Support NeoGAF

[Loginius]

Okay, annoying issue. Trying to install Interesting NPCs but the file comes as a 7z file so Nexus MM can't recognize it, and 7-Zip constantly tells me that it can't open the file as an archive whenever I try to extract it. Anyone know why this is?

And that's after just giving up at figuring out why a bunch of mods I'm trying to download from the Nexus site "do not exist" when using the "download with manager" link

Nexus does some strange things.
When you have Problems downloading try reloading the page a few times.

Your 7z file sounds like its broken, did you try to re download it?

Can someone recommend a good enb mod that isn't going to destroy my GTX 560? I haven't played in several months.

The most demanding parts of most enb´s are SSIL (disable this first, it kills fps even on high end machines) SAO and DOF.

Try searching for one that is custom made to work without those or for "fast SAO".

I would recommend trying out "Enhanced Vanilla" which has been recommended by "WorstUsernameEver" and "insane0hflex" a few pages back.
(Use fast or no SAO, disable DOF if you still have performance problems, alternatively you can try running SAO without DOF)

 

[Dmax3901]

I was playing Dawnguard and was just so frustrated with the constant 'Ebony Axe of So and So' and 'Leather Armour of Blah Blah'.

Does a mod like SkyRE completely redo the loot/armour/weapon system? I want to have a reason to go into a dungeon.

 

[Sethos]

It's so annoying, I want to play again but that means I want a beautiful modded ( Non-ENB ) version. So I pop by Skyrim Nexus and check out the popular mods, "Oh that looks great", "HD Retexture yummy" and then you notice a trend; Overlapping texture packs, some are also in the 'top endorsed'. Then you suddenly have 2-3 different choices for the same stuff and when you read the comments, one pack does somethings better whilst the other does something else better - Then my modding OCD kicks in as I want the best of them both. Then you also notice 5-6 of stuff you downloaded "Can be customized!" and by then you know it's just just download & forget, but instead you feel the need to spend several hours tweaking ... At least I do.

WHY IS THE GAME DOING THIS ME? Wish I could find the perfect list for all the good shit in this game, best textures, best sounds, best looks, best models and best tweaks. The only lists I find are these butchered lists where there's always some anime crap that sneaks in.

 

[Loginius]

Use the texture combinder.

The author did a very good job doing what you just described and is constantly adding more mods (as of now he has options for lush trees, lush grass, SMIM etc.)

When you want a non ENB version of the game that adds the best combination of textures and Models I would "start" with that.

I would then recommend:
- quality world map with roads
-AOF believable hair
-AOF detailed mountains V2
-better dynamic snow
-crimson tide (for "realistc wounds and blood)
-enhanced distant Terrain
-enhanced night skyrim v04 lower Stars and blue Galaxy
- get snowy (edit to a lvl that you are comfortable with, I greatly increased the fade in/out time and reduced the opacity)
-greatsword sheats and scabbards
-hd better reflections for armor and weapons
-High quality LODs
-project Reality CoT (new weather but also new light, dont use this if you want to completely preserve vanilla lighting doesnt work with sound mods)
-lightning during thunder storms (dont forget the CoT patch if you want to use that)
-real ice
-realistic ragdolls and force
-visible windows (i recommend gritty)

-elaborate textiles (low rez but adds a lot of detail to clothes, depends on your taste)

if you want to enhance female and male body models without that anime look I would recomend:
-Caliente´s female body mod big bottom edition (*)
-Basvanbeus Mesh and Texture Changer (*)
-CBBE skin texture v 1.8 muscular_body Patch (*)
-CBBE skin textures v 1.8 hairy_body Patch (*)
-detailed lips

-Coverkhajiits female + male version

-Better males, dirty/hairy version (no faces) (*)
- geonox male face version 2 (this is truly awesome)

-gizmodians Scars

-HQ-Beards

(this will however make npcs and yourself naked when no armor is worn, a version of this with vanilla underpants is not possible because of the skin texture mods, should you not want this ignore the posts with *)


-W.A.T.E.R.


and in order to add some life:
-101 Bugs (if you like bugs)
-birds of skyrim (if you like birds)
-populated citys (adds some random npcs to every town making the place seem more busy, easily to differentiate from important nps because they are all named "adventurer, commoner, noble, or mage novice")

 

[HP_Wuvcraft]

I started using SkyRe (+Deadly Dragons) this Friday for a new character and it is awesome!

Quiete happy with my performance/graphics/stability while all my mods are running as well, some ctd every 10h or so but nothing gamebreaking imo.
Some screens (that I also posted in the High-Rez Screenshots thread):

Dear God, I'm trying that.

None of the mods I'm using come close to that.

 

[Sethos]

Fantastic list Loginius, really appreciate it. Definitely have some downloading to do this weekend

 

[HP_Wuvcraft]

To get the same look that I have http://www.file-upload.net/download-4639097/Skyrim_custom.rar.html

It's just giving me a link to a video downloader.

 

[Loginius]

Fantastic list Loginius, really appreciate it. Definitely have some downloading to do this weekend

No problem, hope you like them once they are up and running.

Dear God, I'm trying that.

None of the mods I'm using come close to that.

Just be aware that SkyRe doesnt change anything related to graphics, there was some confusion about that before.

It's just giving me a link to a video downloader.

Still works for me... should lead to a .rar named Skyrim_custom(.rar)

http://www.file-upload.net/download-4639097/Skyrim_custom.rar.html

 

[Castor Krieg]

Any comparison between VibrantENB and ForceWithinENB? Vibrant looks great, but I am afraid the snowy, "dark" regions will not look so good because of that.

 

[HP_Wuvcraft]

Nope, still just downloads downloader clients.

 

[Sethos]

Nope, still just downloads downloader clients.

You need to click the small download button under

"Datum:05.08.2012
Dateigröße:0.68 MB
Downloads:27"

Not the big glowing button.

 

[HP_Wuvcraft]

You need to click the small download button under

"Datum:05.08.2012
Dateigröße:0.68 MB
Downloads:27"

Not the big glowing button.

Oh, internet.

 

[Loginius]

Oh, ok I didnt even see that because adblock... blocks those adds.
Glad it works now, thanks Sethos.

 

[HP_Wuvcraft]

Well, now all my textures are screwed up. This is gonna be fun trying to figure out.

http://steamcommunity.com/id/bryy/screenshot/1155424861237515726/?tab=public

 

[Loginius]

Well, now all my textures are screwed up. This is gonna be fun trying to figure out.

http://steamcommunity.com/id/bryy/sc...26/?tab=public

hope you didnt just copy paste all my files?

You will have to make adjustments to the ini files for them to work on your system. (that is unless youre using a Readon 7850)

If this is not the problem try disabling SOA.

If you have installed some texture packs recently and didnt check if they worked before you installed enb uninstall enb and see if its the texture packs fault.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

W.A.T.E.R. seems really buggy for me, the water constantly flickers and flashes. Has anybody else noticed this problem?

If you just want to add random stuff and don't care for immersion you can do just that, but I certainly don't want that for my actual playthroughs and many more think so as well.

The number of people who actually are RPers in these kinds of games is vanishingly small. Most people want to wave swords around and kill things and do quests. Furthermore, I don't think there are that many people left who care for immersion in Bethesda games. They are always so broken by default that half the fun is adding random things and seeing what hilarious stuff happens when you do. If you miss out on The Dance of Death for instance because of immersion you're doing yourself a disservice. Set DoD at 100% killmoves for maximum enjoyment of gameplay.

 

[Castor Krieg]

Naito, are you running every single one from your mod list? What are your PC specs?


I am thinking about going for SkyRe + ENB + better bodies first, before I install 500 other mods.

 

[Felix Lighter]

I had a close call yesterday. I was going to change my ugridstoload value back to 5 to see if it would improve my fps in some areas. I went through all the proper steps to protect my save files but when I relaunched the game, the dragon on the title screen was pink and every time I tried to load a save, the game would crash to the desktop.

I let the game recreate default .ini files, I uninstalled and reinstalled all my mods but it still failed. Finally, I just uninstalled all of my mods and things were working again. So, I reinstalled them all and went through each mod one by one, uninstalling launching the game, if it still failed, I reinstalled and moved on to the next mod. I finally isolated the problem to the Get Snowy mod, which was a relief because it's minor and has no effect on my equipment or gameplay. I don't know what happened but, that mod just won't work for me anymore. Thankfully, I didn't lose my new level 20 character.

 

[Slackbladder]

As all the ENB's I've tried hurt my FPS too much (I like to have as close to 60 fps as possible) I use Imaginator and DynaVision. I feel it gives me a bit of freedom to change the look of the game without hurting it. And as the settings are changed in game it's very usable. Not as impressive as a good ENB but a good option all the same.

 

[Dmax3901]

Ah Ugrids, makes me feel all fuzzy inside

 

[Naito]

Naito, are you running every single one from your mod list? What are your PC specs?

Yep, but do notice that my master list isn't up-to-date, mostly because I dropped Skyrim for GW2GAF.
It is perhaps a good opportunity to revamp it since I did play Dawnguard and used some new stuff
but I see Loginius has already taken care of keeping you updated.

i5 2500k
ASUS P8Z77-V
Asus nVIDIA GTX670 DC2T 2GB
2x4GB Ram
Samsung 830 128GB

Here are some pics of my Dawnguard playthrough.

I sure did enjoy my time with it, but it's time to uninstall Skyrim and, perhaps, come back in 6 months.
If you liked ForceWithin ENB, you may want to check Countervibe - similar, a bit brighter.
Here are some pics taken with Countervibe ENB.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Which ENBs actually let you see details in shadows instead of pitch black?

 

[DSmalls84]

Are there any good Crossbow mods out besides revamped? It seems pretty good but people are complaining that crossbows pretty much take the place of bows in the game and I would also like a Daedric bow to craft.

Also I downloaded Monster Mod on nexus and then and then I downloaded the Lore friendly files and hit yes to overwrite the standard MM files. Did I install it correctly and does the load order matter? Still kind of new to Nexus so hopefully you guys can tell me if I'm doing something wrong.

 

[Ledsen]

Which ENBs actually let you see details in shadows instead of pitch black?

None of them, which is why I don't use ENB. Also DoF is horrendous, but at least it's easily disabled.

 

[Naito]

Which ENBs actually let you see details in shadows instead of pitch black?

My suggestion is to try Countervibe ENB. As I mentioned, I found it quite bright and the aim is to retain the original colors with added vibrancy.
You can check my pictures with that ENB enabled and notice that the enviroment in the gargoyle scene should be usually darker.

 

[insane0hflex]

Which ENBs actually let you see details in shadows instead of pitch black?

Enhanced Vanilla ENB and Enhanced Motion Picture ENB are perfect for being able to see at night/indoors/shadows.

 

[Moonkeis]

I finally fired up Skyrim again after 4 months and decided to try out some of the mods. My gosh, what a difference a few tweaks will make visually.

 

[Sethos]

Oh for fuck sake. Apparently there's some issue with Nexus where downloading stuff with the Mod Manager just reports a "Can't find the file" or something. So everything have to be downloaded manually, which takes ages for 20+ files and then even worse: No auto-updating.

Why does the Steam Workshop suck so much ass :/

 

[Felix Lighter]

Does Dawnguard break a bunch of mods? I haven't bought it yet but I'm considering it. I just don't want to introduce a lot of headaches.

 

[Vulcano's assistant]

Which ENBs actually let you see details in shadows instead of pitch black?

In the ENB files there is a bitmap picture called enbpalette.bmp that dictates how dark the game, and shadows are. It also affects the color of shadows. You can open it in photoshop/or gimp/etc and modify its values to your liking.

two random examples (I'm not saying these will work):

You can also remove it altogether and all the shadows become grey bluish.

 

[gnarlyxcharlie]

wow, that's honestly one of the best screens i've ever seen on the game. so pretty

 

[insane0hflex]

Oh for fuck sake. Apparently there's some issue with Nexus where downloading stuff with the Mod Manager just reports a "Can't find the file" or something. So everything have to be downloaded manually, which takes ages for 20+ files and then even worse: No auto-updating.

Why does the Steam Workshop suck so much ass :/

Yeah I noticed this same problem last night! I was like eff it, I'll watch olympics and check out Fallout New vegas mods instead.

Glad to see someone else encountered that bug, it was my first time using NMM for Skyrim mods...

I've been doing mods manually for the past 5-6 months =)

 

[Loginius]

The number of people who actually are RPers in these kinds of games is vanishingly small. Most people want to wave swords around and kill things and do quests. Furthermore, I don't think there are that many people left who care for immersion in Bethesda games. They are always so broken by default that half the fun is adding random things and seeing what hilarious stuff happens when you do. If you miss out on The Dance of Death for instance because of immersion you're doing yourself a disservice. Set DoD at 100% killmoves for maximum enjoyment of gameplay.

I cant even tell if youre serious or not.
If so then just no.
DoD is pretty nice tho, set it to 30% or 40% and we have a deal.

Ah Ugrids, makes me feel all fuzzy inside

Me too, my 200h+ character..... gone forever.

Also I downloaded Monster Mod on nexus and then and then I downloaded the Lore friendly files and hit yes to overwrite the standard MM files. Did I install it correctly and does the load order matter? Still kind of new to Nexus so hopefully you guys can tell me if I'm doing something wrong.

Yes you installed it correctly. place the patch after the main file.
(BOSS should do that anyway)

awesome screens

Awesome shots.
I will join you at GW2gaf come august 25th.

Which ENBs actually let you see details in shadows instead of pitch black?

mine postet a few pages (posts?) before.
Generally enabing SSIL will take care of most of those crushed blacks, but it will also kill performance (~10fps for me when active at the same time as DOF)
If you believe Confiedence Man than enb´s adaption takes care of the dark shadow problem... I think it does not.

Does Dawnguard break a bunch of mods?

Yes, check the comments or/and autor notices on nexus to see if they are compatible.

 

[HP_Wuvcraft]

hope you didnt just copy paste all my files?

You will have to make adjustments to the ini files for them to work on your system. (that is unless youre using a Readon 7850)

I have a 6990.

If this is not the problem try disabling SOA.

Will do.

 

[Loginius]

I have a 6990.

If this is not the problem try disabling SOA

Will do.

Im sorry, SSAO dont know what I smoked when I wrote that.

Should you be using my ini´s you will have to insert your cards name where mine is atm.
(just ctrl+f search "7850")

edit:
holy mother, search 7800 not 7850...
and add whatever skyrim wrote in you original ini instead...
Im sorry, its almost 1am here.

Also backup your saves or dont overwrite your saves with my inis if you might want to go back to default, I changed Ugrids which will corrupt your safegame if you lower it again.

 

[HP_Wuvcraft]

Im sorry, SSAO dont know what I smoked when I wrote that.

Should you be using my ini´s you will have to insert your cards name where mine is atm.
(just ctrl+f search "7850")

Wow, I'm dumb.

EDIT: Didn't work. It's weird because I can see the loading images and my weapon's effects just fine.

 

[Loginius]

Wow, I'm dumb.

EDIT: Didn't work. It's weird because I can see the loading images and my weapon's effects just fine.

answered your pm

 

[Confidence Man]

Generally enabing SSIL will take care of most of those crushed blacks, but it will also kill performance (~10fps for me when active at the same time as DOF)
If you believe Confiedence Man than enb´s adaption takes care of the dark shadow problem... I think it does not.

It depends on the config whether it does or not. High contrast, high saturation, high curves, low ambient values, whether palette is used and how far it pushes the lighting range into black will affect how dark shadows are.

Here's an example (I've exaggerated the values for darker shadow and higher adaptation to better show the effect):

 

[Loginius]

I think the problem is that you have to focus the camera at the shadow without light intercepting which is just not possible in many situations in actual gameplay.

For example just moving the focus of your camera in the first shot to the shadow would change nothing (or not enough to compensate the crushed black) because theres too much light in the frame.

Short: ENB doesnt know when I want it to adapt, this doesnt surprise me as the proces of "adaption" in real life (a combination of work from the eye and brain) is extremely complex and just not recreatable in todays videogames.

I do salute to the effort that the modders put into those effects but they just dont do the trick for some people (or at least me) at a level at which I would not care about crushed blacks anymore.

 

[Jake Tower]

I still cannot believe there isn't a competent de-leveling system made for this game yet. It's had almost a year now.

Creation Kit is out. Do it if you want it!

 

[Sethos]

This may be crazy, but I have an old save-game that seemed to corrupt itself in a patch period. It was my main save file that I've put a lot of time in, however I haven't been able to use it since ( Says something about using version 0, I'm on version 9 ). Tried a lot of the usual stuff suggested.

Anywhere you could go, have someone look at it and perhaps edit it to work, convert the data to a working version again, just a forum where you could get some solid help?

 

[Loginius]

This may be crazy, but I have an old save-game that seemed to corrupt itself in a patch period. It was my main save file that I've put a lot of time in, however I haven't been able to use it since ( Says something about using version 0, I'm on version 9 ). Tried a lot of the usual stuff suggested.

Anywhere you could go, have someone look at it and perhaps edit it to work, convert the data to a working version again, just a forum where you could get some solid help?

You could use Wyre Bash to check what masters the save uses etc. that might give a clue as to why it is not working.

I had the same message when importing my Xbox savegame to PC.
I fixed it by importing some part of it into another save via a editor, I dont remember the detiails.

If you upload it I could take a quick look at it for you.

 

[Sethos]

You could use Wyre Bash to check what masters the save uses etc. that might give a clue as to why it is not working.

I had the same message when importing my Xbox savegame to PC.
I fixed it by importing some part of it into another save via a editor, I dont remember the detiails.

If you upload it I could take a quick look at it for you.

Wyre just sees it as a corrupted save and that's it :/

But if you could take a look, it'd be really appreciated

http://www.mediafire.com/?nl6k6f85e78hoa7

Also thanks for the heads up on the texture pack combiner, took me all night but it was worth it

 

[Unknown Soldier]

DoD is pretty nice tho, set it to 30% or 40% and we have a deal.

Nope. Even at 100%, you perform about 1 execution per fight with 4-5 enemies. The engine severely limits which kills qualify for killmoves, so unless you set it to 100% you will still rarely see killmoves. Vanilla Skyrim must be no fun at all in this regard, because a person might play for 20 hours between seeing just one killmove.

I set DoD to 100%, and decapitation chance to 35%. The decaptitation chance is weird too, if you set it to 50% or higher literally almost every killmove results in head and shoulders being separated. However Skyrim calculates decapitation chance, it's not a pure percentage at all. At 35% it's pretty reasonable, I occasionally slice off heads but not too often. The other killmove animations are cool and are worth seeing too so you don't want to overdo decaptitations. The dragon killmoves in particular are extremely satisfying and require you to position yourself directly in front of them facing their heads, but they are so much fun to watch.

 

[Loginius]

Wyre just sees it as a corrupted save and that's it :/

But if you could take a look, it'd be really appreciated

http://www.mediafire.com/?nl6k6f85e78hoa7

Also thanks for the heads up on the texture pack combiner, took me all night but it was worth it

Sorry, tried all the tricks I know but nothing worked.
Wyre bash says the savegame has a corrupt header, not much we can do I think.

I have some ideas that might work when you try them:

-See if you have a previous Version (right click -> properties) of the Savegame and if so restore it.

-start a new game and just when you are at the point where you leave the carriage hit esc and load the old save (this can only work when you have the same mods installed as you did at the time the save was created)

-If you still have the autosaves try renaming the .ess.bak to .ess (change the location of the corrrupt save first)

Nope. Even at 100%, you perform about 1 execution per fight with 4-5 enemies. The engine severely limits which kills qualify for killmoves, so unless you set it to 100% you will still rarely see killmoves. Vanilla Skyrim must be no fun at all in this regard, because a person might play for 20 hours between seeing just one killmove.

I set DoD to 100%, and decapitation chance to 35%. The decaptitation chance is weird too, if you set it to 50% or higher literally almost every killmove results in head and shoulders being separated. However Skyrim calculates decapitation chance, it's not a pure percentage at all. At 35% it's pretty reasonable, I occasionally slice off heads but not too often. The other killmove animations are cool and are worth seeing too so you don't want to overdo decaptitations. The dragon killmoves in particular are extremely satisfying and require you to position yourself directly in front of them facing their heads, but they are so much fun to watch.

Im currently playing a sneak (dagger + bow) character so im pretty often in that "perfect" situation it seem because I get a killmove every 2-4 kills.
What you say only applies to head to head melee combat.

If you only see a killmove every couple of hours it will be something awesome and special, if you see it all the time than who cares?

 

[Sethos]

Sorry, tried all the tricks I know but nothing worked.
Wyre bash says the savegame has a corrupt header, not much we can do I think.

I have some ideas that might work when you try them:

-See if you have a previous Version (right click -> properties) of the Savegame and if so restore it.

-start a new game and just when you are at the point where you leave the carriage hit esc and load the old save (this can only work when you have the same mods installed as you did at the time the save was created)

-If you still have the autosaves try renaming the .ess.bak to .ess (change the location of the corrrupt save first)

Thanks for trying.

I tried all the recommended tricks, like loading after the wagon. Unfortunately the only thing I have left now is that save because it was backed up in the Cloud. However back when it happened, everything did exactly the same; All 123 saves + Autosaves. It happened after a windows re-installed last year, so restore wouldn't make much sense ( Besides, I disable Windows Restore as one of the first things ).

Guess I'm screwed, don't think I'll ever truly play Skyrim again :/

Thought I might get a hold of an unpatched Skyrim, as the save is from back then. Maybe I can get it to work and somehow make it compatible again.

 

[Felix Lighter]

I've searching but I can't find anything. I'd love a mod that moves 2 Handed weapons from the back to the side. It would be a little tricking due to length but it they were angled just right I think it would work. I just love the cloaks but I hate the clipping with 2 handed weapons and quivers.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Im currently playing a sneak (dagger + bow) character so im pretty often in that "perfect" situation it seem because I get a killmove every 2-4 kills.
What you say only applies to head to head melee combat.

If you only see a killmove every couple of hours it will be something awesome and special, if you see it all the time than who cares?

The throat-slitting-from-behind-while-sneaking animation seems to be a special case, even in vanilla it has a high percentage chance of being shown.

I was one of those guys who tried to do every fatality in Mortal Kombat. I like seeing the killmoves all the time, especially with the wide variety of random ones which may occur. They are different for every weapon type too! The mace ones are especially brutal and fun to watch. Sometimes I put on the Mace of Molag Bal just to see myself crush skulls with it even though I'm a sword and dagger player and all my perks are in the sword tree.

 

[Felix Lighter]

I started playing Skyrim again about a week ago. I installed several mods but nothing crazy. After 20 or so hours without a single crash or hang. I decided I was really getting into the game again so I decided to buy Dawngaurd. I went through each mod. Updating mods with Dawngaurd updates. Now the game crashes and hangs all the time while riding my horse in the wild. It's killing my desire to keep playing. I never should have bought Dawngaurd, I was really having fun with the batch of mods I was using.

Edit:

After hours of troubleshooting, uninstalling each mod one by one and running through a section of Skyrim that would inevitably crash the game after 5-10 minutes over and over again, I managed to uninstall every mod and still the game would crash. Then I started going through .ini config settings. I believe I isolated the problem to the "uExterior Cell Buffer" being set too high (I had it set to 102 and dropped it to 64). I hope that takes care of it. I've been dealing with this all night.

 

[GillianSeed79]

So, dumb question, since Dawnguard breaks a lot of mods apparently, do you think the modders on the Steam Workshop will update them or just refer people to Skyrim Nexus? I'm not huge into mods, I only have about four installed right now. I decided to spice things up with Dawnguard because I was getting bored with vanilla Skyrim, but noticed a lot of of interesting mods redirecting people to the nexus to get Dawnguard compatible/1.7 patch compatible mods. What's the general consensus on the workshop? For a novice user like me I like the ease of use of the workshop and it allays my fear of completely fucking up my game because of the simple subscribe/unsubscribe option. That said, there are so many mods on the workshop and like half of them seem completely useless or dumb like making girl NPCs sluty or random armor reskins. It's hard to wade through all the shit to find the good stuff.

I guess what I'm asking is does it look like the really good moders are going to continue to support the workshop or should I just use the nexus?