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[insane0hflex]

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?

IMO most of the more consistent, better modders use the nexus. I've been a devout fanboy of the nexus for a long time, and honestly, it doesn't take much knowledge to use any mod on the nexus. Just read the install instructions, and be smart about it =)

Also, the nexus has a tool called nexus mod manager - its awesome and it basically does what the steam unsub/sub option does, but its a ton better imo.

Give it a shot! It'll take maybe 1-2hours to learn properly, but its worth it imo.

 

[Red Blaster]

I've got a glitch where my water flickers and corresponding water sounds cut in and out, any idea on what causes this?

 

[Unknown Soldier]

I've got a glitch where my water flickers and corresponding water sounds cut in and out, any idea on what causes this?

I have the same glitch. I believe it's being caused by W.A.T.E.R. but I don't know how to fix it.

 

[HooYaH]

I've got a glitch where my water flickers and corresponding water sounds cut in and out, any idea on what causes this?

You are going to need to list your mods.

 

[Red Blaster]

You are going to need to list your mods.

Plugins section

and then these in the Mods section

Most were downloaded from the Steam Workshop; game worked okay for about 20 hours but now little issues are popping up here and there such as the water glitch. Just had a hard crash a little while ago that forced a total reboot.

 

[Loginius]

Youre problem might be that you have 2 water mods installed /pure waters and better_watter)
Just disabling them in the load order wont make them go away.

Try uninstalling one of them.

 

[HooYaH]

Have you tried using BOSS to reorder the list correctly? Some mods needs to be in a higher/lower order or else there will be conflicts. SOS is also quite buggy currently (causes save game bloating). The author took down the mod in order to fix it.

 

[Sethos]

Decided to skip the ENBs. Their performance drain, even on a very high-end machine is unacceptable for me, plus their inherent nature of smudge doesn't look very appealing after 10 minutes. Went back to the FXAA Injector with some sharpening and some saturation increase.

Here's my addons so far;

( The entire texture combiner + Optionals )

- Skyrim HD - 2K Textures
- Serious HD Retexture Skyrim
- Skyrim Realistic Overhaul


- AOF Detailed Mountains
- AOF Farmhouses
- Better Rocks and Mountains
- Detailed Chests
- Enhanced Distant Terrain
- HD Misc
- HD Ore And Ingots
- HD Sacks Retexture
- High Quality Food and Ingredients
- High Quality LODs
- Hybrids HD Plants and Herbs Retexture
- Lush Grass
- Lush Trees
- Project Parallax
- Realistic Instruments
- Realistic Smoke and Embers
- Ruins Clutter Improvement HD
- Septim HD
- Skyrim Flora Overhaul
- Static Mesh Improvement Mod (SMIM)
- Tobes Highres Textures by Mr Bravo
- Trees HD Skyrim Variation
- Visible Windows

Besides that;

- Quality World Map
- AOF Believable Hair
- HD Reflections for Armor
- Project Reality - Climates of Tamriel ( Full )
- Realistic Ragdolls and Force

On Steam Workshop;

- XCE Character Enhanctment
- Realistic Thunder Sound
- WATER
- SkyUI
- Crimson Tide Blood
- Bids and Flocks
- Followers can Relax
- Reduced Distance NPC greetings



Can anyone recommend me any other texture or atmosphere packs that work with the above, some essentials I forgot?

Also, any addons that focus on vanilla weapons and armor, I'd like to have them overhauled if possible. Also what's the best addon to fix the arrow trajectory thing

 

[Loginius]

I would recommend to get rid of Birds and Flocks and instead go with "SkyTest" which gives wildlife a foodchain and some other awesome additons (but might cause problems with Birds and Flocks).
If you love Birds I can recommend "Birds of Skyrim", thats what Im using, it isnt perfect (some birds dont fly away because they have the same animation pattern chickens have) but adds a lot of life and immersion, also its compatible with SkyTest.

For better performance after installing so many texture packs I recommend using "Texture Optimizer".
The quality wont decrease in a visible way but the needed VRam will go down quite a bit.

 

[Sethos]

I would recommend to get rid of Birds and Flocks and instead go with "SkyTest" which gives wildlife a foodchain and some other awesome additons (but might cause problems with Birds and Flocks).
If you love Birds I can recommend "Birds of Skyrim", thats what Im using, it isnt perfect (some birds dont fly away because they have the same animation pattern chickens have) but adds a lot of life and immersion, also its compatible with SkyTest.

For better performnace after insatlling so many texture packs I recommen using "Texture Optimizer".
The quality wont decrease in a visible way but the needed VRam will go donw quite a bit.

Thanks, will check them out.

Don't need the texture optimizer really, holding a rock steady 60FPS and I have 4GB of Vram, should be plenty

 

[Moaradin]

I would recommend to get rid of Birds and Flocks and instead go with "SkyTest" which gives wildlife a foodchain and some other awesome additons (but might cause problems with Birds and Flocks).
If you love Birds I can recommend "Birds of Skyrim", thats what Im using, it isnt perfect (some birds dont fly away because they have the same animation pattern chickens have) but adds a lot of life and immersion, also its compatible with SkyTest.

For better performance after installing so many texture packs I recommend using "Texture Optimizer".
The quality wont decrease in a visible way but the needed VRam will go down quite a bit.

I was running Skytest for a while but I realized it had some incompatibility issues with Real Wildlife. I don't want to lose a lot of the nice additions that mods gives.

 

[arts&crafts]

Are there any mods that add locations or quests or additional things to do? Like New Vegas bounties / a world of pain. I am reinstalling and will probably continue on my 130h save.

 

[LEGGZZZZ]

How would sli gtx 2gb 680's handle skyrim with moods? and enb at 1440p? I feel like I have enough horsepower to run it, but not enough Vram on my cards. Any advice?

 

[Loginius]

Are there any mods that add locations or quests or additional things to do? Like New Vegas bounties / a world of pain. I am reinstalling and will probably continue on my 130h save.

Dawnguard?

Also there is "Moonpath to Elswyre" which is still in development though.

Try Deadly Dragons (with Armory and Spells) if you want to add a reason to kill dragons (new loot from dragons that can be used to craft epic armor which than can be used to kill the new op dragons. And a additional spell system that uses dragon souls to level up new spells)

How would sli gtx 2gb 680's handle skyrim with moods? and enb at 1440p? I feel like I have enough horsepower to run it, but not enough Vram on my cards. Any advice?

What kind of pc do you expect some of us to have if a gtx 680 sli setup cant handle it?
(should you be serious and not just trying to brag: you will be fine as long as you dont use 4096px textures and set all ini settings to max. no pc would be able to handle that)

 

[Sethos]

By the way, did they fix Esbern's voice? or do you still need to do the unpack trick?

 

[Red Blaster]

Well I tried deactivating all mods and I'm still getting the water glitch, guess I'll re-install the entire game and all the mods.

 

[Loginius]

Well I tried deactivating all mods and I'm still getting the water glitch, guess I'll re-install the entire game and all the mods.

did you deactivate them or uninstall them?

(Like I said, unchecking them in the load order doesnt mean they are gone from the game.)

If you still get the problem after uninstalling them I would recommend trying out vanilla ini (+no ENB) settings should you have tempered with them.

A reinstall would of course also solve the problem.

 

[Red Blaster]

did you deactivate them or uninstall them?

(Like I said, unchecking them in the load order doesnt mean they are gone from the game.)

If you still get the problem after uninstalling them I would recommend trying out vanilla ini (+no ENB) settings should you have tempered with them.

A reinstall would of course also solve the problem.

Yeah I uninstalled everything and still get the glitch, how do I refresh my ini to vanilla settings?

 

[Loginius]

Yeah I uninstalled everything and still get the glitch, how do I refresh my ini to vanilla settings?

delete them and open the launcher, the game will then create new ini´s.

(back the old ones up just in case)

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Are there any mods that add locations or quests or additional things to do? Like New Vegas bounties / a world of pain. I am reinstalling and will probably continue on my 130h save.

King of Riverhelm adds a castle you can own outside of Windhelm. I'm not sure about mods which add quests, Skyrim already has a ton of content for you to do.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Assuming you have a computer which can handle quite literally 50+ NPCs on screen at the same time, WARZONES is a really fun mod which makes it feel like there is actually a civil war going on. The mod spawns massive quantities of opposing faction NPCs slaughtering each other at designated battlefields all over the map. You can hang back and watch them waste each other, or if your level is high enough you can wade in there yourself and show them some serious Dynasty Warriors shit. You'll be knee deep in the dead before you know it! This mod is kind of hilarious with The Dance of Death set to 100% and Last Enemy Condition set to disabled. Just make sure you keep yourself at high health, as the NPCs can hit you and you can be killed while you are performing a killmove!

WARZONES: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/9494

 

[FGMPR]

^That one was a little hectic for me. It made the world almost feel smaller by making it so I would run into a massive fight, whether it be SC vs Imperials or an all on all involving creatures (it likely didn't help that I have the full monster mod loaded) so frequently to the point where there were very few tranquil moments left traveling the overworld map.

I did only try it for an hour or so, and due to my no fast-travel rule I was only traversing the north, but what I saw of it seemed like a good idea with a not so good execution (yet).

Also, I haven't started the CW questline yet, so that may also have something to do with it.

 

[brotkasten]

Is there a good, reliable open cities mod? And if so, how's the performance impact?

 

[insane0hflex]

Is there a good, reliable open cities mod? And if so, how's the performance impact?

skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/8058

Supposedly no performance impact. I have yet to test it out myself, because I use other mods that would wreak havoc if I had this mod on.

The creator of this mod is Arthmoor, who is a very, very capable modder and usuallly makes excellent 10/10, heavily endorsed mods.

 

[brotkasten]

skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/8058

Supposedly no performance impact. I have yet to test it out myself, because I use other mods that would wreak havoc if I had this mod on.

The creator of this mod is Arthmoor, who is a very, very capable modder and usuallly makes excellent 10/10, heavily endorsed mods.

Thank you. To be honest, I ignored the mod for a while, because I didn't want any Oblivion gates in Skyrim. But if he's as highly regarded as you say, I'll try it anyways. Should it really bother me that much, I can still use the gates patch, I guess.

 

[insane0hflex]

Thank you. To be honest, I ignored the mod for a while, because I didn't want any Oblivion gates in Skyrim. But if he's as highly regarded as you say, I'll try it anyways. Should it really bother me that much, I can still use the gates patch, I guess.

Yeah, I'd probably use the gates patch too. I remember that whole thing started a lot of drama, dunno why. Also, just as a FYI - Open Cities may not work totally well with Dawnguard since sometimes random vampires spawn outside a cities gate, and they might venture in and kill an important NPC.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Yeah, I'd probably use the gates patch too. I remember that whole thing started a lot of drama, dunno why. Also, just as a FYI - Open Cities may not work totally well with Dawnguard since sometimes random vampires spawn outside a cities gate, and they might venture in and kill an important NPC.

Dawnguard has vampire attacks anyways. Pretty stupid but I'm sure some modder will fix it so NPCs you need aren't killed.

 

[Slackbladder]

Warzones is useful for leveling the werewolf and vampire perks (easier for werewolf). Funny thing is though I feel like uninstalling and starting over, but this time trying to keep things simple. I feel my game is getting too bloated with mods!

 

[Unknown Soldier]

^That one was a little hectic for me. It made the world almost feel smaller by making it so I would run into a massive fight, whether it be SC vs Imperials or an all on all involving creatures (it likely didn't help that I have the full monster mod loaded) so frequently to the point where there were very few tranquil moments left traveling the overworld map.

I did only try it for an hour or so, and due to my no fast-travel rule I was only traversing the north, but what I saw of it seemed like a good idea with a not so good execution (yet).

Also, I haven't started the CW questline yet, so that may also have something to do with it.

WARZONES is about making Skyrim into a war zone. If anything, WARZONES makes the world feel bigger because there are all these people everywhere fighting each other instead of an empty map. But I always use fast travel unless I am specifically going to a point which I haven't discovered yet and can't fast travel to, so I skip the wars when I'm in a hurry to turn a quest in. The amount of life time I am able to devote to this game is (sadly) finite, so even though it would be cool to slowly ride my horse everywhere I go, I use fast travel to cut traveling time. Besides, time not spent riding my horse everywhere is time I can spend watching deliciously bloody and brutal killmoves!

It's really awesome if you use fast travel to one of the designated warzones. Do it in first person mode for maximum enjoyment. The loading screen vanishes, you appear in the world, and suddenly shouting fills the air around you as a bunch of NPCs charge into each other and start killing each other en masse around you. The melee NPCs are pounding each other into bits, the archers are firing indiscriminately into the crowd, and the mages are blasting corpses into the air with their fireballs. It's like Call of Duty: Medieval Warfare or something. It's fun to just watch the battle, and it's even more fun to run into the crowd with your weapon swinging and try to kill as many of them as you can yourself before they die to each other.

You can turn off the random encounters and limit WARZONES to only the designated spots on the map, and you can adjust the number of spawns in each battlefield. This would probably make it easier for the no-fast-travel types, so you can go to where the fights are when you want one and not get jumped on by angry NPCs at every fork in the road.

If you don't start the CW questline, the only aggressive NPCs you face in warzones are the bandits. Everyone else is neutral to you and will ignore you unless you attack them first. If you start the CW storyline, either the Imperials or Stormcloaks which spawns in warzones will be hostile to you and will attack on sight. I think if you side with the Stormcloaks the Thalmors that spawn will attack you on sight too, but I'm not sure. I've been slaughtering every NPC in a warzone to the last man lately regardless of faction to get skillups so it matters little to me but it might matter to you. If you are low level and are using WARZONES you may not want to start the CW questline until you are higher and can handle an angry battalion of Imperials or Stormcloaks running full tilt at you looking to carve you into bloody chunks.

 

[Felix Lighter]

Does anyone have any experience with this Texture Optimizer? http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/12801

I'm curious about it's impact on performance but I'm afraid of the impact it will have on mod manager since it's going to modify all of the texture files. I guess I'm not familiar enough with how the mod manager works to know if this will somehow break the "link" to the installed mods for disabling and reenabling.

Also, the game runs at a relatively consistent 60 fps except in some specific areas and I get a good amount of stutter while riding my horse in the wilds. My card has 3 GB of ram so I'm not sure if optimizing the textures will have much of an impact. I have a feeling the true culprit is the fact that I have uGrid set to 7 and that will always prevent a perfectly smooth experience.

Here are my specs:

i7 930 @ 3.9 Ghz
Radeon HD7970 @1125 Mhz GPU/ 1575 MHz Ram
8 GB DDR3 1600 Ram
The game is installed on an SSD

 

[Loginius]

Does anyone have any experience with this Texture Optimizer? http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/12801

I'm curious about it's impact on performance but I'm afraid of the impact it will have on mod manager since it's going to modify all of the texture files. I guess I'm not familiar enough with how the mod manager works to know if this will somehow break the "link" to the installed mods for disabling and reenabling.

Also, the game runs at a relatively consistent 60 fps except in some specific areas and I get a good amount of stutter while riding my horse in the wilds. My card has 3 GB of ram so I'm not sure if optimizing the textures will have much of an impact. I have a feeling the true culprit is the fact that I have uGrid set to 7 and that will always prevent a perfectly smooth experience.

Here are my specs:

i7 930 @ 3.9 Ghz
Radeon HD7970 @1125 Mhz GPU/ 1575 MHz Ram
8 GB DDR3 1600 Ram
The game is installed on an SSD

I use that little programm because it is awesome.
It doesnt really rename anything so you can use the Modmanager of your chice to (un-)install textures any way you want.
(It also has a option for backups which is checked by default so you could just revert back should something not work the way it is supposed to.

Do you have microstutters or actual low framerates when riding in the open?

The optimizer probably wont help you unless you installed some crazy 4000+px texture packs.

Your setup should be able to handle UGrids 7 just fine (it does increase the chance of crashes and stutters tho).

Have you tried running the game at UGrids 5?

 

[insane0hflex]

Does anyone have any experience with this Texture Optimizer? http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/12801

I'm curious about it's impact on performance but I'm afraid of the impact it will have on mod manager since it's going to modify all of the texture files. I guess I'm not familiar enough with how the mod manager works to know if this will somehow break the "link" to the installed mods for disabling and reenabling.

Also, the game runs at a relatively consistent 60 fps except in some specific areas and I get a good amount of stutter while riding my horse in the wilds. My card has 3 GB of ram so I'm not sure if optimizing the textures will have much of an impact. I have a feeling the true culprit is the fact that I have uGrid set to 7 and that will always prevent a perfectly smooth experience.

Here are my specs:

i7 930 @ 3.9 Ghz
Radeon HD7970 @1125 Mhz GPU/ 1575 MHz Ram
8 GB DDR3 1600 Ram
The game is installed on an SSD

What mods do you have that have scripts? Sounds of Skyrim could be the culprit of this micro-stutter - it was for me. A list of mods would help too =)

 

[Felix Lighter]

I get microstutter when riding long distances in certain areas and there are specific areas that cause lower framerates (40-50s).

Here is my list of mods:

The Texture Combiner Pack I'm using just uses the 3 required packs.

My first play through around launch I played mostly vanilla Skyrim.

I set uGrids to 7 this time around because my machine should be able to handle and for the most part it does. I made an attempt at reverting the setting to 5 with almost disastrous results (I mentioned it earlier in the thread). Basically my game was render unplayable even after following the directions perfectly. Luckily uninstalling the Get Snowy mod somehow saved my game but I didn't want to mess with the setting again.

According to the beta driver release notes the next AMD drivers should increase Skyrim performance significantly, 15% but unless they fix an annoying HDMI bug that has been in their last 2 driver release, I won't be able to install it with my setup.

 

[Jake Tower]

I get microstutter when riding long distances in certain areas and there are specific areas that cause lower framerates (40-50s).

I *dream* of the day I can play Morrowind with such a "low" framerate.

Even with Morrowind Graphics Extender, such a thing isn't possible.

 

[LEGGZZZZ]

Do ENB mods automatically transfer into the Dawngaurd DLC? Or do you have to install them seperately?

 

[Unknown Soldier]

ENB mods are shader replacements and operate at the driver level. Dawnguard won't affect them one way or the other.

According to the beta driver release notes the next AMD drivers should increase Skyrim performance significantly, 15% but unless they fix an annoying HDMI bug that has been in their last 2 driver release, I won't be able to install it with my setup.

Good to see that 9 months after release ATI are getting around to increasing Skyrim performance. We can always count on ATI for timely driver updates!

Spoiler

This is why I always buy Nvidia.

 

[Loginius]

I get microstutter when riding long distances in certain areas and there are specific areas that cause lower framerates (40-50s).


My first play through around launch I played mostly vanilla Skyrim.

According to the beta driver release notes the next AMD drivers should increase Skyrim performance significantly, 15% but unless they fix an annoying HDMI bug that has been in their last 2 driver release, I won't be able to install it with my setup.

So you did not have microstutters with vanilla Skyrim?
Did it run at 60+fps at all times?

Try caping the framerate at 30fps (just for testing purposes) and tell me if you still have those microstutters.

Do you also have the microstutters when in windowed mode?


It is a bethesda game so microstutters sadly are a common problem...

 

[Felix Lighter]

So you did not have microstutters with vanilla Skyrim?
Did it run at 60+fps at all times?

Try caping the framerate at 30fps (just for testing purposes) and tell me if you still have those microstutters.

Do you also have the microstutters when in windowed mode?


It is a bethesda game so microstutters sadly are a common problem...

After one of the performance patches was released, vanilla Skyrim was almost perfectly consistent, 60fps. I've always forced full screen window mode, which improved the experience a ton over fullscreen. The thing about the places with microstutter issues is that if I stop and stand still for a second the fps typically climbs back up to 60 fps but once I start galloping again the stutter comes back as if it's struggling to load the new areas quickly enough.

I may be expecting too much. Over the majority of the map I get perfect performance but there are areas that cause issues. Some areas, if I look in a specific direction the frame rate chugs (I believe 39 fps was the lowest I've seen it go) and in other areas, quickly galloping in the wild causes stuttering.

 

[Perkel]

I just tried Beautiful Skyrim conf with ENB since i did buy two days ago 6870.

Results are astonishing.

Compatition

ENB one reeks of atmosphere

Night and day difference to me. Fix problems with lightning in closed spaces.
Even textures looks better thanks to better lightning.

That's overlkill. Just look at shaders on wall and dragon. It looks mindblowing in comparition to vanilla.

atmosphere

lol @ vanilla. Bad lighting all over the place

What is best about this mod ? IT LOOKS WAY BETTER IN MONTION !
What i like about it in therm of technical achievement is framerate. 4 fps drop @ 1600x900 and 6 @ 1080p. And this is change from literary sometimes bad to medium graphic to very good graphic.

 

[insane0hflex]

Do ENB mods automatically transfer into the Dawngaurd DLC? Or do you have to install them seperately?

Well, since the ENB Mod is just a post/pre processing effect, no amount of other mods will even conflict with it. It basically hacks/modifies the d3d9.dll file used to display the game wtih more effects.

So, yes, it does transfer fine to the Dawnguard DLC and no, you do not have to install it separately.

 

[Perkel]

For interested Whole Package of ENB Beautiful Skyrim.

Just extract it to folder with tes.exe (main folder)

Shift+F12 is to switch mod off and on.

 

[Mr. Wonderful]

I just tried Beautiful Skyrim conf with ENB since i did buy two days ago 6870.

Results are astonishing.

Astonishing? I don't know. It's like Instagram: The Game.

The second set looks pretty good though.

 

[kvn]

Astonishing? I don't know. It's like Instagram: The Game.

The second set looks pretty good though.

Agreed. Fucking vignette filters.

 

[Card Boy]

Is there a mod that fixes this on the official Bethesda texture pack?

 

[Tess3ract]

Is there a mod that fixes this on the official Bethesda texture pack?

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/8236

 

[Card Boy]

Excellent. I wish i 'rep' Gaf posts.

 

[AlberichMX]

Dawnguard has vampire attacks anyways. Pretty stupid but I'm sure some modder will fix it so NPCs you need aren't killed.

This! I don't want a dumb vampire breaking my game, so I'm not buying Dawnguard until this is fixed (well and the mod breaking problem that seems to affect a lot of people).

And my mod recommendation (Immersive Armors): http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/19733

 

[thechristoph]

I'm getting back into Skyrim after a few months away. I used PISE before and didn't notice much of a difference with it. I see now that it's evolved into ASIS, but man, that mod seems like a lot of trouble. Is it even worth bothering if I'm going to use SkyRE?

Also, I'm adding a bunch of mods from the Workshop as well as the Nexus. Am I setting myself up for some pain here? Should I just go full Nexus and not worry about the Workshop?

 

[Unknown Soldier]

I would not combine the Workshop and Nexus. That makes it hard to manage your mods, especially if you have many. All the mods on Workshop should be available on Nexus anyways, plus you can use the awesome Nexus Mod Manager.

 

[Ledsen]

I exclusively use the workshop because of the fact that all your mods are packed up in .bsa:s. It's so awesome.