4 replies to this topic

[Strategy]

1968.  No, not the year.  That is the total number of hours played on Skyrim without any mods.  Yes, I know, I've been busy playing and not paying attention to the community.  I'll take the selfish tag and all of the backend jokes that go with it.

 

When Special Edition arrived, I gave it a chance only to find out that most of the mods wouldn't work due to the very nature the SSE infrastructure.   SKSE, SKYUI, and MCM will not be present; even after Ian and his team tried to keep up with the new version of SSE, it's a never ending task.  SSE is too young and stupid to be played, regardless of the 64bit benefit.

 

So I loaded Skyrim, and started to play a bit.  I decided to go over to Nexus and look at some of the favorite mods that I enjoy playing.  Of course there are the staples after SKSE: SKYUI,  Random Alternate Start (or Alternate Start - Live Another Life), Character Creation Overhaul, etc.

 

I decided to use Mod Organizer and follow Gamer Poets installation guide.  So I installed it and then headed over to STEP wiki.  I started at the ENB section and that is where I got myself into trouble.  You see, the guide told to Extract d3d9.dll and enbhost.exe from the "WrapperVersion" folder inside the ENB archive (image) into .../skyrim/.   

 

This is incorrect as you have to include the enblocal.ini.  I wondered why my game wouldn't load.  Now it loads great without any issues.  I haven't run it yet after ENBoost ajustments, but I have faith.

 

Another issue I ran into is with Phinix ENB - while that does support a lot of other helpers and weathers (CoT, ESS, NLA, TS, AoS), it requires specific installations that would have to be done outside Mod Organizer.  I"m not certain that is a good idea.

 

So now that I got my ENB Series setup and it works.  What should I do next follow the SR:LE guide, install Vividian ENB (or Phinix ENB - need to make a separate instance if that's possible.  I think Vividian would be just fine, but I like the features of Phinix.  Does Vividian use SMAA?

 

I would appreciate some direction and advice as I try to get back to playing Skyirm (I spent more time modding SSE than playing the game!  I don't want to do that for OldRim!)

 

Strat

[Strategy]

177 views - no answer - TL;DR seems to be the answer.  Sorry for the rambling post!

[Greg]

Unfortunately, pretty much all ENB presets must be installed directly in the game folder and there's no way around this that I know of. I've never used Phinix ENB so I can't say anything about it. I have used Vividian ENB in the past and it's a pretty good choice, but I finally decided about a year or two ago to not use an ENB preset. Well, to be perfectly honest, it's really more that I just didn't bother installing an ENB preset in of the Bethesda games (Fallout 3, Fallout New Vegas, Skyrim Legendary Edition, or Skyrim Special Edition).

[Strategy]

Thanks Dragonborn. I have decided not to use an ENB.  My previous system handled ENB well, but with the latest hardware out there, I think ENB only enhances the personal taste of an environment.

[Nozzer66]

ENB's are always a personal choice. I'll often change my ENB preset based on the character I've made. If I'm playing a dour, sword and board type, then I'll use something like Bleak or Unbleak, or one of the more stark presets. If I'm playing a mage sort of character, I might use a brighter one. Phinix is nice. Vividian is just about my fave ever.

 

But not using one at all, and just relying on lighting mods like ELFX etc is a perfectly valid option too.