1761

So Pogo, are your ENB settings mentioned above compatible with CoT, to your knowledge?

1762

Yes, CoT doesn’t come with any .dll injectors. There are CoT-specific ENB settings out there using the new ENBSeries that has “real” HDR lighting and Depth of Field effects using ENB 0.119, but whether or not you want those depends on how beefy your system is, as it will easily cut off 20 fps or more.

CoT comes with 4 “Vanilla Nights” levels as files. I believe level 4 is almost-default night brightness, while Level 1 is the darkest (and it’s pretty dark, I would throw in a brighter torches mod to compensate unless you plan to use night vision spells or abilities).

1763

Thanks for the reply. I just installed CoT and honestly am not seeing much in the way of darkening of the night, even with its default night setting (which to my reading is supposed to be the darkest one). Of course maybe where I tested it isn’t the best place-Riverwood with a glorious aurora going. Perhaps a .dll injector is in order or even required?

As to the beefiness of my system, it’s a bit over a year old and basically it’s an i5 2500k and an MSI GTX 560ti, which I think can handle quite a bit, Skyrim-wise. I’ve set vsync in the nvidia control panel to be adaptive.

EDIT: OK, I just fast-traveled to Ivarstead, and it’s a downpour and a thunderstorm to boot (very cool), and the night is satisfyingly dark. I even changed it to the slightly brighter “Vanilla nights 1” esp file. I installed the free version of FRAPS and I’m getting about 30 to 35 fps, so an ENB mod would probably be crippling. I’ll play with CoT active for a while and see how I like it.

1764

My Enhanced Shaders download is already a .dll injector, that term refers to any of the ENBSeries mods.

Note that injectors and overlay FPS programs (fraps) don’t tend to play nicely together. Disable in-game Steam interface as well.

Also, your first solution to any brightness is the in-game brightness setting.

1765

Thanks, Pogo, I remember that your download had a very convenient FPS counter, activated with the asterisk key on the number pad.

Does FRAPS itself impose an extra burden on the graphics engine (if so I can’t imagine it would be of much use as a benchmarking tool)? That FPS rate I mentioned is likely not affected by FRAPS itself much, right?

Not a bad idea, though, to disable the Steam interface in-game. Hadn’t thought of that. I also understand that running the game in a window (with something like the Simple Borderless Window mod) usually yields a higher framerate.

1766

I don’t think borderless window increases framerates, considering that windowed games keep the operating system’s video buffer in memory.

FRAPs’ fps counter doesn’t change framerates.

1767

From what I understand, the “windowed mode increases FPS” thing works on some PCs and can fix erratic performance, so it’s worthwhile to check out if you aren’t FPS capped or suffer from hitching. I expect it’s just some weird issue with Gamebryo on certain machines because this “tweak” dates back to FO3/NV and possibly earlier Bethesda games.

1768

What Pogo said about the in-game brightness setting. I’ve found that at least two of the ENB’s I’ve used have said “put your brightness setting five clicks from the far left for best results”, which is a pretty dark nighttime.

Also, I do play in a borderless window. I don’t know if it helps, but it can’t hurt. As Joe says, it seems to be a Gamebryo thing, because it definitely goes back a ways with Bethesda engine games.

1769

I wonder if I’ve borked my save somehow, namely because with RCRN I was getting a framerate in the high 40’s and with CoT I’m getting in the low 30’s, even with Adaptive Vsync enforced by the Nvidia control panel. BTW, @Pogo I tried your settings (without FRAPS running of course) with CoT and while it looked great, after about 10 minutes I got a CTD, which I don’t remember ever having experienced in Skyrim.

BTW, a question for someone who knows the ins and outs of the console and the Creation Kit and such: why would the reference ID of something in the game iterate? I’m using the UFO mod and ascertained in the console that the same follower horse that used to be 0b019686 is now 0c019868. Why might that happen?

1770

Because the ESP file changed location in your load order. The first few digits of the reference ID are based on load order position.

1771

I am ready to start another play though. My first was 80+ hours of a stealthy archer with some sword and board back up. Fun character but it was already a bit overpowered, even before I maxed smithing and enchanting.

This play through I want to go more of an all caster, I haven’t decided on armor or not.

My question is before I played Skyrim I had not played an Elder Scrolls game since Daggerfall. What I missed most was the ability to make custom spells. I vaguely remember creating spells from scratch, like my exploration spell, it was jump, waterbreathing and maybe levitation all in one spell.

Are there any mods that let you create custom spells like the old days?Lacking that, are there any mods that make using buff spells a little less painful that casting them over and over every 90 seconds. Does the popular SkyUI mod make it easier to juggle spells?

Any other advice on some good but balanced mods for a mage type character?

1772

@godhugh, thanks for the reply. That’s interesting. I wish I had time to delve into mod-making, but I think that’s a younger man’s game.

@Kristopher, I don’t know enough about magic in Skyrim to answer the question about custom spells (or mods that would allow it) but as far as an aid to “juggling,” yes, SkyUI is indispensable IMHO, as is Categorized Favorites.

1773

Question for those who’ve used Climates of Tamriel–is it normal to have sort of bright-looking grass in places like Dawnstar, or is that a bug? Check out the screenie: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=123101786

I already checked something that the author mentions on the mod’s front page on Nexus about the Tundra grass being too bright and what to check for (some file under \data extures\landscape) and it’s not that. I’m not using an ENB at all–seems kind of complicated what with having to grab the enb file itself off of some Russian guy’s site and then applying some settings file (also I find a lot of the screenies kind of exaggerated in terms of color saturation).

1774

I had the same exact thing and it really annoyed me. It was like someone was pointing a flashlight at the grass. Didn’t figure out a way to fix it.

1775

I’ve been using RCRN for a couple of weeks and decided I don’t like it. It’s too dark inside and I found the colours to be less attractive than in Pogo’s mod (which I was using before), so I’ve switched back.

1776

Doesn’t RCRN have several different schemes that you can activate, each of which changes colors, brightness, etc. to a different degree?

1777

Yeah there’s like three different ones. I ended up using the brightest one and it’s just right for me. I think the other two are way too dark also.

I think the brightest one nails the feel of dark caves and torchlit interiors without making me feel like I have cataracts.

1778

I was actually using the brightest one! I just appreciate Pogo’s mod more because it just makes the colours a bit more vivid than the slightly washed-out vanilla, and that’s all I want really.

1779

The heart wants what the heart wants. :)

1780

Yeah not everyone wants this whole “hyper-realism” thing going on with effects that only happen when you’re looking through a camera, and not the human eye.

I wonder if my settings would translate literally over to SweetFX, which has a higher quality anti-aliasing algorithm with SMAA instead of FXAA.