Ambitious Skyrim

[ssconvert]

Leto, are you using the 2K Quality Snow HD _ Dark from Quality Snow HD 4K?

 

If so your guide mentions to

* Download: 2K Quality Snow HD instead of the dark version.

 

Also, glad to see Fort Dawnguard Overhaul in your new list............

Edited March 27, 2015 by ssconvert

[Leto]

Hi SSConvert,

 

I have a bit of a story to tell.  Several people suggested I try ICBNE2 (I Can't Believe It's Not ENB 2) instead of the default SweetFX.  When I did, the snow became blindingly white so I installed the darker snow version.  Then, I decided ICBNE2 was too colorful and saturated for my tastes so I went back to the default SweetFX and no longer needed the darker snow.  I also studied ICBNE2's SweetFX_settings.txt and incorporated curves and dither into Ambitious Skyrim.

 

As for Fort Dawnguard Overhaul:  In vanilla Skyrim Fort Dawnguard is properly lighted.  When I installed ELFX, it became way too dark and gloomy so I tried Fort Dawnguard Overhaul.  The mod instructions say to disable ELFX for Fort Dawnguard because the engine can only handle so many lights and when you go over that the lights turn on and off as the player turns and moves around.  I think it renders the four closest shadow producing lights.  The problem was that left Fort Dawnguard dark and gloomy just like the screenshots for the mod.  So then, I left the ELFX lights in place.  This lit the fort up nicely.  Only problem was that as soon as I ran LOOT, the fort became dark again.  Today I took another crack at the problem and discovered in TES5Edit that Cloaks of Skyrim was overwriting Fort Dawnguard Overhaul lighting.  Once I added a loot rule to put Fort Dawnguard after Cloaks of Skyrim everything worked and I published the change.

 

There is one more piece to this puzzle.  According to the Nexus forum for Fort Dawnguard Overhaul, it is possible to use the Creation Kit to change the lighting template in the mod to WindhelmInterior.  That will light it up nicely without the need for ELFX lighting and solve the problem of too many light sources.  I tried doing that in the Creation Kit but it was throwing errors and crashed before I could figure it out.

 

Cheers,

Silvermane

Edited March 27, 2015 by Leto

[MosAnted]

Hey Silvermane, just wanted to ask how you've been finding the Civil War Overhaul? I've been wanting to try it myself but the sheer size of the mod makes me wary.

[Leto]

I haven't started the Civil War yet but I've seen some massive fights between Stormcloaks and Imperials.  One battle near the Shrine of Talos outside Whiterun had around 25 NPC's fighting at once and it didn't crash or lag too much.

[MosAnted]

Was going through you .ini files and found this on the SkyrimPrefs.ini:

 

 

[Water]

iWaterReflectHeight=512

iWaterReflectWidth=512

bUseWaterDisplacements=1

bUseWaterRefractions=1

bUseWaterReflections=1

bUseWaterDepth=1

iWaterReflectHeight=1024                ;<-- change 1024 to 512 if you really need the FPS

iWaterReflectWidth=1024                 ;<-- change 1024 to 512 if you really need the FPS

iWaterReflectHeight and iWaterReflectWidth are duplicated.

Edited March 28, 2015 by MosAnted

[Leto]

Thanks, I deleted the two up top.

[MosAnted]

You mention forcing AF in the gpu driver, but you keep ForceAnisotropy=true in enblocal.ini. AFAIK only one should be enabled. Which one should be used?

[Leto]

Oops, I made the change on my local file but forgot to upload it to OneDrive.

 

Here's my experience with Anisotropic Filtering.  First, I disabled it in the driver and enabled it in the [Engine] section of Enblocal.ini because I read that it is better that way.  Then, I noticed the roads ahead of me became blurry a short distance out.  So, I tried enabling it in the graphics driver and that fixed it.  I have no idea why it didn't work in the engine for me?  Perhaps it depends on UsePatchSpeedhackWithoutGraphics or UseDefferedRendering.

 

You should be able to test this for yourself by turning it on and off and watching how quickly the road ahead of you becomes blurry.  I'd be interested in your results with the driver vs. engine vs. none.

[MosAnted]

 

You should be able to test this for yourself by turning it on and off and watching how quickly the road ahead of you becomes blurry.  I'd be interested in your results with the driver vs. engine vs. none.

Okm i'll give it a try! I've spent the past few days getting Skyrim Mod combiner set up to see how it looks/performs, but I'll be testing this on my STEP Extended install.

 

One more thing: I'm at the "SweetFX" part of your guide, and I'm a bit lost. The instructions say to "Extract 03.With SMAA only to a temporary folder" Yet the download from https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/23364/? lacks any such directory

[Leto]

Thanks, I fixed the instructions.  That was for SweetFX GT one of many presets I tried.

[MosAnted]

(Can't figure out how to make a proper gallery, if you do please let me know)

I set out to test the different AF options. These photos were all taken using the the presets fro myour guide for Skyrim, SkyrimPrefs, enblocal, and enbseries .ini's, as well as your SweetFX presets.

 

1- AF disabled

2- AF 8x enabled in enblocal, UsePatchSpeedhackWithoutGraphics = true

3- AF 8x enabled in enblocal, UsePatchSpeedhackWithoutGraphics = false

4- AF 8x enabled in driver, UsePatchSpeedhackWithoutGraphics = true

 

 

In my experience, AF works just as well wether enabled from enblocal or forced through the driver, and wether the ENB graphics are disabled or not makes no difference. Also I cannot really find any noticeable difference between enb AF and driver AF.

 

Speaking of SweetFX, you mentioned having tried some presets. I was looking through some of the available ones in the nexus and some seem very appealing. What were your thoughts of the ones you tried, and why did you end up setting in the settings recommended in the guide?

[Leto]

Thanks for the info.  I couldn't find a SweetFX preset I liked.  Some had too much contrast making the snow blindingly white and the shadows impenetrable.  Others had too much saturation making Skyrim too colorful, even cartoonish.  Finally, many tinted everything blue or green or some other color.  It really comes down to personal taste. If you find a preset that you like, then you should use it.

[ssconvert]

Hi SSConvert,

 

I have a bit of a story to tell.  Several people suggested I try ICBNE2 (I Can't Believe It's Not ENB 2) instead of the default SweetFX.  When I did, the snow became blindingly white so I installed the darker snow version.  Then, I decided ICBNE2 was too colorful and saturated for my tastes so I went back to the default SweetFX and no longer needed the darker snow.  I also studied ICBNE2's SweetFX_settings.txt and incorporated curves and dither into Ambitious Skyrim.

 

As for Fort Dawnguard Overhaul:  In vanilla Skyrim Fort Dawnguard is properly lighted.  When I installed ELFX, it became way too dark and gloomy so I tried Fort Dawnguard Overhaul.  The mod instructions say to disable ELFX for Fort Dawnguard because the engine can only handle so many lights and when you go over that the lights turn on and off as the player turns and moves around.  I think it renders the four closest shadow producing lights.  The problem was that left Fort Dawnguard dark and gloomy just like the screenshots for the mod.  So then, I left the ELFX lights in place.  This lit the fort up nicely.  Only problem was that as soon as I ran LOOT, the fort became dark again.  Today I took another crack at the problem and discovered in TES5Edit that Cloaks of Skyrim was overwriting Fort Dawnguard Overhaul lighting.  Once I added a loot rule to put Fort Dawnguard after Cloaks of Skyrim everything worked and I published the change.

 

There is one more piece to this puzzle.  According to the Nexus forum for Fort Dawnguard Overhaul, it is possible to use the Creation Kit to change the lighting template in the mod to WindhelmInterior.  That will light it up nicely without the need for ELFX lighting and solve the problem of too many light sources.  I tried doing that in the Creation Kit but it was throwing errors and crashed before I could figure it out.

 

Cheers,

Silvermane

That's mind boggling, how in hell would a cloaks mod affect lighting in Dawnguard????? It shows how even unrelated mods can clash with each other.

[Leto]

Yup.  I guess to place a cloak it had to modify the cell and that overwrites all the cell's data.

 

I figured out how to change the lighting template using TES5Edit so now Fort Dawnguard is properly lit in my game.

Edited April 1, 2015 by Leto

[ssconvert]

Er Leto, where is your comments in the Fort Dawnguard Overhaul gone? https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/55347/?tab=4&&navtag=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nexusmods.com%2Fskyrim%2Fajax%2Fcomments%2F%3Fmod_id%3D55347%26page%3D1%26sort%3DDESC%26pid%3D0%26thread_id%3D1850750&pUp=1