Skyrim Special Edition

[Zombeaver]

I messed around with Reshade a bit in the past. Between it, FXAA post process injector, and ENB, ENB always yielded the best visual quality though it admittedly had the greatest performance impact. Reshade might be enough now that the engine's been upgraded though. Re-Engaged looks decent.

I did some reading over on the Somber page and it sounds like they're working on a Reshade/ENB preset for SE which is encouraging, but it sounds like it's still preliminary at this point. In response to "Will you port this to SE?":

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Many thanks for the comment and glad you enjoy them!

No one will be able to port their presets directly from Skyrim to SE ( as SE needs a completely new binary. This binary will have its own effects and features. Shaders can be converted to work with SE in many cases I believe. But there is no easy conversion of a preset. In effect the only way to "port" a preset from Skyrim to SE is to do it all over from scratch - which may be very difficult if using old code and none of the shaders exist for SE. In addition many of the effects and operations of Skyrim may never exist in the SE binary. Boris said initially SE ENB will be like FO4 version - a light version. How many features get added depends on how popular SE gets and what he is able to implement.

Consequently these presets will not be ported or duplicated in SE and will only exist here. But it is possible that I, or someone else, may be able to create a preset that approximates the look and feel of these presets at some point down the road. I am working on a ReShade/ENB preset right now but not sure how it will end up although the plan is to lean towards a visual like Jyggalag (original Somber Antique) or Vaermina (original Somber Lut Sepia). Maybe Tansarville (who made the foundation of all the GS presets and is the real artist/genius behind these presets - I just tweak and manage them) will make something but if she did it would be something new and unique.

It's kindof all a nonstarter for me until I can use SkyUI though. I'm kindof amazed that Bethesda stuck with the fairly awful default UI. There are other important SKSE mods, of course, but that's definitely the biggest for me. Plus, anything that uses MCM (of which there are a decent number) requires SkyUI. Apparently v2.2 mostly works with SE but the latest version is V5 so... yeah. What's worse is that it sounds like the SkyUI creator doesn't have any intention of working on a port. It's unclear whether or not the existence of the script extender will allow newer versions of SkyUI to work in SE as-is, only that 2.2 is the last version that mostly works without SKSE. Hopefully the new SKSE will make it mostly just a repackaging issue.

In response to "Will you port this to the Special Edition?":

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Short answer: I don't know, but I think it's unlikely.

Longer answer: We're no longer active and I in particular am not going to put any more work in. Got neither the time nor is it fun anymore, so I really shouldn't be doing it. In general, I have nothing against porting it though. If we ever get to the point where someone else took care of all the details and all I have to do is update the .esp, recompile and upload, then I will do so. I just don't really expect anyone to do that.

It sounds like it's a pretty significant undertaking for the Special Edition script extender and they don't have an ETA at this point.

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Skyrim Special Edition has been released, and the original SKSE will not work with it. We are currently investigating the application to create a SKSE64 build for the Special Edition. This will not be a fast process. The update to 64-bits means a lot of investigation and changes. Much like the work that has gone into F4SE this will take a tremendous amount of effort. We appreciate your patience while this work continues. We have no timeline for a release. - the SKSE team 29 October 2016

 

[Lordmonkus]

SkyUI will be ported, the SKSE dev even said it was along with the MCM so it's just a matter of time. I agree that the default UI is awful as shit and sucks to use, I am using QD Inventory and while it's no where near as good as SkyUI it does make the UI better. http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/1970/?

Here is the post from behippo on the nexus forums about SkyUI and MCM.

https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/4979480-skse/page-15#entry44489330

"Once we get the appropriate hooks done in SKSE64 we'll make sure that SkyUI and MCM get completed. We are in regular contact with the SkyUI developers. Between the two teams we'll get it done."

For now I am having a lot of fun playing Elder Scrolls Online after buying the Gold Edition on Steam for 40$ Canadian. ESO is criminally under rated right now I think, I know it had a rough launch but it really feels polished.

[Zombeaver]

Just now, lordmonkus said:

SkyUI will be ported, the SKSE dev even said it was along with the MCM so it's just a matter of time. I agree that the default UI is awful as shit and sucks to use, I am using QD Inventory and while it's no where near as good as SkyUI it does make the UI better. http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/1970/?

Here is the post from behippo on the nexus forums about SkyUI and MCM.

https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/4979480-skse/page-15#entry44489330

"Once we get the appropriate hooks done in SKSE64 we'll make sure that SkyUI and MCM get completed. We are in regular contact with the SkyUI developers. Between the two teams we'll get it done."

That's excellent news! I hadn't seen that. I just saw the post from schlangster over on the SkyUI posts section and was like "Well shit...". I mean hell, even if the guy isn't interested in continuing modding at this point, there are a lot of mods that depend on MCM so that just seems crappy. If the SKSE guys are on the case though that's awesome.

QD Inventory doesn't look too bad. Seems like a decent holdover at least. Dammit I'm starting to feel the itch... 
 

7 minutes ago, lordmonkus said:

For now I am having a lot of fun playing Elder Scrolls Online after buying the Gold Edition on Steam for 40$ Canadian. ESO is criminally under rated right now I think, I know it had a rough launch but it really feels polished.

Really? Huh, I'd heard pretty universally negative things about ESO. I had a couple friends that got it at launch and one of them said the only thing they liked about it was the noises the Argonians made when they jumped (or maybe swam?) haha. Maybe it's in a much better state at this point.

[Lordmonkus]

Yeah QD Inventory is a suitable holdover to use for now until SkyUI or you could use the older 2.2 SkyUI with some of it's limitations like in the crafting.

From everything I read and saw about ESO at launch it was pretty bad. Over the weekend Steam had a 5 day free trial of it which I think might still be on for another day, not sure though. But it is still on sale for 50% off the Gold Edition which is worth buying cause you get 4 of the DLC packs (which include the Dark Brotherhood, Thieves Guild and 2 others) and a mount.

All I can say about the game is for the last few days I have been playing it I have been having a lot of fun playing a Khajit NIghtblade doing the Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood quests. I have no idea what the end game will be like but having an optional monthly subscription is a good thing. I choose right now not to pay the sub and I am not locked out of any of the content except for a couple of DLCs for content I wouldn't even be doing right now anyways. The game world is quite large, the cities are huge and look fantastic, the game play is great. It looks and runs better than Skyrim, it is extremely stable and as far as I am concerned for 40$ even if I just play through what's available to me it's money well spent. I wouldn't want to pay the full 80$ Canadian for the Gold Edition however. I like their pricing model, it offers good flexibility to the player. Buy the game and skip out on the monthly fee if you choose or subscribe if you want the extra perks (10% gold and xp and DLC access while subbed) and build up crowns (the cash shop currency) to buy future DLCs or cosmetic bullshit.

I can only give it my 2 thumbs up in approval of what I have experienced in the game so far.

[Zombeaver]

Oh wow. I was way off the mark from my recollection of how many mods I have installed for the original version of Skyrim... it's 198. Guess I've got my weekend project lined up.

[alexis524]

I'm trying to wrap up installing the last 40-50 mods on SSE here. Work is kinda slow with the short week and I've just been remoting into to my home PC from work to install a few things.

[Zombeaver]

So it turns out I have the below issue... It's weird because I didn't have this issue with the original version (which is on an internal drive, but not C:. I installed Special Edition on an external USB 3.0 drive) but from what I've read it was an issue with it as well. I guess I'll try creating a junction link first since that post on the Bethesda forums said that works (which is kinda hilarious if that's true). If that doesn't work I guess I'll try moving it to my non-C: internal drive. My C: drive is a 250GB SSD so that's not gonna happen.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/489830/discussions/0/312265327168321963/

https://steamcommunity.com/app/489830/discussions/0/312265327167930399/

https://steamcommunity.com/app/489830/discussions/0/312265672109188094/

https://beta-community.bethesda.net/topic/5191/missing-sounds-for-some-users-when-install-to-drive-other-than-c-aka-external-drive-bug/2

[Zombeaver]

Well, launching the existing install via a junction link to the C: drive didn't work, but moving the install to the internal drive did. Sounds are now working properly.

Dear god Bethesda, what in the hell. There are posts about this problem that are years old, for the original version. You'd think they could get this crap sorted out in that time. At least it's working now...

Now to get back to adding more mostly unnecessary but still totally necessary mods.

[Lordmonkus]

For those of you waiting for ELFX to be ported to SSE here you go:
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/2424/?tab=1&navtag=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nexusmods.com%2Fskyrimspecialedition%2Fajax%2Fmoddescription%2F%3Fid%3D2424%26preview%3D&pUp=1

Word of warning don't use the ELFX - Hardcore.esp unless you are really asking for pitch black dungeons. The normal install of ELFX darkens them up just right imo but the Hardcore file goes beyond dark so use it at your own discretion / peril.

[Lordmonkus]

Some screen shots of ELFX.

 

[Zombeaver]

I've been using ELE + Re-Engaged Reshade and ENB.

[Lordmonkus]

ELE is nice, I don't use an ENB at all, all the texture packs and other graphical settings push my framerate to a point where using an ENB pushes it to a point where it's just too slow to be enjoyable. ENB will generally eat at least 10 frames a second or more depending and in a place like Riverwood which is one of the graphically heavier areas of the game I get around 45 fps there.

Much like shaders in Retroarch the colour corrections and other effects of an ENB are personal preference and I found I don't really like the look of most ENBs except for the really heavy performance hitters which become unusable on my system. The new lighting and shadows in the Special Edition remove the need for an ENB to fix that aspect and the fact that the game is now a Direct 11 game and can handle more than 4 gigs of ram means the memory hack part of ENB isn't needed either so in the end ENB now is just for colour adjustments which I don't really need.

[Zombeaver]

Well there are other things it does too, like MXAO and a higher quality DOF. Keep in mind that the ENB version for SE is completely separate from the one for normal Skyrim and, because of SE's engine enhancements, is designed to be significantly lighter. It doesn't double up on things that are now included natively in SE. It doesn't have nearly as significant an impact on performance.

[Lordmonkus]

Oh it does do some nice stuff like better Ambient Occlusion and Depth of Field but I don't find the performance hit worth it for me. I hate DoF and always turn it off in any game and AO is something that you notice if you can pause the game and turn it on and off to look for it specifically but in actual gameplay you will never notice it.

I have installed a current ENB just for the frame limiting functionality since I have a 144 Hz G-Sync monitor and just using it for that function alone it was still a 10 fps hit. So now I just use RIva Tuner to limit my frame rate to 60 to prevent the amazing Skyrim physics bug when opening doors when the frame rate is over 60 and sending all the shit in the room flying all over the place.

[Lordmonkus]

Here's a great little utility for not only Skyrim but other Bethesda games like Oblivion and the Fallout series. It's a much MUCH better graphics configuration tool than the Bethesda Launcher. It has it's own presets that not only look better but also run smoother than Bethesdas and gives you quite a bit more customization options as well. It's not a complicated thing to use at all but it is worth watching the video for it. And just for reference and my testing it out the Bethini Medium preset looks as good or better than Bethesdas High settings. Using the Bethini High preset made my game look even better than before and even got me back 10 frames per second in my "worst case scenario" test spot. Standing on the bridge in Riverwood looking back up the river I was getting around 40 fps with my settings and textures, after using the Bethini High preset that went up to 50.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/4875/?

[alexis524]

Nice mention lord.

I just realized I have been using LOOT incorrectly for IDK the past.....3 years. How U say herp derp?

Only until the last 45 minutes have I just learned that you have to manually sort LOOT's applied mod order. Here I thought all along that when you click "Apply" that LOOT rearranges your load order for you.

I haven't run into CTD's too often, and am hoping that this evening i can use LOOT's suggested load order to rearrange my build and see if I get any increase in FPS.

I'm hitting 60 in every so often, but average around 35-38 which is fine by me. 

 

 

[Lordmonkus]

Huh ?

You do only hit apply and it moves everything to where it "should" be. Some mods with the current version of LOOT and Skyrim SE need to be manually adjusted though, Realistic Lighting Overhaul for example.

For better looking and smoother game try out the link I posted above to a program called Bethini.

[alexis524]

hmmm...

I'm running NMM at the moment and run LOOT from within. After I sort/apply in LOOT, I assume I have to close NMM and reopen to apply the new load order?

 

I never close NMM so maybe that explains why my load order never changes. 

[Lordmonkus]

Yeah if you close NMM and re-open it you will see the load order has changed.

[alexis524]

OK. That's a bit of good news. I have 211 mods installed and running pretty stable albeit with <60FPS, but very playable for me.

I know I'll have to manually move around RW2, ELFX, and Verdant and think I'll just edit metadata after I get it running/set up the way I'd like.

Thanks for the education my friend