General Skyrim thread

[gore goroth]

Supposedly beth made a texture pack for it too but mods are probably better anyway.

[HeartofShadows]

(06-01-2012 07:08 AM)gore goroth Wrote:  Supposedly beth made a texture pack for it too but mods are probably better anyway.

The texture slows the game down and the textures are unoptimized as shit. The fan made texture packs are better.

[Devinoextra]

(11-11-2011 04:14 PM)Faby Wrote:  Moar.

Hidden stuff:

game cheats

Skyrim is an awesome game... sooo muchto explore... you can play this game for ever... almost like an MMORPG, EXCEPT there is almost no grind

[Ky]

I'm necroing you this to bring you the adventures of a four-year-old videogame.

Because, honestly, 2015 is the best year to mod Skyrim so far. I've got more than 200 mods that add content and make the game look prettier - though, admittedly, my VRAM is too low for the full 2k/4k/8k gauntlet of texture mods hosted on the Nexus.

Behold, the adventures of my test character, Oster the First. Or TestOsterOne for short.

Lots of Screenshots Here (Click to View)

A lovely morning in Whiterun.

Two things I'd like to mention:
1. The sunglare effect isn't half bad, especially since I'm not using an ENB.
2. The walls have a fair amount of moss now, like Bethesda intended them to. This fix came not from USKP, not from the Hi Res DLC, and not even from SMIM - nope, it's from a lesser-known mod released earlier this month.


Heading to Ivarstead - by carriage, of course, because I have a mod that disables standard fast travel and adds more methods of transport. You can see my quest objective atop the mountain, hiding behind some clouds.


This is a long walk - these must be the Seven Thousand Steps. Well, at least it's not raining.

...I had to open my big mouth.


Fuck you, Thorin Oakenshield. This is what REAL misty mountains look like.


Made it, and I finally unlocked the second word in Unrelenting Force.

Sheesh, I've been playing this game for thousands of hours now on three different consoles, yet this is probably only the fifth or sixth time I've done this part.


Is that guy glowing?

I gotta lay off the Skooma.


Now there's a ghost in front of me. I'm high as fuck.


This would look more awesome if not for those obviously-2D bushes.


I don't know which part of this picture I like staring at more. Even the clouds look good.


Here we have Realistic Water Two and Climates of Tamriel working in tandem.

The river looks okay, I guess, but I'm thinking of replacing those two mods with Purity. It might look better that way.


Back to Whiterun in time for the sunset. Not sure whether to be bothered by the jaggedness of the mountains or not.


My character, performing as a bard in the Bannered Mare (which now looks like a Scottish steakhouse).

Have I mentioned I love mods?


If it's a lady you're looking for, you'd best look elsewhere. Once the new bard gets them, they're got.

Eat your heart out, Mikael, you milk drinker.


And it was at this point that I realized I haven't even utilized the features of half of the mods I have installed.

After I did all of that, I went outside and killed a cardinal added by a bird mod. Then the entire city guard started attacking me for no reason, and wouldn't let me yield even though I had no bounty.

I reloaded my last save and the game crashed. That's Skyrim for ya!

[Sociopath]

(05-30-2015 01:34 PM)DoA Wrote:  I'm necroing you this to bring you the adventures of a four-year-old videogame.

Because, honestly, 2015 is the best year to mod Skyrim so far. I've got more than 200 mods that add content and make the game look prettier - though, admittedly, my VRAM is too low for the full 2k/4k/8k gauntlet of texture mods hosted on the Nexus.

Behold, the adventures of my test character, Oster the First. Or TestOsterOne for short.

Lots of Screenshots Here (Click to View)

A lovely morning in Whiterun.

Two things I'd like to mention:
1. The sunglare effect isn't half bad, especially since I'm not using an ENB.
2. The walls have a fair amount of moss now, like Bethesda intended them to. This fix came not from USKP, not from the Hi Res DLC, and not even from SMIM - nope, it's from a lesser-known mod released earlier this month.


Heading to Ivarstead - by carriage, of course, because I have a mod that disables standard fast travel and adds more methods of transport. You can see my quest objective atop the mountain, hiding behind some clouds.


This is a long walk - these must be the Seven Thousand Steps. Well, at least it's not raining.

...I had to open my big mouth.


Fuck you, Thorin Oakenshield. This is what REAL misty mountains look like.


Made it, and I finally unlocked the second word in Unrelenting Force.

Sheesh, I've been playing this game for thousands of hours now on three different consoles, yet this is probably only the fifth or sixth time I've done this part.


Is that guy glowing?

I gotta lay off the Skooma.


Now there's a ghost in front of me. I'm high as fuck.


This would look more awesome if not for those obviously-2D bushes.


I don't know which part of this picture I like staring at more. Even the clouds look good.


Here we have Realistic Water Two and Climates of Tamriel working in tandem.

The river looks okay, I guess, but I'm thinking of replacing those two mods with Purity. It might look better that way.


Back to Whiterun in time for the sunset. Not sure whether to be bothered by the jaggedness of the mountains or not.


My character, performing as a bard in the Bannered Mare (which now looks like a Scottish steakhouse).

Have I mentioned I love mods?


If it's a lady you're looking for, you'd best look elsewhere. Once the new bard gets them, they're got.

Eat your heart out, Mikael, you milk drinker.


And it was at this point that I realized I haven't even utilized the features of half of the mods I have installed.

After I did all of that, I went outside and killed a cardinal added by a bird mod. Then the entire city guard started attacking me for no reason, and wouldn't let me yield even though I had no bounty.

I reloaded my last save and the game crashed. That's Skyrim for ya!

You have steam or are you some console pleb?

[Ky]

Both - I've put the most hours into the PS3 version, but I have Steam, and am spending most of my time on the PC version these days.

(Though I've probably spent more time in Mod Organizer and on the Skyrim Nexus than I have actually playing the game )

[Ky]

Sadly, Oster the First perished during the cataclysmic destruction and recreation of the province of Skyrim.

But hey, I've gotten back to modding, and what do you know: The full version of Skyrim Flora Overhaul? The latest version of Purity? A bunch of mods that enhance vanilla content without adding too many entirely new things? All at 1080p 60fps? You know what that means!

MORE SCREENSHOTS!

The Adventures of Bob, Part 1 (Click to View)

Skipping the boring details of character creation (or even what Bob looks like, come to think of it), we're going straight to where the Skyrim Unbound mod dropped us: A nice little camp right next door to Riverwood.



I stared at that bucket for a good five minutes. Now, you have the chance to do the same.



Wait, I'm lost - which way is Riverwood? If only there were a hi-res sign around here that could tell me.

Ah, well, time to look around.



Riverwood's agreeable enough, I suppose - for an unmodded village.



Textures and flora notwithstanding, of course.



Wait, I take that back - there's a smelter in the background. That's not vanilla.



"Stop! You violated the 'no new things' rule! Pay the court a fine or ser..."

Oh, fuck off - you're not even carrying a torch.



Ah, the general store. Sounds like an excellent place to commit larceny... that'll show that dumb guard.



Uhhh the owner's looking at me shitshitshitshitabortmission



Gee, bravely running away sure puts me in the mood for a drink! I think I'll go to the inn and sit for a spell.



Ohhh sweet vanilla this inn is so basic.

I LOVE IT!



And I thought Lucan Valerius had a mean stare. You know what, on second thought, I think I'll sit down rather than buying a drink...



That was a good sit.

...Oh, like you haven't had a good sit.

Time to head outside. Hey, I hear pitter-pattering on the roof... I sure hope it isn't...



Raining. *sigh*

Well, I'm tired of camping out in an alehouse. Next stop: Whiterun!



On the bright side, I don't have Wet & Cold installed, so I'm technically still totally dry.



I seem to have lost my way again. If only some boards attached to a large wooden post could direct me towards Whiterun.

Oh well, I guess I'm just going to have to take a wild guess.

...Shit. Wolves.



Get set on fire even though it's raining, because fuck you in every possible way!

...Ahh, I love the woodland creatures.



THAT'S not vanilla.

Looks cool as hell though.



"The Legion's always looking for strong, capable warriors."

Yeah? Well, I'll have you know I am a strong, capable, independent warrior, and I don't need no Empire!

You get to live, though.

For today.



Fuck me sideways with a pogo stick, it turns out I am really bad at directions. If only there were something around here that could help me with that.

...Oh, wait, Whiterun's on that big hill over there to the left.



THAT'S not vanilla.

"I-i-important deliveries to make, no time for chatting!"

Really?

"Nah, man, I'm on my break. Just putting the finishing touches on my hou-"

THAT'S NOT VANILLA



Ah, the Honningbrew Meadery, home of delicious and usually-not-poisonous mead.

Too bad I'm not an alcoholic.



Hey, quit standing around your kill, you noobs!

"Well, that's taken care of. No thanks to you."

Uhh, I think you guys handled that well enough on your own. Seriously, you, like, killed the giant before I even saw it, so it must have a seriously low level. You probably didn't need me to killsteal.

"Certainly not. But a true warrior would have relish-"

Rightrightright why don't you take your little clan and grind on something else?



I'm lost.

No, this running gag is not getting old.



Two people having a scripted conversation, the first time I pass by a landmark, without any issues? Now I KNOW that's not vanilla.

Cutting Room Floor is an awesome mod, though.



That doesn't look like Varrock or Redcliffe... but it does look a little bit like Edoras.



Welcome to Whiterun, bitches.

(Guard in epic standing pose not always included.)



You guys can relax now, I've arrived.



Ah, what a nice... is it starting to rain harder?



Yep, it is. I've got to get out of this weather, even though I don't have Frostfall installed.



Funny, I don't remember installing Supreme Storms! (And I didn't - otherwise this would be much worse.)



Sheesh, random guard, how can you stand this weather?

"I used to be an adventurer like you... then I took an arrow to the knee. The other guards initiated me, dressed me in this armor, and propped me up, and I've been standing here ever since."

*yawn* Oh, I'm sorry, I tuned you out after you went through your stock expression. I'm going to go find some shelter now.

"Please send help, I think I'm almost out of blood..."

I can't hear you over the sound of the rain.



Now is not the time for shopping, ladies.

I better duck inside the... the Bannered Mare. Great, another inn.



And in this episode, we meet Mikael, the bard who doesn't shut up.

Actually, he does, but I have to keep walking over to him and asking him to take a break from his terrible singing.

"If it's a lady you're looking for, you'd best look elsewher-"

What, this is a gay bar?



Does every shopkeeper have that death glare?

Oh, goddammit, I should probably talk to her...

Urgh... HIONEROOMPLEASE!



Thank Talos that's over with.

Pretty swanky bed.



And my view from this nice seat here concludes Part 1.

[SoulRiser]

Oooh, I must acquire more prettiness-mods. Some of yours are better than mine.

Where you find the 8k textures? I've only found up to 4k so far... not that they're inadequate or anything... but... eh why not.

[Ky]

I have 8k textures? :0

I doubt that I have any more than five mods or so that even have 4k textures (most of my replacers are 1k, 2k, or 2k with 1k normals)... and, to be perfectly honest, resolutions above 2k are a complete waste of time (and VRAM) unless they're applied to enormous objects (like dragons). I actually have a couple mods installed that reduce the resolutions of a few large textures (while simultaneously making them almost equally detailed with better saturation).

So my game might look pretty great, but what's important is that it runs smoothly, doesn't crash often, and doesn't suffer the missing textures problem (which happens when you use too much VRAM).

There is one small problem, though... I have the flickering mountains/water bug, and none of my mods in particular are causing it. (Luckily, it only affects very distant mountains and bodies of water, but it's still annoying to look at.)

[Ky]

The Adventures of Bob, Part 2 (Click to View)

Previously on The Adventures of Bob...

"I'm lost." "That's not vanilla." "That was a good sit." *DEATH GLARE*

If this collection of pictures had a title theme, it would go right here. On with the show!



Meet the hero, currently in the middle of having a sit.



That was a constructive use of my time - totally worth spending a few hours sitting down rather than buying armor or anything.

Now to drunkenly tell that milk-drinker Mikael what I think of him... that is, if I'd had anything to drink. (Which, unfortunately, I was not in the mood for.)



I'm threatening to cleave this bard's head off and... I think he's looking at my junk.

...Well, he's certainly perfected flattery to an art, so with that, I refrain from killing him.

(Not pictured: Me refraining from killing the Battle-Borns and Grey-Manes as I step outside to find them arguing.)



Ah, the Wind District. Nothing could ruin this perfect, albeit rainy view.

(Not pictured: Me refraining from killing Heimskr for being annoying.)



Wow, with the clouds in the sky, Dragonsreach looks downright ominous.

Won't stop me from paying the Jarl a visit.



Well, isn't that a nice vi- WAIT, I SEE UNDERWATER GRASS.

I thought I had a mod that removed it... I guess my collection of Ruffled Feather mods must have added it back. Well, at least my FPS isn't slowing to a crawl.



Lydia's here already!

Oh, that's right - since I have Skyrim Unbound and Not So Fast Main Quest installed together, the game thinks I've already slain the first dragon.

Which means... *checks magic menu* that I can use the first word in Unrelenting Force already. FUS you, bandits!



Sup, king-y dude. I see you're still Jarl Ballin'.

"And don't you forget it."

*whistles* Nice crown.



Pictured: Me resisting the urge to steal the court wizard's st00f.



Hey, Lydia, let's get going. I'm on a quest to go find armor the hard way - by shaking a bandit down for it.

"I am sworn to carry your burdens."

I didn't even ask you to carry anything, you pack mule.



You know, in this weather, I'd call this the city of Blackrun.

"*groan*"

Shut your whore mouth, Lydia, that joke was genius!



I think I'm going to leave off right here, before I reuse too many of the running gags I established in Part 1.

Bob out. Peace, noobs.

[SoulRiser]

Quote:Because, honestly, 2015 is the best year to mod Skyrim so far. I've got more than 200 mods that add content and make the game look prettier - though, admittedly, my VRAM is too low for the full 2k/4k/8k gauntlet of texture mods hosted on the Nexus.

You said 8k... so I figured you might know where to find them

I ask this because I might get a GTX 980ti soon, and want to see if I can actually make Skyrim use all 6GB of VRAM.

I had a flickering textures thing in Oblivion way back, and it was caused by setting negative texture LOD in the drivers. Not sure if relevant in Skyrim...

[Ky]

(07-11-2015 12:12 PM)SoulRiser Wrote:  

Quote:Because, honestly, 2015 is the best year to mod Skyrim so far. I've got more than 200 mods that add content and make the game look prettier - though, admittedly, my VRAM is too low for the full 2k/4k/8k gauntlet of texture mods hosted on the Nexus.

You said 8k... so I figured you might know where to find them

I ask this because I might get a GTX 980ti soon, and want to see if I can actually make Skyrim use all 6GB of VRAM.

I had a flickering textures thing in Oblivion way back, and it was caused by setting negative texture LOD in the drivers. Not sure if relevant in Skyrim...

There are very few mods with 8k textures, but I could have sworn I saw that there was one dragon retexture mod with an 8k option.

The thing about flickering textures - or z-fighting, as they seem to call it - is that it doesn't appear to be any one setting or mod in particular that causes the game to load textures on top of other textures (which is only usually a problem with mountain and water LODs), and some fixes cause other graphical issues. Actually, what happens - and how to fix it - varies widely depending on what computer you're using.

[Ky]

Took me about two days, but I finally installed all of the Skyrim Revisited - Legendary Edition mods according to its exact specifications.

And, um, wow. The game looks downright amazing.

Granted, it runs so slowly that combat is almost impossible, and those needs mods aren't making matters any easier, but... check it out:

The Slow, Annoying, but Beautiful Adventures of Test Character (Click to View)

Oh, come on. I've installed a lot of these mods before. It can't look all that dif-



...HOLY SMOKES, WHAT GAME AM I PLAYING?!?

You know what, it's still Skyrim. I'll adapt.



Yeah. I'm a hunter. Because Frostfall. Why not?



Hey, they were right. The thickets don't look that bad when you've got an ENB installed.

They're eating away at my FPS, though, but hey.

Time to embark on a glorious quest...



Pictured: The hero of our story.

Not pictured: The fact that you can only see the hero of our story at about twenty frames per second... or fewer.



Common sense. Magic. Same damn thing.



Hey, something that's not slow as molasses.

Skyrim: Book Simulator 2015.



I've officially confirmed that you can't sleep away the slow processing speed.

Enough horsing around. To Helgen!



Nothing like looting and rioting after a dragon's been by.



Wait, the dragon beat me to it. That's right. Drat.



More reading!



They don't keep their keep very well lit, do they?

Oh well. At least the darkness should make it easier for me to sneak, which should mitigate the game's total slowness in terms of combat.



Stare down with the downstairs.



Three rooms later, it occurs to me that I haven't fought anyone yet. Where is everybody?



Hello? Isn't someone going to stop me from looting?

Hey, I found a torch!



Hey, I found a dead end!

Dammit. Now I have to retrace my steps, exit the keep, leave Helgen, and find the cave entrance.



Alas, poor Yorick. I didn't know him at all.



This would look great if not for the zillion-and-one objects in my HUD.

Found the cave, found those two guys you can escape the cave with, found more loot, fo-

SPIDERS!



That takes care of that.

Ooh, potions! I'll just grab those a-

SPIDERS!



How am I not burning my face on that torch?

Whatever. I'll heal Hadvar - whose dialogue isn't even voiced until he starts following me - and get out of here.



Well, at least I don't have to wander around in the dark anymore.



Hey, don't walk away when I'm talking to you!

Wait... is it getting dark? I had to open my mouth.



Pit stop!

What? A dude's got to eat.

Stupid needs mods...



You chose... wisely.



Gee, thanks, Hadvar. Couldn't tell.

I think I got Rockjoint from that wolf back there...



You know what they say about blacksmiths...

They make stuff out of metal.

Brutal.



Pictured: A lovely house.

Not pictured: Me robbing it blind.



How cute.

And trusting.



I think I'll sleep off my unquenchable bloodlust and see if I can continue this adventure next time!

And there you have it.

[SoulRiser]

Curse youuuu! Your recent post is single-handedly responsible for me spending TWO DAYS browsing and downloading Skyrim mods, along with all of, I dunno, maybe an hour actually playing the game.

[brainiac3397]

Nom nom nom skyrim mods

[Ky]

The depth of field effect is Way. Too. Strong.

I know I can control it in the ENB settings somehow, because that's where it comes from... but I don't know how to turn it off.

[SoulRiser]

Aaand I screwed up my Skyrim somehow. lol. At least I made backups.

Turns out Mod Organizer doesn't quite entirely seperate profiles and mods from messing with each other... or I did something wrong.

At least I got profile #2's mod collection to work. Sigh.

[Ky]

Yeah, the profiles are not completely self-contained - they only control which mods are loaded and, I think, a handful of other things...

If you tinker with it enough, you should be able to fix it (unless you didn't configure it correctly in the first place), but it's kind of annoying how it doesn't do a good enough job of saving different profiles right down to which .bsas need to be loaded in which order and such.