Skyrim - Vivid Vividian ENB Colours

[Pheyne]

Hello,

I've spend quite some time modding my Skyrim, trying to make everything perfect and I feel like I am slowly getting there.
However I've now encountered a problem I need a little help with. My game now contains more than 200 mods. Most of it is the S.T.E.P.: Extended, where I have done everything how it should be done (mostly thanks to your brilliant guides and tips), with some optional minor tweaks here and there.
Anyway, I got the game to the point where I felt it was almost complete. The DynDOLOD was sucesfully installed and activated and the only thing I was missing was an ENB. I've spend quite some time researching, browsing through all ENB's possible until I have picked my all time favorites.

Those were the ProjectENB and Vivid Vividian ENB. In the end, I have diceded to stick with the latter. Mainy because of the Weather and Lightning pack (https://wiki.step-project.com/Pack:Weather_and_Lighting) which nicely follows up on the S.T.E.P.: Extended and contains this ENB. I've also read that ProjectENB has some problems with Windows 10 and is perhaps a little bit more performance heavy.
 

I followed the Weather and Lightning pack from the S.T.E.P. guide and installed almost everything the pack contains. I've been planning on using those mods myself and here they were all together and even with some tips. I did not install everything from it though (I left out mods such as Falskarr, Wyrmstooth, WAO, Pure Weather...).

My goal was to have Climates of Tamriel, ELFX and the ENB, which were all part of this. Now I am finished but some mistake must have happened along the installation process. My main reason why I opted for this ENB with ELFX was how realistic everything was. No oversaturated exteriors, beautiful dark interiors and dungeons... That is not the result however. My game looks ridiculously bright, oversaturated, with too many reds and yellows.
I really doubt this is the correct default look. I would need hours of fiddling with all the ENB settings ingame to make it look anywhere near like in the videos.
I took some screenshots to illustrate the problem, sorry for the quality but you should get the point. They are taken with the same mods installed, only difference being the ENB turned on and off. That means mods like CoT, ELFX, ELE are all there..

 

https://imgur.com/kriYX7R
https://imgur.com/XwQumzp

https://imgur.com/CceG79u

https://imgur.com/lKj4Ync

 

Looking at these screenshots the colours are a little desaturated. For example the desk in the last picture is actually almost fully red. Here it still look brown-ish.
Another thing I would like to know is, what is the main cause of long loading times that just started happening. It is nothing unbearable, but before the last few steps of installing CoT, ELFX, ENB etc.. it was much much better, almost instant. Is it just the ENB? Even so it is a little strange considering my performance ingame remains pretty much the same and I stay at 60fps most of the time.

Thank you and have a nice day.

Edited January 11, 2016 by Pheyne

[Greg]

No, dxgi.dll shouldn't be in the Skyrim folder at all and I have no idea where it could have come from.

[GrantSP]

Do you have DirectX 9 installed?

[Pheyne]

Could I even play the game if I didn't?

Well.. turns out I was right, it did come with the ENB preset - ProjectENB. Just sitting there in the main folder.
 

Edited January 13, 2016 by Pheyne

[GrantSP]

Well it might be that at one stage Dx9 was installed and there's just enough stuff leftover to run most functions but maybe this one file was removed. I only ask because in your last post you mentioned: C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\d3d11.dll, which is clearly from Dx11.

[Pheyne]

Yes, I was surprised myself what is that even doing there but that was the error game gave me. But yes, when you download ProjectENB, dxgi.dll is in the main folder. Isn't it required for SweetFX or something like that?

[Greg]

I apologize because we must have cross our terminology wires somewhere. Now that I see you are using Project ENB, I downloaded it and I can confirm you do need this version of dxgi.dll. This looks like a wrapper for the DirectX Graphics Infrastructure and is probably required for some effects provided by this ENB preset.

 

EDIT: SweetFX readme.txt states this is a "DirectX 10/11 proxy dll that will inject shaders into DirectX 10/11 games"

 

I would leave it in the Skyrim directory since it is included with Project ENB and is apparently required.

[Shadriss]

Back on the subject of how Vivid looks - after looking at your video, that looks pretty much exactly like what I'd expect from it. Very vibrant, saturated colors. I used to use ELFX with it as well, once upon a time, but there were areas (particularly Dawnguard added caves and the like) that were just plain too dark that way. I loved the shadows as well, the effects were striking, but Relighting Skyrim (the RS I mentioned earlier) does a pretty decent job of it, and is already part of the STEP lineup (as I recall...). But if the colors aren't your thing, that's fine - ENB is all preference anyhow. Just keep hunting until you find ones you like. As a reference, I have a few shots from inside Whiterun with my setup over on the Deathbell thread.

[Kesta]

1) Yes, this is Vividian ENB - Vivid version. Though it's just one of the options in the installer. Use vanilla preset instead of vivid, and select sharpen in the sharpenning options to get away of the cartoonish feel.

 

2) dxgi.dll is pretty much the same thing as direct 3d (d3dX.dll, so d3d9.dll for DirectX9 that skyrim use) in that it makes the link between an app and the display. I think dxgi.dll is windows-specific and is essentially designed for multiple-adapters rendering. I don't think it's supposed to work with d3d9, you need at least d3d10 (which can be used for Skyrim as well thanks to ENB, not sure exactly how or why though, never did it myself. Proxy maybe ?).

dxgi.dll often come from the ReShade framework, maybe the author of ProjectENB used it (though he shouldn't be allowed to upload directly ReShade's binaries...)

Edited January 13, 2016 by Kesta

[Pheyne]

Tried that Kesta, it was better, but then I installed ProjectENB and I am not looking back. With RLO it looks fantastic.
So my ENB hunt is done, now I am hunting for some tweaks to at least reduce the god damn shimmering. Is it a bad idea forcing LodBias on with an ENB preset? I don't even know if it will help, it was just one of my ideas what could..

Edited January 13, 2016 by Pheyne

[Pheyne]

Since I already opened this topic, I don't want to start another one so I will ask this question here.
I am trying to optimize my settings and I cannot get the Edge-AA working. I don't think there are any mistakes in my INI and NVIDIA settings but whenever I try to activate Edge-AA using the ENB overlay ingame, nothing happens. And I imagine the change should be quite significant acording to my experience with this AA.

Here are my NVIDIA settings. By the way, how do NVIDIA Inspectro and NVIDIA Control Panel work together? Do they update each other or does one have a priority?

 

https://i.imgur.com/9VvVX4U.png

 

And here are my INI settings:

skyrimprefs.ini

 

[imagespace]
bDoDepthOfField=1
iRadialBlurLevel=1

 

[Display]

bFloatPointRenderTarget=1
iMaxAnisotropy=0
iMultiSample=0

bDeferredShadows=1

 

enblocal.ini

 

[ANTIALIASING]

EnableEdgeAA=true
EnableTemporalAA=false
EnableSubPixelAA=false

[ENGINE]
ForceAnisotropicFiltering=true
MaxAnisotropy=16
ForceLodBias=false
LodBias=0.0
AddDisplaySuperSamplingResolutions=false

Is there anything else that could possibly have an effect on Edge-AA not wanting to activate? Other than Skyrim Launcher settings where I have all Antialiasing, Anisotropic Filtering and FXXA turned off.
 

Edited January 13, 2016 by Pheyne