I haven't been lucky when I've tried out ENB, so I've postponed dealing with it. I've either had weird graphical issues, stability issues (yesterday, the save wouldn't even load when trying out a variant, for example) or I haven't been happy at all with the result. But if I understand it correctly it should be better to have AA etc. handled via ENB, plus it solves the issue with shadow striping etc., so I would like to get a working, stable ENB set up.

I have no problem getting the basic enbseries v178 up and running. The issue there is rather that I'm not happy with the visuals on default settings as I think the world looks washed out compared to vanilla. Which means I should either start editing it or try out an ENB addon.

Anyway, here are a couple of questions:

1. Does anyone have a tip for ENB settings or an ENB addon for someone who is quite happy with the vanilla look, but would like ENB to handle AA, AF and detailed shadows?

2. When an addon says that it requires a certain version of EN (say 170, as Sharpshooter), does that mean that it requires that particular version or "170 or above"?

3. Most addons seem to require and/or be tweaked for Realistic Lighting Overhaul and/or Climates of Tamriel, neither of which I use (well, I use RLO for city interiors). Recommendations for ENB addons that don't require them?

I thought I'd focus on ENB today, so any recommendations and tips are very much appreciated.

You should try Phinix Natural ENB. It`s Close to the Vanilla feel and preformance friendly.

It details which ENB Version you should use and functions independently of CoT and RLO. But is compatible With CoT, not so sure about RLO though.

I am very pleased With phinix Natural enb.

Thanks for the tip. It works fine and doesn't have much of, if any, performance hit for me either. Looks rather nice as well, although I'll probably try to tweak some settings (I noticed that torches don't light up much of the surroundings now, for instance). Anyway, seems like a solid ENB ground to stand on. (Seems to answer my second question as well. Phinix ENB says it requires ENB 157, but using a later version (e.g. 178) seems to work fine.)

I'm really enjoying RealLike ENB, it's beautiful and the performance hit is negligible

Thanks for the tip. I didn't like it from a quick look (everything was so blue tinted). Anyway, I'm back at working with the vanilla ENB Series. I basically want ENB's AA, AF and detailed shadows. For starters, anyway. So using ENB addons basically means I will turn off almost everything the authors have tweaked, which doesn't seem fair to them and also a case of "going across the stream for water" for me, as a Swedish saying goes. I'll experiment around a bit with ENB Series 178 and ENB Customizer. Thanks for the tips - much appreciated.

if I understand correctly what you're looking for, the vanilla version of Skyrealism should be perfect

http://skyrim-comparison.wikidot.com/skyrim:17

That's the one that I can't even load the save with. And during the logo screen etc. the sound is borky plus it's extremely jittery (the mouse pointer etc.).

Anyway, using the vanilla ENB series I notice that the ENB variants of AA look quite much worse than having it via the Skyrim Launcher/hardware. Both Edge AA and Temporal AA. Is there another variant of ENB AA to try out? Otherwise I guess I'll skip ENB regarding that.

You could try adding http://mrhaandi.blogspot.fi/p/injectsmaa.html as a proxy library to your ENB config of choice and disabling all other AA.

Thanks! I'll try it.

What is it that makes the graphics look so washed out with vanilla ENB?

Here's a pic of Breezehome without ENB: http://i.imgur.com/bKzQYNp.jpg

And here's a pic with ENB v0178 at default settings: http://i.imgur.com/evBcaOS.jpg

I have detailed shadows on - but that shouldn't affect the general graphics.

It looks much the same whether I have EnableParticleLights on or off.

Other than that all effects are on false, so not on.