comes across a bit misleading, so just adding this to avoid confusion. If using only ENB, AA and AF are very much beneficial. If using something like SMAA, then AA is not needed. But even if using SMAA, AF should still be beneficial.

Well, the difference is very VERY subtle then, as I can hardly notice any difference with SkyRealism Cinematic with/without SMAA, AA or AF. The smoothing of the ENB takes care of much of this all by itself (high monitor res also helps). Following are 1) SRO + Vurts without ENB and 2) with ENB, then 3) without ENB but with 4/16 AA/AF via Skyrim options (in that order). If you blow up the images, you will see just how effective ENB is at smoothing edges (presumably via bloom/SSAO). Not perfect, but you will hardly notice in game at high res (accept where you have a lot of light and straight edges, but ENB drastically reduces this):

 

Note the FPS hit imposed by AA/AF and imagine the cumulative effect with ENB (and I am running CrossfireX on HD 6850s)

[stoppingby4now]

For the record' date=' any final frame rate consistently above 20 FPS (in all situations) is acceptable. Few people using Baseline STEP with any ENB will consistently get over 32 FPS.[/quote']

Have to chime in' date=' because this is purely subjective. I personally can't stand anything close to 20FPS.[/quote']

well, you are spoiled with that uber card of yours on that ivy bridge chip :P Clearly, you did not play a heavily modded TES3-4, where you were happy to get over 20 FPS

I only played Oblivion for a bit, but didn't even know about the modding scene at the time, so no I didn't. But I have played plenty of other games that were mod-able, and managed to stay above. I never go with the expensive latest cards, but always managed to upgrade during the first major price drop of the next best thing after the new stuff comes out, so that has always helped. But I still guarantee that if I were modding and I was getting close to 20 FPS consistently (occasional drops can be OK such as transitioning to new areas), I would start reversing things to get it back up.

AA and AF are definitely redundant if using most ENB' date=' and this saves a good amount of FPS. I don't even find that SMAA has a noticeable effect on top of ENB (but it doesn't hurt to use it anyway).

 

I would like to test loswering texture and shadows in Skyrim Options as well to see if any gain can be reclaimed. I suspect that ENB can significantly reduce the need for these performance killers.[/quote']

The first sentence above comes across a bit misleading, so just adding this to avoid confusion. If using only ENB, AA and AF are very much beneficial. If using something like SMAA, then AA is not needed. But even if using SMAA, AF should still be beneficial.

Well, the difference is very VERY subtle then, as I can hardly notice any difference with SkyRealism Cinematic with/without SMAA, AA or AF. The smoothing of the ENB takes care of much of this all by itself (high monitor res also helps). Following are 1) SRO + Vurts without ENB and 2) with ENB, then 3) without ENB but with 4/16 AA/AF via Skyrim options (in that order). If you blow up the images, you will see just how effective ENB is at smoothing edges (presumably via bloom/SSAO). Not perfect, but you will hardly notice in game at high res (accept where you have a lot of light and straight edges, but ENB drastically reduces this):

 

Note the FPS hit imposed by AA/AF and imagine the cumulative effect with ENB (and I am running CrossfireX on HD 6850s)

ENB does not apply any kind of AA, and there are some "side affects" with ENB shadows seemingly smoothing, but it's just a trick. Further more, those screenshots are not going to provide you with any great examples as the majority of the scene would require TxAA. However, when you look at the rocks and even portions of the fallen tree on the right side, edges are clearly better with 4X AA. The difference will be even more noticeable when the scene is in motion. Check the outside of Whiterun where you have the walls, buildings, and bars in windows for a better compare.

 

Obviously the video card(s) that folks have will affect whether or not they can use AA, but to claim that it does no good when using ENB is just plain false.

[TechAngel85]

For the record' date=' any final frame rate consistently above 20 FPS (in all situations) is acceptable. Few people using Baseline STEP with any ENB will consistently get over 32 FPS.[/quote']

Have to chime in' date=' because this is purely subjective. I personally can't stand anything close to 20FPS.[/quote']

well, you are spoiled with that uber card of yours on that ivy bridge chip :P Clearly, you did not play a heavily modded TES3-4, where you were happy to get over 20 FPS

I only played Oblivion for a bit, but didn't even know about the modding scene at the time, so no I didn't. But I have played plenty of other games that were mod-able, and managed to stay above. I never go with the expensive latest cards, but always managed to upgrade during the first major price drop of the next best thing after the new stuff comes out, so that has always helped. But I still guarantee that if I were modding and I was getting close to 20 FPS consistently (occasional drops can be OK such as transitioning to new areas), I would start reversing things to get it back up.

AA and AF are definitely redundant if using most ENB' date=' and this saves a good amount of FPS. I don't even find that SMAA has a noticeable effect on top of ENB (but it doesn't hurt to use it anyway).

 

I would like to test loswering texture and shadows in Skyrim Options as well to see if any gain can be reclaimed. I suspect that ENB can significantly reduce the need for these performance killers.[/quote']

The first sentence above comes across a bit misleading, so just adding this to avoid confusion. If using only ENB, AA and AF are very much beneficial. If using something like SMAA, then AA is not needed. But even if using SMAA, AF should still be beneficial.

Well, the difference is very VERY subtle then, as I can hardly notice any difference with SkyRealism Cinematic with/without SMAA, AA or AF. The smoothing of the ENB takes care of much of this all by itself (high monitor res also helps). Following are 1) SRO + Vurts without ENB and 2) with ENB, then 3) without ENB but with 4/16 AA/AF via Skyrim options (in that order). If you blow up the images, you will see just how effective ENB is at smoothing edges (presumably via bloom/SSAO). Not perfect, but you will hardly notice in game at high res (accept where you have a lot of light and straight edges, but ENB drastically reduces this):

 

Note the FPS hit imposed by AA/AF and imagine the cumulative effect with ENB (and I am running CrossfireX on HD 6850s)

ENB does not apply any kind of AA, and there are some "side affects" with ENB shadows seemingly smoothing, but it's just a trick. Further more, those screenshots are not going to provide you with any great examples as the majority of the scene would require TxAA. However, when you look at the rocks and even portions of the fallen tree on the right side, edges are clearly better with 4X AA. The difference will be even more noticeable when the scene is in motion. Check the outside of Whiterun where you have the walls, buildings, and bars in windows for a better compare.

 

Obviously the video card(s) that folks have will affect whether or not they can use AA, but to claim that it does no good when using ENB is just plain false.

I have to agree from experience with all my testing. ENB and bloom doesn't do anything for AA unless you're using FXAA. FXAA isn't as big as an impact as regular AA and it does clean things up a big. RCRN's FXAA is actually not bad and cleaned up a little of the AA on straight lines with no performance impact at all (it's not perfect but it's better than nothing). I've never used SMAA to compare. As for AF, I find it most noticeable around water and and shadows.

 

Bloom...let me just say I dislike it. It hazes the graphics which might look pretty at times but it's unnatural to me. When I take a stroll outside, I never walk around in a haze...unless isn't allergy season. This is why I prefer to disable it.

[thalastwon]

I suggest trying out the ultra settings with SMAA, or even try the Uber settings from Matso's ENB (just use the SMAA folder.) It saves me 2-5 frames during more demanding scenes, like the swamp near Morthal, over MSAA. It also tends to give better performance while my character is in motion as well, not as much edge shimmering compared to FXAA.

[z929669]

For the record' date=' any final frame rate consistently above 20 FPS (in all situations) is acceptable. Few people using Baseline STEP with any ENB will consistently get over 32 FPS.[/quote']

Have to chime in' date=' because this is purely subjective. I personally can't stand anything close to 20FPS.[/quote']

well, you are spoiled with that uber card of yours on that ivy bridge chip :P Clearly, you did not play a heavily modded TES3-4, where you were happy to get over 20 FPS

I only played Oblivion for a bit, but didn't even know about the modding scene at the time, so no I didn't. But I have played plenty of other games that were mod-able, and managed to stay above. I never go with the expensive latest cards, but always managed to upgrade during the first major price drop of the next best thing after the new stuff comes out, so that has always helped. But I still guarantee that if I were modding and I was getting close to 20 FPS consistently (occasional drops can be OK such as transitioning to new areas), I would start reversing things to get it back up.

AA and AF are definitely redundant if using most ENB' date=' and this saves a good amount of FPS. I don't even find that SMAA has a noticeable effect on top of ENB (but it doesn't hurt to use it anyway).

 

I would like to test loswering texture and shadows in Skyrim Options as well to see if any gain can be reclaimed. I suspect that ENB can significantly reduce the need for these performance killers.[/quote']

The first sentence above comes across a bit misleading, so just adding this to avoid confusion. If using only ENB, AA and AF are very much beneficial. If using something like SMAA, then AA is not needed. But even if using SMAA, AF should still be beneficial.

Well, the difference is very VERY subtle then, as I can hardly notice any difference with SkyRealism Cinematic with/without SMAA, AA or AF. The smoothing of the ENB takes care of much of this all by itself (high monitor res also helps). Following are 1) SRO + Vurts without ENB and 2) with ENB, then 3) without ENB but with 4/16 AA/AF via Skyrim options (in that order). If you blow up the images, you will see just how effective ENB is at smoothing edges (presumably via bloom/SSAO). Not perfect, but you will hardly notice in game at high res (accept where you have a lot of light and straight edges, but ENB drastically reduces this):

 

Note the FPS hit imposed by AA/AF and imagine the cumulative effect with ENB (and I am running CrossfireX on HD 6850s)

ENB does not apply any kind of AA, and there are some "side affects" with ENB shadows seemingly smoothing, but it's just a trick. Further more, those screenshots are not going to provide you with any great examples as the majority of the scene would require TxAA. However, when you look at the rocks and even portions of the fallen tree on the right side, edges are clearly better with 4X AA. The difference will be even more noticeable when the scene is in motion. Check the outside of Whiterun where you have the walls, buildings, and bars in windows for a better compare.

 

Obviously the video card(s) that folks have will affect whether or not they can use AA, but to claim that it does no good when using ENB is just plain false.

I have to agree from experience with all my testing. ENB and bloom doesn't do anything for AA unless you're using FXAA. FXAA isn't as big as an impact as regular AA and it does clean things up a big. RCRN's FXAA is actually not bad and cleaned up a little of the AA on straight lines with no performance impact at all (it's not perfect but it's better than nothing). I've never used SMAA to compare. As for AF, I find it most noticeable around water and and shadows.

 

Bloom...let me just say I dislike it. It hazes the graphics which might look pretty at times but it's unnatural to me. When I take a stroll outside, I never walk around in a haze...unless isn't allergy season. This is why I prefer to disable it.

In my own testing, I am seeing that RCRN provides the best quality/performance ratio ... the only problem is that the night-sky lighting is totally unrealistic during the full moon (as it is with vanilla). Even our puny little Moon here on Earth can light up an otherwise pitch-black night quite substantially when full. Therefore, ENB is pretty much required if using RCRN (using star-moom adjustments specifically and disabling almost everything else). First image below is vanilla, second is RCRN (Legacy) and the third is RCRN (Legacy) with minimal (sky-lighting/color effects only) SkyRealism ENB on top (there is a fire off to the right, so that is the reason for the glowing aspen leaves):

[stoppingby4now]

For the record' date=' any final frame rate consistently above 20 FPS (in all situations) is acceptable. Few people using Baseline STEP with any ENB will consistently get over 32 FPS.[/quote']

Have to chime in' date=' because this is purely subjective. I personally can't stand anything close to 20FPS.[/quote']

well, you are spoiled with that uber card of yours on that ivy bridge chip :P Clearly, you did not play a heavily modded TES3-4, where you were happy to get over 20 FPS

I only played Oblivion for a bit, but didn't even know about the modding scene at the time, so no I didn't. But I have played plenty of other games that were mod-able, and managed to stay above. I never go with the expensive latest cards, but always managed to upgrade during the first major price drop of the next best thing after the new stuff comes out, so that has always helped. But I still guarantee that if I were modding and I was getting close to 20 FPS consistently (occasional drops can be OK such as transitioning to new areas), I would start reversing things to get it back up.

AA and AF are definitely redundant if using most ENB' date=' and this saves a good amount of FPS. I don't even find that SMAA has a noticeable effect on top of ENB (but it doesn't hurt to use it anyway).

 

I would like to test loswering texture and shadows in Skyrim Options as well to see if any gain can be reclaimed. I suspect that ENB can significantly reduce the need for these performance killers.[/quote']

The first sentence above comes across a bit misleading, so just adding this to avoid confusion. If using only ENB, AA and AF are very much beneficial. If using something like SMAA, then AA is not needed. But even if using SMAA, AF should still be beneficial.

Well, the difference is very VERY subtle then, as I can hardly notice any difference with SkyRealism Cinematic with/without SMAA, AA or AF. The smoothing of the ENB takes care of much of this all by itself (high monitor res also helps). Following are 1) SRO + Vurts without ENB and 2) with ENB, then 3) without ENB but with 4/16 AA/AF via Skyrim options (in that order). If you blow up the images, you will see just how effective ENB is at smoothing edges (presumably via bloom/SSAO). Not perfect, but you will hardly notice in game at high res (accept where you have a lot of light and straight edges, but ENB drastically reduces this):

 

Note the FPS hit imposed by AA/AF and imagine the cumulative effect with ENB (and I am running CrossfireX on HD 6850s)

ENB does not apply any kind of AA, and there are some "side affects" with ENB shadows seemingly smoothing, but it's just a trick. Further more, those screenshots are not going to provide you with any great examples as the majority of the scene would require TxAA. However, when you look at the rocks and even portions of the fallen tree on the right side, edges are clearly better with 4X AA. The difference will be even more noticeable when the scene is in motion. Check the outside of Whiterun where you have the walls, buildings, and bars in windows for a better compare.

 

Obviously the video card(s) that folks have will affect whether or not they can use AA, but to claim that it does no good when using ENB is just plain false.

I have to agree from experience with all my testing. ENB and bloom doesn't do anything for AA unless you're using FXAA. FXAA isn't as big as an impact as regular AA and it does clean things up a big. RCRN's FXAA is actually not bad and cleaned up a little of the AA on straight lines with no performance impact at all (it's not perfect but it's better than nothing). I've never used SMAA to compare. As for AF, I find it most noticeable around water and and shadows.

 

Bloom...let me just say I dislike it. It hazes the graphics which might look pretty at times but it's unnatural to me. When I take a stroll outside, I never walk around in a haze...unless isn't allergy season. This is why I prefer to disable it.

Good thing to point out, bloom (and DoF at least for blurred objects) will also affect what folks will perceive in terms of needing AA or not. I like them both, but only in small amounts. If it's too strong, I disable it (at least until I learn to adjust them myself). You should definitely try out SMAA. In several regards, it does a better job and produces less texture shimmer. It's not perfect either, as no "fast" AA filter will be, but I found it to be better than FXAA personally. You are still going to get some texture shimmer and aliasing that are noticeable with either one.

 

You should also go here and download the movie there. It provides comparisons with FXAA, various levels of SMAA, and SSAA. I personally use MSAA 2X/SGSSAA 2X and the scenes are phenomenal. Still get some slight aliasing on certain objects, but they aren't bad and only really noticeable when I'm looking for them. I just can't stand texture shimmer, which FXAA is the worst at accentuating.

[TechAngel85]

In my own testing, I am seeing that RCRN provides the best quality/performance ratio ... the only problem is that the night-sky lighting is totally unrealistic during the full moon (as it is with vanilla). Even our puny little Moon here on Earth can light up an otherwise pitch-black night quite substantially when full. Therefore, ENB is pretty much required if using RCRN (using star-moom adjustments specifically and disabling almost everything else). First image below is vanilla, second is RCRN (Legacy) and the third is RCRN (Legacy) with minimal (sky-lighting/color effects only) SkyRealism ENB on top (there is a fire off to the right, so that is the reason for the glowing aspen leaves):

 

I found that to be true with my first pass testing multiple ENBs as well. SkyRealism - Cinematic with RCRN (I used classic) provided the best overall color and lighting experience out of the box. I have several more combinations to go through right now, but I'm expecting this same combination to come out on top again.

 

I also need to test out SMAA. Only down side is you can't run it with RCRN and an ENB. To use an ENB with RCRN you have to use up the one proxy you have in enbseries.ini. Not that it matters because RCRN Web site states that RCRN is not compatible with SMAA. I'm guessing that's because of this proxy limitation. How the two are implemented...there is no way to get them to work together in their current implementations.

[digitalellis]

In my own testing, I am seeing that RCRN provides the best quality/performance ratio ... the only problem is that the night-sky lighting is totally unrealistic during the full moon (as it is with vanilla). Even our puny little Moon here on Earth can light up an otherwise pitch-black night quite substantially when full. Therefore, ENB is pretty much required if using RCRN (using star-moom adjustments specifically and disabling almost everything else). First image below is vanilla, second is RCRN (Legacy) and the third is RCRN (Legacy) with minimal (sky-lighting/color effects only) SkyRealism ENB on top (there is a fire off to the right, so that is the reason for the glowing aspen leaves):

I found that to be true with my first pass testing multiple ENBs as well. SkyRealism - Cinematic with RCRN (I used classic) provided the best overall color and lighting experience out of the box. I have several more combinations to go through right now, but I'm expecting this same combination to come out on top again.

 

I also need to test out SMAA. Only down side is you can't run it with RCRN and an ENB. To use an ENB with RCRN you have to use up the one proxy you have in enbseries.ini. Not that it matters because RCRN Web site states that RCRN is not compatible with SMAA. I'm guessing that's because of this proxy limitation. How the two are implemented...there is no way to get them to work together in their current implementations.

If you want to try SMAA with RCRN and ENB, check out RCRN Plus, from our very own TheCompiler:

 

https://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/180

[thalastwon]

 

In my own testing, I am seeing that RCRN provides the best quality/performance ratio ... the only problem is that the night-sky lighting is totally unrealistic during the full moon (as it is with vanilla). Even our puny little Moon here on Earth can light up an otherwise pitch-black night quite substantially when full. Therefore, ENB is pretty much required if using RCRN (using star-moom adjustments specifically and disabling almost everything else). First image below is vanilla, second is RCRN (Legacy) and the third is RCRN (Legacy) with minimal (sky-lighting/color effects only) SkyRealism ENB on top (there is a fire off to the right, so that is the reason for the glowing aspen leaves):

I found that to be true with my first pass testing multiple ENBs as well. SkyRealism - Cinematic with RCRN (I used classic) provided the best overall color and lighting experience out of the box. I have several more combinations to go through right now, but I'm expecting this same combination to come out on top again.

 

I also need to test out SMAA. Only down side is you can't run it with RCRN and an ENB. To use an ENB with RCRN you have to use up the one proxy you have in enbseries.ini. Not that it matters because RCRN Web site states that RCRN is not compatible with SMAA. I'm guessing that's because of this proxy limitation. How the two are implemented...there is no way to get them to work together in their current implementations.

If you want to try SMAA with RCRN and ENB, check out RCRN Plus, from our very own TheCompiler:

 

https://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/180

Oh, he updated it again. I'm gonna jump on this!

[Farlo]

Techangel, I'm not sure we should be recommending RCRN as the Baseline for SkyRealism. Not that I've done any testing, but we're not in the process of adding new mods and such right now, and until we can fully flesh out a Post-Processing Pack I think we want to keep that section rather minimal. Obviously I'm not the most knowledgeable in this regard, so I'd like to see Z's opinion on this.

[z929669]

Techangel, I'm not sure we should be recommending RCRN as the Baseline for SkyRealism. Not that I've done any testing, but we're not in the process of adding new mods and such right now, and until we can fully flesh out a Post-Processing Pack I think we want to keep that section rather minimal. Obviously I'm not the most knowledgeable in this regard, so I'd like to see Z's opinion on this.

 

Not sure where the recommendation is coming from, but assuming the guide. We should not limit to recs to any single solution but rather provide several Pack ENB options to choose from. It is ok to rec something on the guide I think. Just not STEP guide at this point IMO.

 

Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk 2

[TechAngel85]

Techangel' date=' I'm not sure we should be recommending RCRN as the Baseline for SkyRealism. Not that I've done any testing, but we're not in the process of adding new mods and such right now, and until we can fully flesh out a Post-Processing Pack I think we want to keep that section rather minimal. Obviously I'm not the most knowledgeable in this regard, so I'd like to see Z's opinion on this.[/quote']

I included RCRN because of my own testing and it seems most everyone is using it with SkyRealism. I'll leave it blank for now until we get more definitive answers and opinions from everyone. Climates of Tamriel is installed during STEP as a core mod so there's no need to mention it on the baselines.

 

I've tried uploading a file to my server with the screens I've used so everyone can use them to compare but it's 511MB and messing up during the upload.

 

EDIT: I'm actually getting ready to do a STEP install using RCRN and SkyRealism to try to find any conflicts with RCRN and STEP.

[TechAngel85]

Quick question: On the ENB Choices page, STEP is still recommending Enbseries 0.113. Most ENB's suggest using 0.119 and have versions out for it. Enbseries is up to 0.123 now. (TC's RCRN Plus is the only place I've seen thus far saying to use 0.123). Also, in my testing I notice a small FPS drop using 0.119 over 0.113; however, it was only 1-5 FPS. In all of my current ENB testing I used both 0.119 and 0.123 and noticed no issues using one over the other.

 

My question, to those that know more about this than I, should we be recommending at least Enbseries 0.119 now? (both the ENBs on the page have 0.119 versions as their main files)

[Farlo]

Quick question: On the ENB Choices page' date=' STEP is still recommending Enbseries 0.113. Most ENB's suggest using 0.119 and have versions out for it. Enbseries is up to 0.123 now. (TC's RCRN Plus is the[i'] only [/i]place I've seen thus far saying to use 0.123). Also, in my testing I notice a small FPS drop using 0.119 over 0.113; however, it was only 1-5 FPS. In all of my current ENB testing I used both 0.119 and 0.123 and noticed no issues using one over the other.

 

My question, to those that know more about this than I, should we be recommending at least Enbseries 0.119 now? (both the ENBs on the page have 0.119 versions as their main files)

I obviously have no clue, but we probably should.  At the very least we should simply leave it up to the particular ENB you're using right?  If you want to change it, go ahead.

[TechAngel85]

I updated the Choices page with new suggestions and instructions for ENBSeries, overhauled the formatting a bit to provide easier editing and increased uniformity across the wiki, and included the ENBSeries the author recommends on the baselines for the suggested ENBs.

 

While editing the page I had a question come across my mind. Why isn't this page part of the ENB Guide? It would easily fit in as the second tab on the guide and would be putting all the information together.