Skyrim Special Edition

[clok1966]

last night I hit my first Wraith (overlord?) drugur on this playthrough. Sorry if i have this spelled wrong.. He was killing a dragon, looked pretty one sided. As he killed it I stealth one shotted him (he was 2-5% health). I was surprised there where 2 more not active (in dragon fight). they both attacked and killed me with a shout and then both used ice spells, never even closed to melee range and dead with full health. This game is odd sometimes on rng. I reloaded (no where near where i should have saved) and killed dragon by myslef, then completely owned all 3 wraiths with almost no damage taken.. i was getting hit with shouts and frost consistently.. almost insta kill me then cant do any dmg at all. Also kinda of annoyed, playing an ORC and hit my first orc settlement (with lid in tow) no issues, i hit my next Orc settlement and they all agro.. had to kill um all, all i can think is the Human agroed um.. but I wasn't in attack and she didn't at first Orc settlement. Damn annoying, cant remember if there where quests there or not.

one thing i really find annoying and its a tiny thing.. WTH did they not fix the stairs in your house in Whiterun.. i still hang at top step every time i go up to the bed..

and still in awe of melee, level 21 and giants are cake..

 

[norseamd]

1GB update released this morning....

seems meh:



except for that first one. I guess this is the bulk of the 1gb, and is probably a package that mostly contains the long-standing Unofficial Skyrim Patch from Nexus?

No, its mostly putting back the original sound files from the original edition of Skyrim.

"uncompression"

 

[JujuFish]

In a word: Yes.

Go to the nexus, get mod manager, and start working from the most downloaded mods.

I wouldn't be asking here if I didn't want an opinion on the matter. Just because the mod exists, that doesn't make it good.

 

[norseamd]

I wouldn't be asking here if I didn't want an opinion on the matter. Just because the mod exists, that doesn't make it good.

What are you looking for?

 

[JujuFish]

What are you looking for?

Anything that adds interesting stuff to the game. Quests, new areas to explore, things like that.

Any graphical mods are acceptable, as well. And something other than the default consolized interface is a must.

 

[shortylickens]

Anyone else feel bad hitting up their spouse for the store profits?

Are you kidding me?

I would pimp that girl to a freaking orc tribe for ONE GOD DAMN SEPTIM!

 

[Chaotic42]

Are you kidding me?

I would pimp that girl to a freaking orc tribe for ONE GOD DAMN SEPTIM!

Hah. I just feel bad. It's not a real person, but it still just feels wrong.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

I wouldn't be asking here if I didn't want an opinion on the matter. Just because the mod exists, that doesn't make it good.

You asked if there were any good mods, the answer to that is yes.

I even provided some additional information in advising you to start with the most downloaded, which for the most part are the best mods atm. The numbers are skewed a bit towards mods that released first, but it's a good start. Go check them out.

 

[Stg-Flame]

So what's the general consensus on which version is currently better (stable)? Original or SE? Last I checked, a good portion of the popular mods aren't compatible with the SE yet and I've also read about a lot of the old bugs made their way into the SE.

I only played about 20 hours after owning the game since launch and oddly enough, I've put well over 5,000 hours into Oblivion and too many hours to count into Morrowind - I just couldn't get into Skyrim as it felt too much like a console port (wonder why) and everything was pretty bland. Been looking to pick up the SE and mod the holy hell out of it.

 

[Chaotic42]

I've only ever had one crash on the Special Edition. It's picky about alt-tabbing, but only one crash.

 

[Zenoth]

So what's the general consensus on which version is currently better (stable)? Original or SE? Last I checked, a good portion of the popular mods aren't compatible with the SE yet and I've also read about a lot of the old bugs made their way into the SE.

I only played about 20 hours after owning the game since launch and oddly enough, I've put well over 5,000 hours into Oblivion and too many hours to count into Morrowind - I just couldn't get into Skyrim as it felt too much like a console port (wonder why) and everything was pretty bland. Been looking to pick up the SE and mod the holy hell out of it.

About the first subject, the Special Edition is much more stable than the original. However, the original can become stable with SKSE memory-related tweaks, as well as using ENB Series' own stability fixes without having to activate the graphics changes (but just using SKSE memory fixes should do the trick just fine). But right out of the gate as it is Special Edition doesn't need tweaking, it's stable due to the engine, it's more up to date and it's 64-bit (it's basically Fallout 4's engine).

On the second subject of mods (for the Special Edition). There's a good number of mods already being ported / adapted for the SE. Some of which were the most important are already available, such as the Unofficial Skyrim Patch (which in my book is absolutely essential) and SMIM (Static Mesh Improvement Mod), which increases the polygonal count of a large number of meshes in the game, and Immersive Armors (just to name those three). And many more. Now of course the original Skyrim has hundreds upon hundreds of mods for it, because it's five years-old. Give some time for the Special Edition, perhaps a full year for the mod authors out there to port their mods themselves. Although there's available techniques already out for users to port the mods they want by themselves but it's obviously time consuming. But as of right now there's a good number of mods already for SE. Just check the Special Edition-specific section of Skyrim Nexus and you'll see.

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

I've only ever had one crash on the Special Edition. It's picky about alt-tabbing, but only one crash.

Open the Console (default key should be Tidle) and leave it open to have a more stable Alt-Tabbing (I.E., if you want to Alt-Tab out of the game, just open the console, then Alt-Tab, and Tab back in and close the console if of course doing that allowed you to Alt-Tab out without freezing the game to start with). It helps a lot for the original Skyrim (not sure if it applies for the SE). Another "trick" which happens to help a lot with Alt-Tabbing is to use ENB Series (you can just disable the graphics tweaks) and force borderless mode from the ENBLocal.ini file, under the [Window] section, with ForceBorderless=true and ForceBorderlessFullscreen=true. It should still run the game full screen but should help stabilize Alt-Tabbing. You can also combine both tricks at the same time, which is what I do and it works just great.

 

[futurefields]

I started playing Skyrim today.

After I got out of Helgen's Keep, and into the main world, I went back up to Helgen (the town destroyed by the dragon in the beginning)...

And there were two people alive who were supposed to have been killed by the dragon. One lady and one guy. The guy gives me a direction to go learn magic in a town. The lady just does a standard "what do you want?" kind of greeting. When I looked them up on the Skyrim wiki it says both were supposed to be killed by the dragon.

What do you guys think, is normal?

 

[Zenoth]

I started playing Skyrim today.

After I got out of Helgen's Keep, and into the main world, I went back up to Helgen (the town destroyed by the dragon in the beginning)...

And there were two people alive who were supposed to have been killed by the dragon. One lady and one guy. The guy gives me a direction to go learn magic in a town. The lady just does a standard "what do you want?" kind of greeting. When I looked them up on the Skyrim wiki it says both were supposed to be killed by the dragon.

What do you guys think, is normal?

Those NPCs are probably Vlod and Matlara.

They're indeed supposed to be death after the initial Helgen quest. It's a known bug in the vanilla game.

But that bug was fixed in the Unofficial Patch quite a long time ago. Give a try to the Unofficial Patch, since it's available for the Special Edition. Do note that it is technically 'safe' to install the Unofficial Patch at any moment in your playthrough, since most changes do not require a new game to take effect. However, some changes do require a new game, but the bug concerning those two NPCs in Helgen I believe should be fixed without having to start a new game. If, however, you do install the patch and those NPCs are still present, then go somewhere else (leave Helgen and the general area), and either Wait or Sleep for about 4 in-game days to let the Cells reset (respawns, etc). Then go back to Helgen and check if they're gone. If they're still there then I'm afraid it's one of those changes that did require a new game to be applied (but I doubt it).

 

[futurefields]

I was gonna do a vanilla run for my first playthrough. Kind of lame but I want the achievements lol. First time Skyrim player.

 

[Zenoth]

I was gonna do a vanilla run for my first playthrough. Kind of lame but I want the achievements lol. First time Skyrim player.

It would still be technically vanilla with the Unofficial Patch. The patch fixes bugs / glitches (and more) but isn't a typical 'mod' in and of itself like the others that add or replace textures, quests, NPCs, sounds or other things to the game, etc. In my opinion, the Unofficial Patch is essential for both the original Skyrim and the Special Edition. I wouldn't touch Skyrim anymore without it.

Just have a look at the changelog.

It represents 4+ years of bugs fixing from community reports and other modders' investigations (for bugs, especially as they mod the game). The sheer number of various things that got fixed from minor to major fixes is absolutely staggering.

 

[zinfamous]

I was gonna do a vanilla run for my first playthrough. Kind of lame but I want the achievements lol. First time Skyrim player.

The bug fixes in the patch are essential though, they don't modify anything, just drastically prevent your game from breaking midway through.

You should also strongly consider, when they become available, necessary fixes like SkyUI for the SE. the vanilla UI is pure a pure garbage console port, no sorting, 40% of screen space devoted to some meaningless image of the broom that you just picked up.

 

[Qbah]

I was gonna do a vanilla run for my first playthrough. Kind of lame but I want the achievements lol. First time Skyrim player.

Use the achievement enabler from Nexus. That's what I did - it works great (I've received several achievements already after using it). I had to use the block slow-mode fix "mod", I couldn't play the game anymore - it was messing up EACH TIME I was blocking a power attack - was keeping me stuck in slow-mode after each trigger.

DLL Loader first: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/3619/?
Achievements enabler second: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/245/?

 

[norseamd]

I started playing Skyrim today.

After I got out of Helgen's Keep, and into the main world, I went back up to Helgen (the town destroyed by the dragon in the beginning)...

And there were two people alive who were supposed to have been killed by the dragon. One lady and one guy. The guy gives me a direction to go learn magic in a town. The lady just does a standard "what do you want?" kind of greeting. When I looked them up on the Skyrim wiki it says both were supposed to be killed by the dragon.

What do you guys think, is normal?

I was gonna do a vanilla run for my first playthrough. Kind of lame but I want the achievements lol. First time Skyrim player.

The Unofficial Patch doesnt add any content, it only fixes bugs.

And The Cutting Room Floor doesnt add any custom content either, it only adds back content that was already made by Bethesda for the game, and is still in the game files, like various minor quests and small ends that were never finished completely up before the 11/11/11 launch of the original Skyrim.

 

[RockinZ28]

Running stable for me now. Unfortunately that meant disabling SLI completely, trying to use methods to enable it results in crashes every 5-10min, and some weird shadows/lighting that bothered the heck out of me. Now my frames are dropping into the 30s in a lot of outdoor areas, where I could maintain 70+ with SLI. Game certainly looks dated for the power required for 60+ fps. Am running some mods, but older games that look far far better get higher fps than this.

 

[PlanetJosh]

Hoping for a mod to reduce the texture seams between different ground covers. For example the angular lines between snow and rock doesn't look natural when the transition is supposed to be smooth looking. I know that it may be asking to much. Those angular transitions may be too much to overcome in a mod.

I realize some transitions between the snow and rock are abrupt in real life nature but I'm not addressing those right now. Newer games like Witcher 3 handles the smooth transitions on the ground better. Don't know if mods can simulate that in Skyim.

 

[norseamd]

Running stable for me now. Unfortunately that meant disabling SLI completely, trying to use methods to enable it results in crashes every 5-10min, and some weird shadows/lighting that bothered the heck out of me. Now my frames are dropping into the 30s in a lot of outdoor areas, where I could maintain 70+ with SLI. Game certainly looks dated for the power required for 60+ fps. Am running some mods, but older games that look far far better get higher fps than this.

Its basically an older engine with upscaled versions of older textures, with a few high tech effects added on, so there is disparity between half of what is still around, and the other half of new effects that were ported over from Fallout 4, which I doubt is fully hi tech itself.

What GPUs are you using?

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

What GPUs are you using?

I assume the 970's in his sig. I use a 970 @1440p, and for the most part it stays at 60fps (or a smidge lower). There's some spots that absolutely crush that card though (on the way up to the throat is a perfect example, seems to be caused by the wind effects), and VRAM constraints are very noticeable once modded.

 

[RockinZ28]

Its basically an older engine with upscaled versions of older textures, with a few high tech effects added on, so there is disparity between half of what is still around, and the other half of new effects that were ported over from Fallout 4, which I doubt is fully hi tech itself.

What GPUs are you using?

I assume the 970's in his sig. I use a 970 @1440p, and for the most part it stays at 60fps (or a smidge lower). There's some spots that absolutely crush that card though (on the way up to the throat is a perfect example, seems to be caused by the wind effects), and VRAM constraints are very noticeable once modded.

Yea oc'd 970@1440p, running ultra with FXAA, no .ini tweaks. Inside any dungeon is great, 80+fps. Outside it varies from 70s down to 30s, depending what area and what you're looking at. Do have texture mods, but vram seems to stay below 3GB.

Will look into this when I get home:

Fix unusually poor performance on G-Sync-capable systems: Open Documents\My Games\Skyrim Special Edition\SkyrimPrefs.ini and set iVsyncpresentinterval to 0.

 

[norseamd]

Yea oc'd 970@1440p, running ultra with FXAA, no .ini tweaks. Inside any dungeon is great, 80+fps. Outside it varies from 70s down to 30s, depending what area and what you're looking at. Do have texture mods, but vram seems to stay below 3GB.

Will look into this when I get home:

Fix unusually poor performance on G-Sync-capable systems: Open Documents\My Games\Skyrim Special Edition\SkyrimPrefs.ini and set iVsyncpresentinterval to 0.

With just some basic modding of the SSE, and already downgraded from a mix of 4k and 2k textures to just only 2k textures, I was already at 4 GB VRAM usage. With the mix of 4k and 2k textures, I was using about 5.5 GB VRAM or more. You probably dont have enough VRAM for modding SSE, considering you only have 3.5 GB VRAM. Vanilla SSE uses about 2 GB VRAM maxed out I believe.

 

[RockinZ28]

With just some basic modding of the SSE, and already downgraded from a mix of 4k and 2k textures to just only 2k textures, I was already at 4 GB VRAM usage. With the mix of 4k and 2k textures, I was using about 5.5 GB VRAM or more. You probably dont have enough VRAM for modding SSE, considering you only have 3.5 GB VRAM. Vanilla SSE uses about 2 GB VRAM maxed out I believe.

I'll look at it more closely, but the times I have it was only ~2.5gb vram reported usage. And usually with vram issues, I'll experience massive stutters and rapid fps drop when panning, but it returns to a higher stable fps when you're still. I can look straight at a wall outside and still have a constant 50fps or less depending on the area. And with SLI vram is the same, so I'd expect low fps if vram were the issue, but with SLI my fps are awesome. Just game is completely unstable.