off-topic friday. making skyrim look pretty: a guide to modding and enb

Hello ladies,gentlemen and space monsters.

welcome to the first off topic friday: which willl cover geeky stuff that isnt 40k! to kick things off we are going to have a little guide on how to make skyrim (on PC) which normally looks like this:

eew. and thats on PC on medium (all credit to the steam user that took this screen)

into something that looks like this:

yes thats gameplay. yes thats why i wasnt blogging last night :P

So because we dont all have high end gaming PC's so im going to split this into a few sections.

1) PREPERATION:  overclocking . +gamebooster

well ladies and gentlemen overclocking. in laymans terms it is making the spinny bits spin faster. now we are not going to discuss hardcore OC'ing. because im really not the best person to explain and there are better guides for that.

if you are on a laptop be careful, if your on a dusty PC clean it and if your PC is prone to overheating be careful.

anyways, the simple way is  by using a tool, catalyst control centre should already be installed on your PC if you have a amd card, otherwise MSI afterburner is good. using these tools only oc the graphics card to a reasonable level, there is VERY little risk of fething sh*t up so dont worry.
Secondly go grab the "razer game booster" program (google it) this is a extremley effective tool. it increases performance by pausing all your other programs, luckily it will get them back to exactly where they were before you launched the game. also set it to show FPS in the tools section

now your PC should perform slightly better in any game, including skyrim
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2) MODS:
the official HD pack
a HD ice mod (theres hundreds of them)
"lanterns of skyrim"
whatever armour, weapons and quest mods you like, go install these.

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3) ENB. or yay my game looks better than yours.
right this is where we discuss ENB's , or that thing that rejigs lighting and pallates
first thing is to install the vanilla from  here
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okay right youve got that, the vanilla ENB looks really nice

so how is skyrim runningFPS wise?
 20-40? turn settings down a tiny bit and use a enb like this one  right lets get some light ENB's like this one 
<10 and="and" as="as" back="back" contrast="contrast" dof="dof" dragonwarrior="dragonwarrior" effects="effects" graphics="graphics" id="id" if="if" lets="lets" nbsp="nbsp" p="p" pretty="pretty" recomend="recomend" saturation="saturation" skyrim="skyrim" some="some" steam="steam" to="to" tweak="tweak" vanilla="vanilla" want="want" well="well" which="which" you="you">

high settings and dragonwarrior effects, high saturation contrast and DOF

40+ try out some high end ENB's for this guide we will be using the seasons of skyrim one

So the ENB should come with instrucitions so follow those.

with seasons of skyrim install the extra files and look round your skyrim folder for the ones that came with the ENB, adding autofocus DOF means screenshots are very pretty

cinematic pallate

pallates are great too!

seasons1 i think

troubleshooting:
dosnt appear to make much of a diffrence? try turning on FXAA
game crash? check your driver
game crash? make sure there are no conflicting mods
WAAAY to bright? check your brightness setting, failing that poke around in the ENB files.
low FPS? disable the enb before your PC melts!
Razer saying your temps are >80*c fix that. its proably needing new thermal paste.
anything else?
have fun FOR TEMARIA TAMRIEL


comments are appreciated!

-fuzz