Best Skyrim Graphics Mods

By Lawrence Sonntag | 02 January 2013 | 17 Comments

Here are links to all of the resources and mods used in this video:

nVidia Skyrim Tweak Guide

Skyrim Nexus

Texture Pack Combiner by Cestral

ENB Series Mod for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

ENB Series Profiles:

Wintertide Fantasy ENB by WoodManGamer

Skyrim Enhanced Shaders FX by Tapioks

Superb ENB-RL by Superl3-sung9533 and Alakan

Sharpshooter’s Extreme Graphics Vision ENB by Sharpshooter8

The Wilds ENB by Lunanella

17 Comments

Posted by avery on 02 January 13 at 6:39pm

ummm, tits?
Posted by Lawrence Sonntag on 02 January 13 at 6:43pm

Yeah that’s a pretty rad youtube thumbnail huh.
Posted by duhflushtech on 02 January 13 at 8:27pm

Lawrence, I might have just missed it in the video, but what are your general PC specs (processor, ram, GPU) and how many FPS were you averaging with 45+ mods at once? It looks great, but is it playable?
- Posted by Lawrence Sonntag on 03 January 13 at 7:55am
  
  I should’ve put it in the video but I didn’t.
  
  I have an Intel i5 2500K / GeForce 660Ti.
  
  Surprisingly it is playable with all those mods installed, though the framerate takes a noticable hit. It’s easily above 60 without any mods, but with mods it’s in the high teens to the low 20s.
Posted by René Mathias Rojas on 03 January 13 at 12:30am

Did you just use one ENB profile or use them all sort of like the combined texture mod?
- Posted by Lawrence Sonntag on 03 January 13 at 7:56am
  
  You can really only use one at a time. Basically an ENB mod is a .dll file plus another config file with a ton of specs on how to tweak the lighting, depth of field, and other effects. You can only have one config file at a time.
  - Posted by René Mathias Rojas on 03 January 13 at 10:06am
    
    Ever encountered problems with using steamworkshop at the same time?
    - Posted by Lawrence Sonntag on 03 January 13 at 2:02pm
      
      I haven’t used Steam Workshop in Skyrim much… I got SkyUI through it but it needs the script extender anyawy so it wasn’t much help.
      
      I ended up just using the Nexus Mod Manager and directly moving files to and from the directory. I was a little paranoid about completely fucking my install, especially with the layers of mods I’d thrown on.
Posted by Mugenite on 03 January 13 at 12:48am

Why did I go for the console version?! Whhhyyyyy?! Watching 5:21 is just pure torment!!
- Posted by René Mathias Rojas on 03 January 13 at 7:23am
  
  That’ll teach you to always go PC. PC is always best (To a certain extent). If it’s a gamepad you want, just about any game can, if it’s not officially supported there are alternate ways to get it working too.
  
  Another thing to note. I got the console version too (PS3 so I get Bethesda’s awful coding) and I got it 4 days before release date. That was awesome, since it was so early there were no mods and it was before all of the lag bugs. I played the shit out of the game for over 300 hours over that christmas, it was awesome.
  Now that I have a gaming PC I’m gonna wait for the GOTY or Ultimate edition, whatever it takes to get everything in one. Don’t worry, they’ll come with a complete edition set soon.
Posted by Macky890 on 03 January 13 at 3:47pm

Although I appreciate that you are new to modding these type of game, I have to disagree with you saying that it takes hours of file placement. It is actually alot easier to mod Skyrim then you really think. On the nexus, if you get the mod manager, modding becomes as simple as pressing the download with manager button and pressing activate in the mod manager. The way you are modding it (manual install) is a great way to bug you’re game or even break it because they is a high chance that there will be incompatibilities between mods; with no easy way to uninstall them it can be a real pain to fix it. Although it may not make a difference to you, I hope other people who come across this page research a little into the NMM (nexus mod manager) to see how easy it is to mod and on how the correct way, or how i believe it should be done.
Posted by rylog on 03 January 13 at 6:59pm

I’ve always been able to find the time to manually install mods (and probably have 40+ running at the moment), and I’ve got SKSE down. But I’ve always been worried about messing with ENBs because I have a low-end (made in 2009) laptop. Even on low settings, I get the occasional frame rate drop from 60 to low teens. Would I be able to run ANY ENBs in the first place?
- Posted by TheRaptorFence on 14 January 13 at 9:26pm
  
  Skyrim ENBs rely heavily on your CPU. Most ENBs will shatter your hopes and dreams through and through, especially on a 2009 laptop. That being said, your best ENB for performance would be The Wilds. It’s not (IMO) as beautiful as Sharpshooters, but it will at least give you something to work off of.
  
  Another idea would be to install a Realistic Lighting mod. I haven’t tried this however, so I couldn’t tell you the hit you’d take performance-wise, but I’d assume it’d take at least a little heat off the CPU and move it to the graphics card.
Posted by René Mathias Rojas on 04 January 13 at 10:36am

Why’d you change the thumbnail?
Posted by L.R. (aka ScreamoLuvr) on 04 January 13 at 5:33pm

My measly 560 ti can’t quite handle 2k textures used in combination with the other mods I have. Also, you should probably make an annotation or something noting that simply activating ENBs will always cut your frame rate by 50%, that is the drawback of using them. You may also want to update the OP with some select mods from this article: http://kotaku.com/5903204/how-to-get-skyrim-looking-as-awesome-as-computationally-possible?utm_campaign=socialflow_kotaku_twitter&utm_source=kotaku_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow

Several notable mods are W.A.T.E.R., Vurt’s Skyrim Flora Overhaul, Lush grass, Lush trees, Project Reality – Climates of Tamriel (also a lighting mod), and Static Mesh Overhaul.
Posted by Zak on 17 February 13 at 9:25am

Is there anyway you could post/send me your Skyrim Realistic Overhaul files? They got taken down from the nexus because the author had a spit with the TPC guy.
Posted by General Usage on 25 February 13 at 5:31am

Take a look at this ENB. High spec rig required.
Enjoy :)