New to Mods and overwhelmed.

Post » Sat Nov 08, 2014 11:54 am

Hey guys. I've been playing Skyrim for some time now, but I just made the move over from Xbox 360 to PC (latest patch). I've been poking about for a while at all of the mods out there, but there are so many. For the time being, I'm just wanted to get acquainted and stick to the mods that improve the game in doing what it sets out to do, nothing that involves any structural or mechanical change to the world itself. So what do you guys suggest?

So far I'm thinking:

Unofficial Skyrim Patch

SkyUI

Skyrim HD (Lite)

Enhanced Blood Textures

SMIM

WATER

Enhanced Lighting and Effects

Also, I'm running it on my laptop with the following specifications. I'm also concerned mods might overencumber it. I have to run it on low quality. It looks good, but any recommendations for increasing performance are also welcome.

Intel? Core? i5 3210M Processor @ 2.50 GHz

Integrated Intel? HD Graphics 4000

DDR3 1600 MHz SDRAM, 8GB

SSD

Windows 8.1 64-bit

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maddison
 
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Post » Sat Nov 08, 2014 7:11 am

All excellent mods, and I've run MANY more mods than that, successfully, on a lesser setup (a Q9450).

If you want some help with your mod selections, a great starting point is STEP (http://wiki.step-project.com/). Most of what you've picked is recommended by STEP, so that's good.

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Courtney Foren
 
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Post » Sat Nov 08, 2014 6:10 pm

If you already have to run on low settings, 2K textures may bring the Intel graphics to a halt. You can use a Skyrim performance monitor to see how your system can handle it.

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Nuno Castro
 
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Post » Sat Nov 08, 2014 5:50 pm

@snarfies:

Wow, they suggest a lot of mods. Looks like this is going to be an even bigger endeavor that I thought. Thanks for the resource.

@ Ash (AJ)

Good to know. Thanks for the tip. I imagine a lot of these are going to be more graphically intensive. I don't mind the load times since the SSD takes care of those quickly, but anything that's going to affect frame rate is probably a bad idea for now.

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jessica Villacis
 
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Post » Sat Nov 08, 2014 3:31 pm

Well, there are some great armor mods out there. Immersive armor and http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/31229/? (medusa/drakul armor)

I feel almost obligated to point out Skyre will be out in 4 days. It does radically overhaul the game though. Alters perk trees/spells/armor.

There is wintermyst, it adds more enchantments then you can shake a stick at. None of them are unbalanced, and add more choices to the game.

Expanded town and cities mod. Does what the name suggests and enlarges really improves the cities/villages.

Deadly dragons - Has a menu where you can tweak how random dragon encounters are, and how many dragons come at you. If your playing a mainly vanilla game, you likely have laughed off dragon attacks.

Amidianborn book of silence - Weapon pack mod.

Alternate start live another life - Skip that horrible 15min opening sequence, and pick how you want to start the game. Want to start off as a vampire in an underground lair? It has dozens of possible starts.

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Ashley Tamen
 
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Post » Sat Nov 08, 2014 4:19 am

I can also vouch for STEP. I was in a similar position to you a few months back - just the amount of fixes available is overwhelming, let alone trying to figure out what they all do. I methodically went through the STEP:Extended install, booted up Skyrim and ran around the game world a bit - it was smooth, looked great and has been crash-free. Even if you just do STEP:Core it's far easier than trying to work out a solid modded install on your own.

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Lisa Robb
 
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Post » Sat Nov 08, 2014 7:16 am

Holy moly. How long did that process take ya?

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Lovingly
 
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Post » Sat Nov 08, 2014 4:09 am

With an intel video card I would not use the HD texutre mods including the HD dlc from steam. Likely will be too much of performance hit on your laptop.

First of all I would just look to get the game running without any mods and maybe play it for a few days or a week. Take notes on how it performs and then go from there.

The thing you also need to be on the look out for is heat since laptops for the most part are not designed to play true 3d video games and they have a habit making the system run at peak performance for a long time and the laptop might have issues getting rid of the heat if always running at peak performance.

You may want to look into using one of those cooling stands for a laptop or at least just a stand to lift the laptop up from the desk so it has a little bit more space for the unit to breath and cool. I use a $2 stand that I bought from a dollar store and it helps when playing games.

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jessica breen
 
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Post » Sat Nov 08, 2014 5:33 am

A few days. I took a lot of breaks though. :bonk: It was worth it and don't forget you'll save time by not having to figure out which mod is causing the CTD or causing in-game glitches...

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J.P loves
 
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