Hmm... I currently have a bunch of graphics enhancing mods (like WATER and all five parts of SMIM and a few others I subscribed to on Steam) and with them Skyrim looks very good. However, I can't summon as much if want to create large battles. I can just barely summon 100 Unbound Dremora's while without them I think I can do around 250-300 and maybe even a bit more.

Decisions, decisions...

Mods, bro. I played over a year of vanilla and I don't want to go back...

Also, you should get your mods from the nexus. You just have to install the Mod manager, but SMIM is only one part there, as well as several others. Plus, you need SKSE and SkyUI.

I have NMM, SkyUI and SKSE.

I like Steam over Nexus and no, I don't feel like discussing it, period.

Cool beans. I still use Steam for a few things too, so I get it.

Unsubbed SMIM. A bit too resource hungry for my taste. I don't really examine Skyrim under a microscope anyway.

Have you tried SSME? Makes the game a bit more stable.

Nah I haven't Can I assign more RAM to Skyrim with that? Because CTD's at 3.1+ GB is just ridiculous. I have 16 GB RAM and could easily have Skyrim use 10 of it lol

No, but it makes the game engine a bit more efficient. Look it up on the Nexus.