Guide:ENBSeries

Template:Notice A comprehensive guide for properly setting up ENB for n00bs and gurus alike -- by Staind716 & S.T.E.P. Team

Updated: 18:34:10 4 January 2013 (UTC)

GUIDE FORUM THREAD

Introduction

ENB Choices

Installation

SMAA

Configuration

Troubleshooting

Final Checklist

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This guide is designed to answer the most common questions related to the use of ENBSeries mods for Skyrim. Please note this is intended as a general overview of ENBSeries mod use. While this guide does contain many helpful tips, it is not meant to answer questions about any specific ENBSeries mod configuration. If seeking answers related to a particular ENB mod please contact that mod's author. Thank you.

What is ENB?

ENBSeries is a powerful post processing modification tool available for Skyrim and other games. It was developed by Boris Vorontsov; who still maintains and updates the product. This tool enables users to create custom configurations (ENBs) designed to their own specifications by modifying rendering functions and the application of additional effects such as bloom, depth of field, and SSAO. ENBs often enhance overall lighting, colors, and shadows among other aspects of the game.

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ENBSeries

Before installing any of the ENBs, you'll need Boris Vorontsov's ENBSeries. Most ENBs are using version 0.119; however, refer to the ENB's documentation to be sure you download the correct version for your ENB. (Version 0.123 is mainly for testing purposes so don't use it unless the ENB says to. Hardware AA is not supported in version 0.123)

• Extract ONLY "WrapperVersion/d3d9.dll" to your root Skyrim folder.

ENB Complimenting Mods

Darkness

• Dark Dungeons for ENB This tells ENB to render dungeons as though its night (otherwise it lights them as though its daylight)
• Many ENBs include optional files for darker caves, dungeons, and nights. Check with your ENB for these options before using a third party option.
• Creepy Dungeons has been removed due to many structural errors in the file

Fog

• Remove Ambient Interior Fog This removes the ambient or "glowing fog" that looks terrible with ENB
• Revamped Exterior Fog This reduces the density of exterior fog and increases the distance that it starts becoming opaque, again works much better than vanilla with ENB
• Some mods that are often combined with ENBs are not compatible with the above mods (i.e. Climates of Tamriel, Realistic Colors and Real Nights, etc) As good modding practice, please review the Readme of any mod you plan on using.

Performance

• Interior and Dungeon Fog Remover Completely removes fog meshes from all indoor locations
• Standalone SMAA This can either replace the in game AA for much more performance or you can add it to forced driver AA for more quality

Recommended ENB Configurations

There are ENB and other lighting mods that come in just about every style and color. This section can be extremely subjective and as such we suggest you browse around to find the perfect solution to fit your tastes. A Post-Processing Pack to offer numerous and varied suggestions is being planned, but in the mean time we offer three of our favorites as a starting point.

SkyRealism - ENB Evolved

Baseline: ENBSeries v0.119

1. The "Cinematic" or "Vanilla" presets are the recommended choices.
2. Turn off Bloom and/or DOF if you don't like it via the enbseries.ini file. It is recommended to turn off SSAO via the enbseries.ini file as well. (see the configuration tab)
   • More powerful rigs with Nvidia graphics can leave SSAO turned on for increased visuals. SSAO isn't available on AMD so there's no reason to use it.
   • For less powerful rigs it is recommended you turn off both DOF and SSAO as they have the most performance impact.
3. Copy the folder contents (effect.txt, enbbloom.fx, etc.) to your root "Skyrim" folder (not your "Data" folder).

Project ENB

Baseline: ENBSeries v0.119 & Performance option "DoF only"

1. If not planning to use Climates of Tamriel (see section 2.C of the guide), use "Project ENB (Standalone)".
2. Ignore the "Data" and "Optional effects" folders.
3. In the appropriate "Project ENB" folder there are five choices. "Option C (DOF only)" is the recommended choice.
   • More powerful rigs with Nvidia graphics can use "Option A (DOF + SSAO)" for increased visuals. SSAO isn't available on AMD so there's no reason to use it.
   • Less powerful rigs use "Option D (No DOF + No SSAO)".
4. Copy the folder contents (effect.txt, enbbloom.fx, etc.) to your root "Skyrim" folder (not your "Data" folder).

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NOTE: ENB MUST be installed manually; it is NOT compatible with any mod manager.

While slightly more involved than experienced ENB users may be accustomed to, this installation procedure ensures you will not encounter any possible issues related to the installation process.

Prior to Installation

This guide assumes you have completed the STEP Installation Guide through at least section 1.E. If you have not done so, please do before continuing!

• Calibrate your monitor
• Make sure your graphic drivers are up to date. If not, please download and install new drivers via a clean installation.
• Download the recommended ENB d3d9.dll for your chosen ENB mod here.
• Save the folder you just downloaded on your desktop.
• Please, if this is your first time using an ENB, read the TES documentation here.
• Back up your game INIs. These are the "Skyrim.ini" and "SkyimPrefs.ini", located in your "My Documents\My Games\Skyrim" folder.
• Back up your game saves.
• If you're currently using an ENB or FXAA, do the following as well:

• Back up your current ENB or FXAA post-process injector to another folder.
• Delete ALL ENB and post-processing injector files in your root Skyrim folder.

ENB Installation

Make sure you've backed up your game INIs!

Game INIs

For ENB to work as intended, you will have to make some modifications in your game INIs.

In your "SkyrimPrefs.ini", set the following in the [Display] section:

bFloatPointRenderTarget=1

If using ENBSeries v0.117 or later also set the following:

bTreesReceiveShadows=1
bDrawLandShadows=1
bShadowsOnGrass=1

Files

Make sure to read the documentation provided on the mod's description page and in any available Readme's.

• Copy ONLY the "d3d9.dll" from the package you just downloaded from enbdev.com to your root Skyrim folder. The root Skyrim folder is where the TESV executable is located. You do NOT need any of the other files, ONLY the "d3d9.dll".
• Copy the files provided in your chosen ENB mod to the correct destination folders, as indicated in the mod's documentation.

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SMAA (Highly Recommended)

Note: This section is entirely optional and SMAA is NOT required to run ENB.

SubPixel Morphological Anti-Aliasing is a fantastic post-processing anti-aliasing method. Unlike MSAA, SMAA is processed after ENB, sparing a lot of headroom performance wise, and ensuring full compatibility. For users with low to mid-range computers SMAA is a great replacement for forced driver or the game engine's AA; you get a major quality improvement for a fraction of the performance hit. For users with a high-end machine we recommend you use a forced driver SGSSAA in addition to SMAA.

If you wish to use SMAA, set the following in the [Display] section of your "SkyrimPrefs.ini":

iMultiSample=0 
bTransparencyMultisampling=0

Then, copy the following files provided in the ENB mod download files to your root Skyrim folder :

• d3d9_smaa.dll
• injector.ini
• SMAA.h
• SMAA.fx

Note

Even though some ENB mods may not include SMAA in their download files it is still possible to use SMAA for anti-aliasing as long as you do not have an additional d3d9.dll already enabled in "enbseries.ini".

You can download SMAA here.

Extract the folder to your desired location and in the d3d9 folder, rename d3d9.dll to d3d9_smaa.dll

Copy the following files into your Skyrim main folder :

• d3d9_smaa.dll
• injector.ini
• SMAA.h
• SMAA.fx

To enable SMAA set the following in the [PROXY] section of your "enbseries.ini":

EnableProxyLibrary=true
InitProxyFunctions=true
ProxyLibrary=d3d9_smaa.dll

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Editing the Enbseries INI

Disabling Effects

If you are experiencing low FPS, please try the Performance Tips in the Troubleshooting tab first. Many ENB mods also have different quality and performance options that you may want to try first before disabling any effects.

If you still need to disable the more FPS-intensive effects or want to disable one for other reasons this is easily done by editing "ENBSeries.ini". The most FPS-intensive effects are SSAO, DOF, and Detailed Shadows, in that order. I recommend disabling SSAO only if necessary for playable frame rates since this will make the most noticeable difference in quality. To disable any of the effects, simply set the corresponding parameter to "false" under the [EFFECT] section of "ENBSeries.ini":

EnableDetailedShadow=true
EnableDepthOfField=true
EnableAmbientOcclusion=true

All parameters not mentioned above should be left as-is.

Disabling Bloom

Many ENBs have bloom turned on by default. Bloom is a computer graphics effect used to reproduce the imaging of real-world cameras. When a bright light shines on an object or when there is a light source behind an object, the object's edges become feathered and the object itself can sometimes appear hazing from the light. This is bloom and what many refer to as the hazy effect in many ENBs. This is not always desired by gamers and can be disabled safely. Disabling bloom will provide a clearer, crisper image and a small FPS boost. To disable the bloom effect set the following under the [EFFECT] section of the "enbseries.ini" file:

EnableBloom=false

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Performance Tips

While ENB does greatly enhance your game, these additional effects also take a toll on performance. How much of an FPS decrease you will experience depends on your system specs, INIs, texture mods, and a host of other variables. This is why it is virtually impossible to estimate how much any ENB will affect you personally. That being said, there are some things you can do to improve your performance.

First and foremost it is important to keep your PC in top gaming condition. Like anything else, if you take care of it then it will take care of you. Some simple ways to do this:

• Make sure that you defragment your hard drive, unless it's an SSD (These should NEVER be defragmented). Not only will this help improve performance with gaming but can also decrease load times in other applications. Although Windows comes with a simple defragging program, STEP recommends either Auslogics Disk Defrag or Puran Defrag Free Edition.

• Disable all unnecessary programs running in the background while gaming in order to free up more resources. Anti-virus programs are especially resource intensive and aren't needed while playing. Some anti-virus software has a "Gaming Mode" or something similar; check the options menu. If you disable your anti-virus program while gaming remember to enable it again when you finish.

• Keep Steam in offline mode. This is just one more thing depleting your resources that really isn't needed.

• There are also a few fairly good "booster" programs that help some gamers. One recommended booster is Razer Game Booster which is free from Razor. If you do choose to use one of these do some research first and know what you're doing. This is a good policy for anything including mods.

• Your GPU settings play a tremendous role in determining quality and performance. Striking the right balance in these settings is essential in achieving a beautiful game with smooth, playable frame rates. Use the guides for your card (nVidia or ATi) provided in the STEP guide as your starting point. Adjust and test your setting until you achieve the right balance.

• Be realistic with your INI settings. Overtweaking can and will cause performance issues if your system is not capable of handling the additional strain.

• High resolution texture mods also affect your performance. Careful consideration and experimentation should be used when adding these with ENB in order to find the right balance of quality and performance that best fits your system.

• Some of the more FPS-intensive effects can also be disabled in "ENBSeries.ini" to improve performance at the cost of some quality. Instructions on how to disable these effects can be found in the Configuration section of this guide.

If after following these performance tips you are still unable to achieve playable frame rates your system may not be capable of running ENB. At this point you may wish to consider upgrading your pc.

ATI Users

Set the following in "ENBSeries.ini".

In the [FIX] section:

The following tweaks should only be used for pre version 113 configurations.

ForceFakeVideocard=true

In the [SHADOW] section:

UseBilateralShadowFilter=false

• SSAA is not recommended for use with ENB, unless you have an AMD 7870 or above. If using a less powerful GPU, SMAA is the better option.

• When updating drivers be sure to uninstall your current drivers before installing your new drivers. It is also not recommended to use Beta drivers. The current stable drivers can be found here.

• If you must use anisotropic filtering (AF), then either ENB-enabled or CCC-enabled is fine, but this depends entirely on the capability of your CPU since Skyrim is more CPU-intensive than GPU. ENB-enabled is better, but up to 8x is recommended unless you have at least 2GB of VRAM (generally the 69xx, 78xx, and 79xx series).

Possible Crossfire Fix

Please apply the following process to ensure Crossfire compatiblity:

1. Right-click on your desktop and open the Catalyst Control Center.
2. Enter the 3D Applications Profiles.
3. Choose "Use AMD Pre-defined profile" in the list at the bottom
4. Select the "Assassin's Creed Brotherhood profile" (acp?b.exe)
5. Go back to the top, select "New application" and press the "Save" button.
6. Choose the "TESV.exe" application (in the root Skyrim folder) when the browser window pops up.
7. Answer "Yes" when CCC asks if you want to override the default TESV profile.

Disable ENB In-game

A common issue with DOF is that it is difficult to see your character while in the creation menu. There is a very simple solution for this. While playing, just press Shift+F12 to disable ENB. This can be quite useful when creating your character or modifying it later via the showracemenu console command. When finished, just press Shift+F12 again to enable ENB.

Long Loading Times

Some people may experience long loading times while using ENB. An easy way to greatly decrease your wait is by pressing Shift+F12 before or just after entering the loading screen to disable ENB. When the screen is loaded press Shift+F12 again to enable ENB.

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Before you Play

After following the above steps, run through this process once again:

1. Backup your INIs to your desktop from "My Documents\My Games\Skyrim".
2. Delete "RendererInfo.txt".
3. Launch "TESV.exe" and Skyrim will recognize your renderer. If you wish to use SMAA, set AA to 0 in the launcher. The launcher will then regenerate two default game INIs.
4. Don't launch the game; quit.
5. Delete the two default INIs.
6. Return the INIs you just backed up to "My Documents\My Games\Skyrim".
7. Save and quit.
8. Finally, Launch the game and enjoy!