SKYRIMLE Guide to run SRLE + REGS + ENB on Medium Systems

[Nearox]

I meant to say btw that Skyrim would also request aboe 2GB VRAM (not only near, or at) and that is what can cause major slowdowns/stutter especially in VRAM-heavy places like cities. Dawnstar in particular used to be very intensive. With the recent ETaC updates a lot of improvements were made there (a lot of which is due to CJ's influence I think), but I still regard ETaC Dawnstar as one of my primary testing grounds for stutter and general VRAM use. Even after all the optimizations it still hovers between 1950 and 2000 MB VRAM there on my system.

[redirishlord]

I just started an Argonian from the Alternate Start Shipwreck, and I think RW2 with waves and SkyTEST (if that's what put slaughterfish in the ocean, hadn't seen them before) plus ETaC are conspiring to take down my performance (oh yeah add Serenity effects on top), but DDSopt should help (glad to have the STEP wiki back for the DDSopt tutorial, couldn't check that off my list this last weekend, running through it now just finished Vanilla Optimized).

[thaiusmle]

1) If you have DDSopted everything you should definitely notice a large VRAM reduction, to the tune of 200 - 500MB less depending on the scenario. However, as you are running a 2GB card, you may not actually observe the reduction because even before you did anything in this guide, your VRAM - assuming you had SRLE + REGS - would have been at or near the 2GB limit almost constantly. This should have resulted in more offloading to the RAM, which decreases your FPS and is probably the primary cause of stutter that many seem to experience with ENBoost when overloading the VRAM. 2) My enblocal has ReservedMemorySizeMb=128 as I read Boris saying some time ago that is what he uses on his 2Gb card. Results are system-dependent though. If I put that setting on =64, then I experience quite a bit more stutter. At =256, I have the occasional CTD.

Agree with number 1. Will try 128.

[Roberbond]

 

Well if I read that correctly you are using a mobile GPU, which is a lot slower than the deskptop version. Think 30-50% less performance. I don't know much about iMacs but I believe it is common for Apple to install mobile versions in their integrated desktops due to size restrictions (and costs considerations I guess). 

 

One of the best eprformance ENBs I have ever tried is Realvision ENB Version B Performance. It gives about 15FPS more performance on my system than Vividian ENB, even after the tweaks, so you could have a look at that. 

 

If you find that you really cannot run with ENB, which frankly I wouldn't be surprised about with that mobile GPU, no offense, than you could always try one of the SweetFX presets on Nexus or at https://sfx.thelazy.net/games/game/61/

I don´t really know how much is the performance compared to the desktop, but is not 50% for sure. I can play crysis 3 in ultra without problem. The most important fact speaking about performance is the resolution screen, and nobody talk about that. I am using now 1600x900 so i can play all the enbs with 30 fps. With a 720p screen resolution the game is to blurry, but with 900p is ok to me. With 1080p i don´t need antialising but the fps are unstable and too low.

[Nearox]

Well, when making this guide I had a standard 1080p resolution in mind with medium-end desktop GPUs. Increasing the resolution has always come at a major performance cost. Look at it like this, for example:

 

1) 720p HD: 1280 x 720 = 921600 (0.92 million pixels)

2) 1080p Full HD: 1920 x 1080 = 2073600 (2.07 million pixels)

 

That is more than double the amount of pixels when going from 720p to 1080p (not 1/3rd as their terms would suggest). On my GPU (HD6950 dekstop version) running SRLE + REGS with the optimizations from this guide results in about 35 FPS average and 30-32 minimum FPS. I also have an overclocked i5 2500k.

 

Comparison of HD6970 M to HD6950 Dekstop  (scroll down to Features).

 

I really really hate to be the bearer of bad news, but running this combination of guides on your system is going to be quite a challenge. Not impossible,  I think, but you'll have to do much more optimizations than what I describe in the guide...

Edited July 22, 2014 by Nearox

[darkside]

@Nearox

You mentioned Gamwich's texture packs earlier. Do you load them after Unofficial HRDLC patch?

 

I am trying to adjust SFO 2.0 and Unique grass and ground covers in TES5edit to get a better performance. I also try to get rid off some clipping. We will see.

I also use https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/55240/? to remove underwater grass and other stuff.

Edited August 5, 2014 by darkside

[darkside]

@Nearox

- Any further recommendation on optimizing REGS mods?

- I believe you are using EBT. Do you adjust any options in MCM menu at all? 

 

Thanks for a great guide.

[Nearox]

Sorry did not see your previous message from 5th of august

 

- Yes, load Gamwich's textures after UHRP. Gamwich already fixed the ones that overwrite UHRP.

- SFO 2.0 costs more FPS than 1.91... At least on my system it costs 2-3 fps. On the other hand, the new SFO textures suffer much less from aliasing so I have disabled temporal AA in ENB for that reason.

- With regard to REGS mods, there is actually very little optimizing you can do. Running DDSopt (1k) over ETaC saves about 50MB disk size, which would probably only amount to like 10MB VRAM. Even then, it depends on wheter you use ETaC's textures or vanilla. 

- EBT I put the update interval of the script to twice as slow as the default. 

[darkside]

Sorry did not see your previous message from 5th of august

 

- Yes, load Gamwich's textures after UHRP. Gamwich already fixed the ones that overwrite UHRP.

- SFO 2.0 costs more FPS than 1.91... At least on my system it costs 2-3 fps. On the other hand, the new SFO textures suffer much less from aliasing so I have disabled temporal AA in ENB for that reason.

- With regard to REGS mods, there is actually very little optimizing you can do. Running DDSopt (1k) over ETaC saves about 50MB disk size, which would probably only amount to like 10MB VRAM. Even then, it depends on wheter you use ETaC's textures or vanilla. 

- EBT I put the update interval of the script to twice as slow as the default. 

Thanks. This is very helpful. I think SFO 2.0 is very beautiful, especially the new green pine. I always like some smoothness of FXAA which cost very little performance. 

 

I have a few more questions

- Any other mods you can think of that MCM menu adjustment may help with performance/script load? I use several mods from MMO pack which I am still not settle on. I disabled EBT, Wet & Cold as well as Foot prints per pack & Garfinks' recommendations, which I always want to add them back. 

[ipmlj]

Gents,

 

What can I do to improve/reduce "chop" when near a light source?

 

For example, if I am near a cluster of candles or a torch inside a dungeon....whether facing the candles/torch or looking the other way...I get chop/stutter when turning left-right.

 

I've installed SMIM lite and the low res version of Ultimate HD fire effects / candle flames. This does seem to improve/reduce the chop however it is not eliminated entirely.

 

I am using a 4gb GTX770 with an i7-3930k cpu. Vividian ENB, with SRLE.

[Nearox]

That's a hard one to tackle. I think nearly everyone gets some kind of slowdown when there is a cluster of candles/flames. Jorrvaskr (basement) is pretty infamous for that. That said, my slowdowns in that place amount to about 5fps lower than usual and I have a much worse GPU than yours (see sig). 

 

Which version of Vividian ENB are you using? I never tried the high quality version but SRLE recommends that now I think and it could be (again, not sure) that higher quality is also applied to lighting. I would fiddle around with ENB a bit as that has the most impact on performance and consequently stutter. 

Edited August 10, 2014 by Nearox

[Aiyen]

What are your shadow resolution settings in the ini ? This is normally what cause issues with lighting. 

[ipmlj]

I've got the standard SRLE setup for Vividian ENB 6.013 (high quality - vivid) and 2048 for shadow resolution.

 

Will try 1024 to see if that helps. Its barely noticeable now but annoying enough to get me tinkering with stuff. I honestly don't see much difference at all using SMIM lite, and not sure I even like the ultra hd candle flames vs. vanilla. The SMIM light adds a few more FPS and in general smooth things out. The fire effects mod is nice though.

 

Will give this a shot later today after trouble shooting a CTD upon entering Broken Oar Grotto.

Edited August 10, 2014 by ipmlj

[darkside]

I've got the standard SRLE setup for Vividian ENB 6.013 (high quality - vivid) and 2048 for shadow resolution.Will try 1024 to see if that helps. Its barely noticeable now but annoying enough to get me tinkering with stuff. I honestly don't see much difference at all using SMIM lite, and not sure I even like the ultra hd candle flames vs. vanilla. The SMIM light adds a few more FPS and in general smooth things out. The fire effects mod is nice though.Will give this a shot later today after trouble shooting a CTD upon entering Broken Oar Grotto.

If you try disable either EnableParticleLight or EnableSoftParticle (I can't remember precisely), you will see dramatic improvement in FPS. May not be ideal solution though. I wonder reducing their qualities may help.

[Nearox]

I concur with darkside, try to disable one or both of those settings. Before that though, revert to normal quality of Vividian ENB instead of high quality and see if it makes a difference.