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The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Mod Discussion and News [Creation Kit released]

C

CarbonatedFalcon

Member
Pardon the triple post...

Well I've managed once again to turn my 60+ FPS Ultra Vanilla Skyrim into a ~30 FPS (with dips and peaks) monstrosity consisting of ~130 plugins, ~229 mods.

The Z-fighting is probably the most obnoxious thing. Also have issues with some distant tree LODs showing up as weird birch trees, then morphing to pines on approach. Should probably screenshot or make a gif of it happening. It's probably a Skyrim Flora Overhaul issue. DynDOLOD may fix this, but it was a bit too complicated for me to feel comfortable with at the moment.

I guess I have all the Skyrim content I never did before to complete before even thinking about installing something like that Forgotten City mod though.
 
L

lazygecko

Member
You need an ENB with a DoF to mask the ugliness of the distant LoD. As for the trees, it's likely a problem with mixing different tree mods together. I couldn't wrap my head around DynDOLOD either. I got something similar (batch file) to work for Oblivion, but not Skyrim.
 
T

Thorgal

Member
CarbonatedFalcon said:
Pardon the triple post...

Well I've managed once again to turn my 60+ FPS Ultra Vanilla Skyrim into a ~30 FPS (with dips and peaks) monstrosity consisting of ~130 plugins, ~229 mods.

The Z-fighting is probably the most obnoxious thing. Also have issues with some distant tree LODs showing up as weird birch trees, then morphing to pines on approach. Should probably screenshot or make a gif of it happening. It's probably a Skyrim Flora Overhaul issue. DynDOLOD may fix this, but it was a bit too complicated for me to feel comfortable with at the moment.

I guess I have all the Skyrim content I never did before to complete before even thinking about installing something like that Forgotten City mod though.
Click to expand...

lazygecko said:
You need an ENB with a DoF to mask the ugliness of the distant LoD. As for the trees, it's likely a problem with mixing different tree mods together. I couldn't wrap my head around DynDOLOD either. I got something similar (batch file) to work for Oblivion, but not Skyrim.
Click to expand...

Dynolod is truly a gamechanger .

These shots are takes at default ugrids 5 and the LODs are amazing .

enb2015_10_2918_09_223spz9.jpg


screenshot18kkrow.jpg
 
L

lazygecko

Member
CarbonatedFalcon said:
This is what I mean. Those ugly yellow trees morph upon close approach to regular pines.

Potential culprits? Skyrim Flora Overhaul, TreesHD, and possibly High Quality LODs. All installed according to the STEP guide instructions.
Click to expand...

My guess is that you installed some kind of summer edition in one of the flora packs, which wasn't consistent with whatever is responsible for the LoD trees.
 
C

CarbonatedFalcon

Member
lazygecko said:
My guess is that you installed some kind of summer edition in one of the flora packs, which wasn't consistent with whatever is responsible for the LoD trees.
Click to expand...

I don't think so. I never intentionally installed any "summer" editions. They look more like aspen or birch trees than anything else. Seems like it may be a difficult issue to track down and fix. I posted on the SFO page on nexus and I'll see if I get a response there that may be helpful. There is this LOD Basic Edition update file I don't believe I installed which may solve the problem.
 
U

Unicorn

Member
Did more of the Bethesda game jam stuff ever get put into the game, like season changes, softbody physics for flags/cloth, etc? I know some got pumped in by one or two of the DLCs.
 
C

CarbonatedFalcon

Member
So I'm playing through now and this is an interesting bug/conflict. Snowstorm at night and I'm going into Bleak Falls Barrow for the first time, however the lighting inside has a daytime/clear skybox. Might not be possible to avoid, but IDK. Weather mod is Climates of Tamriel, lighting is Realistic Lighting Overhaul.

There is apparently a new, version 5 of CoT coming out in the next week though, according to the mod page. Possibly that would fix it?

Could just be that that skybox is pre-baked and none of my mods address it. Odd situation.

And one other annoying thing is the amount of mods I have seems to cause major loading screens to hang (animation stops, get blue circle cursor) for a bit, before eventually loading. Dunno if having the game installed to an SSD would fix that. Possibly safety load would improve that? Or perhaps bumping uGridstoload back to 5 from 7. Otherwise better GPU with more VRAM I guess.
 
C

CarbonatedFalcon

Member
Had my first hard freeze today that I had to force quit out of (right after exiting the inn in Riverwood after meeting Delphine, during a death hound/vampire attack).

Hopefully it's not a trend. Noticed I had some other stuff hogging memory, so that may have been the cause of the freeze, though I have 24GB of RAM and it wasn't even near capping...

Though I no longer have temporary freezes on the longer loading screens being however far into the save - weird that that has smoothed out. Not that I'm complaining.
 
Krappadizzle

Krappadizzle

Member
CarbonatedFalcon said:
Had my first hard freeze today that I had to force quit out of (right after exiting the inn in Riverwood after meeting Delphine, during a death hound/vampire attack).

Hopefully it's not a trend. Noticed I had some other stuff hogging memory, so that may have been the cause of the freeze, though I have 24GB of RAM and it wasn't even near capping...

Though I no longer have temporary freezes on the longer loading screens being however far into the save - weird that that has smoothed out. Not that I'm complaining.
Click to expand...

I booted this up today with about 55 mods +/- 5 and I get crashing every 30 mins or so. It's not surprising to be honest, I don't think this can read more than 6gb(I think) even with Sheshon's memory patch so I don't think you'll ever get close to 24gb of ram ever. Your probably better off making the hard choices like I'm gonna have to do and cut some mods back.
 
M

MattyG

Banned
I have almost everything perfect and the way I want it... except the trees. I have SFO 2.3 installed, but I'm having a TON of pop in on the trees. There's little dead branch textures on most of the trees, and those pop in when I get within 100-200 feet, and then the leaves themselves suddenly become much more full. It's super distracting when you're walking through an area with dozens of trees constantly shape shifting.

Anyone had this issue and know a fix? I tweaked almost everything in my .ini and nothing helped. I think I may just need to uninstall it and go with a different tree mod (hopefully that won't fucking things up, I'm still unsure as to how uninstalling stuff works and affects your save).
 
U

Unicorn

Member
I'm in the process of trying to start fresh with Skyrim modding, so I'm reinstalling via Steam.

The OP hasn't been updated since 2012, so I'm wondering if Mod Manager is still the go-to or if Steam workshop is better. I have been spoiled by Morrowind and MGSO 3.0 being so simple.

I'm also trying to find the best mods that aren't anime nude mods or borderline godmode. I definitely am looking to getting a spellcrafting mod. I guess what I'm asking is, returning in 2015, 4 years later, is there a compiled "best experience" guide to modding? Ease of use, "lore friendly," less main-stream focused, etc.
 
N

nataku

Member
Neither, use Mod Organizer. It's tougher to learn, but so much better.

Gopher has a great series on it that should pretty much walk you through it.

As for your other questions, I'm not really sure. I'm a Requiem player myself. I've tried the other perk overhaul mods, and in the end was constantly seeking out mods to make it more like Requiem. I honestly can't play with out it.

You could always look into the STEP guides and it's various packs I guess. It's tons of reading, though. But probably as close to a guide that you'll find.
 
B

Bizzquik

Member
I thought a feature coming soon to Nexus Mod Manager was the ability to share - and download - full load order profiles. If I understood this correctly, the thought was that I could see a YouTube video I liked and be able to download the *entire* Load Order - patches and all - via one button press, if the user had shared their Load Order profile on the Nexus.

Did I understand that correctly? Is this coming soon?
I want to get back into Skyrim, but don't want to spend hours & hours building up a heavily-modded game.
Thanks in advance.
 
M

Mesoian

Member
nataku said:
Neither, use Mod Organizer. It's tougher to learn, but so much better.

Gopher has a great series on it that should pretty much walk you through it.

As for your other questions, I'm not really sure. I'm a Requiem player myself. I've tried the other perk overhaul mods, and in the end was constantly seeking out mods to make it more like Requiem. I honestly can't play with out it.

You could always look into the STEP guides and it's various packs I guess. It's tons of reading, though. But probably as close to a guide that you'll find.
Click to expand...


To be fair, the new Nexus is actually leagues better than it used to be.
 
U

Unicorn

Member
nataku said:
Neither, use Mod Organizer. It's tougher to learn, but so much better.

Gopher has a great series on it that should pretty much walk you through it.

As for your other questions, I'm not really sure. I'm a Requiem player myself. I've tried the other perk overhaul mods, and in the end was constantly seeking out mods to make it more like Requiem. I honestly can't play with out it.

You could always look into the STEP guides and it's various packs I guess. It's tons of reading, though. But probably as close to a guide that you'll find.
Click to expand...

thanks for the response. Requiem was actually my last playthrough years ago. It's probably a lot better now, but it was fucking soul crushing as a new character. I don't think it had the 3 starting perk points and I decided to build a heavy armor user - probably the perfect storm for a miserable experience.

I've been fiddling with NMM and downloading mods on my slow ass internet all day, so we'll see how things go. What is it about MO that's better than NMM. I watched that 22min video, but it didn't seem drastically improved to NMM.

I'm trying Ordinator perks.

Also, physics have finally been updated. HDT for anyone interested. Seems to add physics to hair and cloth (for supported mods?).


ALSO, HOLY SHIT LOOK AT THIS:
https://youtu.be/CVheba9TBgs
Probably posted already, but this looks so amazing. Guess I'm making another mage. I'm going to look for new mage guild quest mods since I felt a lot of it was sort of lacking in vanilla.
 
T

Thorgal

Member
Unicorn said:
thanks for the response. Requiem was actually my last playthrough years ago. It's probably a lot better now, but it was fucking soul crushing as a new character. I don't think it had the 3 starting perk points and I decided to build a heavy armor user - probably the perfect storm for a miserable experience.

I've been fiddling with NMM and downloading mods on my slow ass internet all day, so we'll see how things go. What is it about MO that's better than NMM. I watched that 22min video, but it didn't seem drastically improved to NMM.

I'm trying Ordinator perks.

Also, physics have finally been updated. HDT for anyone interested. Seems to add physics to hair and cloth (for supported mods?).
Click to expand...

Mod organizer does not install mods to your Skyrim / data folder instead it pulls of some voodoo magic to make a virtual data folder that includes your mods and the game will happily use it .

What is so great about this ? your skyrim directory remains completely untouched .

Another great feature of Mod organizer is that it installs each mod into its own folder so unlike using NMM you will no longer have to pull your hair out trying to find one particular texture you want to remove from your very messy and bloated Data folder .

every mod stys neatly in its own map and doesn't remove any files when one mod overwrites another .

3 untill recently MO allowed you to use different profiles you could switch around on the fly .

You can have a speccific mod profile set up with all the mods for your warrior character and a completely different one for your stealth character and you can switch between them on the fly without uninstalling all your mods first .
Only recently has NMM been given this feature .
 
U

Unicorn

Member
Thorgal said:
Mod organizer does not install mods to your Skyrim / data folder instead it pulls of some voodoo magic to make a virtual data folder that includes your mods and the game will happily use it .

What is so great about this ? your skyrim directory remains completely untouched .

Another great feature of Mod organizer is that it installs each mod into its own folder so unlike using NMM you will no longer have to pull your hair out trying to find one particular texture you want to remove from your very messy and bloated Data folder .

every mod stys neatly in its own map and doesn't remove any files when one mod overwrites another .

3 untill recently MO allowed you to use different profiles you could switch around on the fly .

You can have a speccific mod profile set up with all the mods for your warrior character and a completely different one for your stealth character and you can switch between them on the fly without uninstalling all your mods first .
Only recently has NMM been given this feature .
Click to expand...

Wow. That is definitely something that would save me time in the long run. I'll do MO for whenever I build my next PC (hopefully in the next year or 2) and restart Skyrim again.

A mod question now:
I have:
Climate of Tamriel V 5.0
Pure Waters Legendary 5.0

and I'm seeing Purity on the Nexus that is from the Pure Waters mod but with added weather. Should I just run that, or stick with Project Reality? Do the two weather mods conflict? I think i'm starting to get too many mods that are starting to overlap in features. Maybe too excited to replay.
 
U

Unicorn

Member
Got shit running but I have draugr that are invisible now. Following guides say to get wrye bash and BOSS. I booted up BOSS and must have accidently clicked and closed something because I'm stuck at this GUI where it has mod path, but masterlist and boss program are empty and I have NOOOO clue where to get whatever it needs. 30 mins of clicking around, reinstalling, and I have no idea wtf I'm doing now.
 
U

Unicorn

Member
God. how frustrating when stuff i'm reading is like 3 years old. I have Immersive creatures and I'm thinking I needed to do the "bashing" because some "tables" may be borked or something. I'm trying to get LOOT now. what a mess. Entire day spent doing this. Versus the 15 mins MGSO 3.0 took for Morrowind
LLShC.gif


LOOT is doing its thing now. Thanks for the heads up.
 
U

Unicorn

Member
Things have been going pretty well so far... except for 2 things.

water has been borked. I have Climates of Tamriel and Pure Waters and I think Pure Waters isn't working right because waterfalls spew out blue squares and some pools of water have debug-looking purple glowing hues. Also, my game freezes for a few moments occasionally and I can only deduce it's caused from lights/torches/fires.
 
P

Pancakes

hot, steaming, as melted butter slips into the cracks, drizzled with sticky sweet syrup OH GOD
Thorgal said:
Skyrim after 4 years of modding still looks awesome .
Click to expand...

It really does. Even after all this time I still like to open up the game and run around the world a bit. Hopefully Fallout 4 will get a similar number of modders.
 
U

Unicorn

Member
Ordinator Perk Overhaul has been the best mod I've downloaded. Each tree is a new character build I want to play. I wish I could concurrently play all the characters I want to make.

Also, alternate start with the character creation change to use Morrowind Major/Minor skill set up has been equally awesome.

This weekend I'm going to try Skyrim on my Surface with just these 2 mods and maybe stuff to make it run better on low end machines. I need more opportunities to play Skyrim now.
 
D

daedalius

Member
So I kind of want some of these combat mods and stuff, and it looks like I need SKSE to do that... where do I get that and download it? Does it work with nexus?
 
H

heringer

Member
Hey guys, I'm trying to get back to Skyrim. What are the absolute MUST OWN mods out there? Can I get all of them in the workshop?

Also, if I install from Steam workshop and stuff from Nexusmods, will they conflict or something? Should I opt for one over the other?
 
U

Unicorn

Member
heringer said:
Hey guys, I'm trying to get back to Skyrim. What are the absolute MUST OWN mods out there? Can I get all of them in the workshop?

Also, if I install from Steam workshop and stuff from Nexusmods, will they conflict or something? Should I opt for one over the other?
Click to expand...
I was skeptical at first but set up Mod Organizer. So fucking easy.

Must have mods for me are Ordinator Perks, Alternate/Random Start, and Spellmaking with the new college of winterhold.
 
L

lazygecko

Member
You could probably try using DDS Optimizer to batch edit them into 1K resolution or something.

I checked out that 3D pubic hair mod on the front page out of sheer morbid curiosity and looked at the meshes in a model viewer. It was pretty much exactly like I predicted, with each and every pubic hair being fully polygonal. The mesh is 3.3mb big. For reference, a whole character body model is around 196kb big. These kinds of mods are always so incredibly unoptimized which just adds to the absurdity of it all (like that high heel mod with a 4K resolution simple black color texture).
 
T

timetokill

Banned
So, uh... apparently I have too many mods putting stuff into my leveled lists? Wrye Bash throws a couple errors saying I'm over the 255 mark.

Unfortunately when I removed one of the mods it said was contributing, it didn't do anything to reduce the count :\
 
L

lazygecko

Member
Man, I just can't deal with working FNIS into my mod setup. Seemingly always something weird that goes wrong. This time it seems that having FNIS active disables all the extra slider options in RaceMenu, for stuff like mouth width or bicep size. The sliders are all there but they simply don't respond to any changes.
 
L

lazygecko

Member
Just wasted the entire weekend configuring my Skyrim mod setup. Between Ordinator, MLU, Immersive Creatures, etc. The amount of inter-mod patching you have to handle thes days is completely insane. And of course I have to do some basic test play sessions for every few mods I have to make sure the game doesn't explode and not make troubleshooting an impossible task.

These are some of the cool newer mods I'm using right now:

Morrowloot Ultimate - Since I'm using Ordinator now which is a much more lightweigth gameplay overhaul (Unlike Requiem, SkyRe, PerMa, etc) that only focuses on perks, I figured this would be the best choice to complement it. Massively expands the scope of the original Morrowloot mod with regards to de-leveling/scaling and rare item placements. Using it together with PermaZones as specified in the description.

Skyrim Unbound - This is my prime choice for an alternate start mod now. I think Live Another Life ultimately got a bit too bloated and feature creepy (especially didn't like how it introduced worldspace edits by placing a farmhouse near Dragon Bridge). This one lets you configure how you want to start through a MCM menu, and also even skip the introductory main quest stuff like the Bleak Falls Barrow routine if you so wish.

Complete Alchemy and Cooking Overhaul - Aside from redesigning cooking and alchemy, it also adds something I've wanted for a long time in TES: the ability to craft and throw alchemical bombs/grenades with different effects.

The cassic Duel mod also got updated recently to v8. Using that in conjunction with Locational Damage.

Xtended Loot - Dynamically distributes more varied enchanted items to the world in a manner similar to other loot driven RPGs like Diablo.

Now on the graphics side I'm searching for a male face texture mod that doesn't completely turn them into fancy boy toys. No More Blocky Faces doesn't really seem any better than the standard Bethesda HD textures.
 
S

strafer

member
lazygecko said:
Just wasted the entire weekend configuring my Skyrim mod setup. Between Ordinator, MLU, Immersive Creatures, etc. The amount of inter-mod patching you have to handle thes days is completely insane. And of course I have to do some basic test play sessions for every few mods I have to make sure the game doesn't explode and not make troubleshooting an impossible task.

These are some of the cool newer mods I'm using right now:

Morrowloot Ultimate - Since I'm using Ordinator now which is a much more lightweigth gameplay overhaul (Unlike Requiem, SkyRe, PerMa, etc) that only focuses on perks, I figured this would be the best choice to complement it. Massively expands the scope of the original Morrowloot mod with regards to de-leveling/scaling and rare item placements. Using it together with PermaZones as specified in the description.

Skyrim Unbound - This is my prime choice for an alternate start mod now. I think Live Another Life ultimately got a bit too bloated and feature creepy (especially didn't like how it introduced worldspace edits by placing a farmhouse near Dragon Bridge). This one lets you configure how you want to start through a MCM menu, and also even skip the introductory main quest stuff like the Bleak Falls Barrow routine if you so wish.

Complete Alchemy and Cooking Overhaul - Aside from redesigning cooking and alchemy, it also adds something I've wanted for a long time in TES: the ability to craft and throw alchemical bombs/grenades with different effects.

The cassic Duel mod also got updated recently to v8. Using that in conjunction with Locational Damage.

Xtended Loot - Dynamically distributes more varied enchanted items to the world in a manner similar to other loot driven RPGs like Diablo.

Now on the graphics side I'm searching for a male face texture mod that doesn't completely turn them into fancy boy toys. No More Blocky Faces doesn't really seem any better than the standard Bethesda HD textures.
Click to expand...

I'm going to check out that Skyrim Unbound.

EDIT: Oh wow, you can actually turn off dragons. That's amazing. Finally I can roam the world in peace.
 
L

lazygecko

Member
After a ton of troubleshooting I discovered that my True Vision ENB preset was causing extreme framerate drops in certain exterior areas. I had tried disabling it by just ticking off UseEffect in the ingame menu at first which did nothing, so the nature of the problem eluded me for quite some time. I have no idea what kind of specific settings within the ENB preset caused such performance issues. I'm using Phinix Natural ENB right now which performs fine, but I really can't stand that vanilla color scheme it abides by.

So now I'm back to ENB hunting. I have already tried True Vision, RealVision, and NLA and I don't think any of them really suit me so far. I'd preferably want something that isn't overly reliant on complementary esp weather/lighting mods which causes compatibility problems with Climates of Tamriel and the likes.
 
T

Thorgal

Member
lazygecko said:
After a ton of troubleshooting I discovered that my True Vision ENB preset was causing extreme framerate drops in certain exterior areas. I had tried disabling it by just ticking off UseEffect in the ingame menu at first which did nothing, so the nature of the problem eluded me for quite some time. I have no idea what kind of specific settings within the ENB preset caused such performance issues. I'm using Phinix Natural ENB right now which performs fine, but I really can't stand that vanilla color scheme it abides by.

So now I'm back to ENB hunting. I have already tried True Vision, RealVision, and NLA and I don't think any of them really suit me so far. I'd preferably want something that isn't overly reliant on complementary esp weather/lighting mods which causes compatibility problems with Climates of Tamriel and the likes.
Click to expand...

have you tried Vividian ENB ?

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mod...page=1&sort=DESC&pid=0&thread_id=994414&pUp=1


it is compatible with anything and comes with an installer for inclusion in your mod list ..
 
L

lazygecko

Member
I went with Grim and Somber (Hircine) which also doesn't have any mod requirements. Overall it's pretty resource heavy, but at least I don't get those extreme dips any more like in True Vision. I get about 45fps in exteriors. Looks fantastic too, though I'm not sure I want to keep the letterbox.

enb2015_12_0923_18_44zros6.png
Click to expand...

I haven't actually installed any landscape textures yet (apart from the universal mountain/rock texture) and it looks pretty fine as it is. Maybe I'll just keep it that way. Now I'm going to give DynDOLOD another shot along with Enhanced Landscapes
 
L

lazygecko

Member
Somehow the release of this mod eluded me even though I know of MannyGT. The Notice Board leverages the radiant quest system to dynamically add lots of more mundane quests for you via notice boards placed in cities and towns. There's lots of little touches, like mercenary NPCs who can take on certain kill quests on their own, and you can join them if you want (much better than the awkward way the vanilla game hands you these radiant quests by taking jobs from wandering mercenaries). There are already additional patches out that integrate the system into other content mods like Falskaar or Wyrmstooth.

Anyway, I finally got DynDOLOD and everything set up correclty and I would say it was worth the trouble.

enb2015_12_1118_15_35pfo3v.png

enb2015_12_1118_15_02zborl.png

enb2015_12_1118_04_35e7owo.png
Click to expand...
 
B

Bornstellar

Member
lazygecko said:
Somehow the release of this mod eluded me even though I know of MannyGT. The Notice Board leverages the radiant quest system to dynamically add lots of more mundane quests for you via notice boards placed in cities and towns. There's lots of little touches, like mercenary NPCs who can take on certain kill quests on their own, and you can join them if you want (much better than the awkward way the vanilla game hands you these radiant quests by taking jobs from wandering mercenaries). There are already additional patches out that integrate the system into other content mods like Falskaar or Wyrmstooth.

Anyway, I finally got DynDOLOD and everything set up correclty and I would say it was worth the trouble.
Click to expand...
Mod list please?
 
Bolivar687

Bolivar687

Banned
I'm probably going to mod a fresh install tonight. Was probably going to go with STEP since I had some success with that before.

Are there any others that people recommend? Not looking to overhaul game play in any way.
 
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