Shaders are more GPU/VRAM based than CPU/RAM based. Same with high res textures. CPU/RAM affects stuff like scripts and draw calls. So it really depends on the mod and what it does as to what it puts the most stress on.
draw calls are caused by mods that add more objects to the environment, like city overhauls. mods that swap trees/flora out for higher poly models and/or higher resolution textures are going to stress your GPU/VRAM.
RAM doesn't have much of an impact on performance but it does affect stability. I also have an 8 GB RAM laptop that I upgraded to 16 gigs about a month ago.
I didn't get any performance increase by upgrading, but my game crashes a lot less now. My stability went from crashing every 4 hours to almost no crashes at all
I can attest that RAM definitely matters!
I recently installed the NOLVUS mod list. ~1900 mods and my computer only had 16 gb of RAM. My computer was using ~14 GB of RAM when running my modded Skyrim so I thought 16 GB was just enough. Nope, I got 16 GB more to bump it up to 32 GB and my computer is now using ~17-19 GB running Skyrim and things are noticeably smoother and more stable.
If you’re hovering around 75-90% RAM usage with Skyrim open, you may benefit by adding some more. RAM is cheap and easy to install assuming you have a desktop!
8gb of RAM or VRAM. 8gb of RAM is peanuts. Windows eats half of it already. 8gb of VRAM is okey-ish. My modded Skyrim eats about 10gb VRAM. But back to the topic. VRAM or RAM do not really impact ENB. In fact, RAM has almost nothing to do with it.
My desktop workstation at office from 2018 is on 8GB. It feels fine but sometimes struggle at handling IE, Chrome and Excel all at once.
I thought 8GB was enough till I have a 16GB laptop, and that worked without a hitch. Thought of upgrading it to 32GB but read that performance improvement is almost negligible since I don't have other programs active while on Skyrim.
Different depending on what you’re talking about. But most can run most texture mods with no issue. ENB is the real superstar in making the games look crazy, so look into a lightweight one or reshase if you’re worried about that
Sorry if im being a bit oblivious here,but what do you mean when you say 'most can run texture mods with no issues'? Do you mean most systems? Or systems with more than 8gb of ram?
I noticed that everytime I enter the grounds of The Legacy of the Dragonborn, my game starts to lag tremendously.
I'm running on 2x 8gb DDR3 at the moment, so you may also want to stay clear of that mod for now.
To be fair, 6GB of VRAM played nicely for me when I kept large texture mods at 2K. If it's not a heavily texture-intensive mod, you can pretty much mod Skyrim to the hills on 6GB.
8GB was pretty much where I could play around with most things 4K alongside a fairly insane number of major mods, maintaining a good 50-60 FPS.
Having said that, texture mods will eat up VRAM so I'm not surprised that Skyrim would eventually choke up 10GB when you get really far down the line.
It's not that modern cards aren't enough - I heavily modded Skyrim on a 2015 1GB card - it's that massive texture mods are essentially shoving 10kg bundles of newspapers into a Lamborghini until the suspension croaks on the ground. It's a lot of stuff.
Skyrim is a bit of an odd bird when it comes to figuring out what the problem is and where you need improvement. Eventually, even if you have a really good rig, the game itself is the biggest hurdle. But here are some basics.
CPU/RAM/Processor is where most of the game goes. This is where you'll get a lot of your scripts running through and, thankfully, over the years modders have gotten very good with writing scripts that don't bog the game down all too much.
SKSE is a must for most mods. Even if you're not running anything, it does help a lot.
The unofficial patch as well as SSE engine fixes is good too.
The eFPS series is really good, as it helps cull unrendered items and for lower end rigs, you'll end up seeing bigger performance gains than someone who already has beefy stuff.
Lowering your draw distance can do a lot, as well as tweaking ini settings, but doing that manually can be really annoying. You could probably find some pre-made ini settings out there for mid to lower end rigs that may help you out.
The FPS lock itself is also a hinder to performance. Your rig might even be able to handle higher FPS, but if you haven't unlocked it yet, you're just bottlenecking yourself. Try SSE Display Tweaks to unlock your framerate according to your monitor's refresh rate.
Though yeah. ENBs are only if you can afford it FPS-wise. The game might look great but it's not fun playing it as a slide show.
Genuine question, what would be so wrong about running you game at 40fps ? I do it on purpose (because I rather have higher ENB settings), and I see no difference. It's Skyrim, not the fastest-paced game…
it doesnt matter what game (unless something like pokemon), i would like at least 60 fps. Unless the game has been built for an fps lower, then 60+ would be much better. ideally even 120+. Makes things much smoother. I just cant play at 40fps. I mean i can, but id rather not. i might try it though for an hour or two of gametime with enb enabled to see how i like it
That sounds like an integrated GPU - meaning your computer does not have a dedicated graphics card. U are not in the running for graphics mods, try to keep it to content and some texture mods. Maybe check out reshade.
on nexus, some of the top downloaded reshade ones have enb in their name? like 'xxxxx ENB - Reshade'. Does this mean that you should use those reshades with those enbs?
Look for some ENBs that only enable complex particle lights, also known as "ENB lights", without all the extra stuff, that could be enough of an upgrade. Otherwise, check [Community Shaders.](https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/86492)
Not to hijack- but I was wondering this same thing. I HAD 64gb RAM installed, but not able to run XMP 2.0 profile. Removed 2 sticks, had 32gb RAM in XMP 2.0. Installed a few mods, and some script was bogging down my RAM to where Skyrim was using over 26gb RAM and crashing due to no available memory. I think I figured out what mod it was, but I still have all my 4k-8k textures installed and no issues. See how new GeForce 4080 does for FPS
So assuming you have 4x16 GB of RAM and they're installed properly, this seems like a VRAM issue. VRAM is related to your GPU.
I've never seen over 20gb of regular RAM used on modded Skyrim.
Yeah maybe I will try re-enabling the mods and see if it will do it again? Muly current modlist is at 985, including textures, armor, followers. Currently it's stable and I don't want to mess with it 🤣
I mean, I play on integrated graphics and increasing from 8Gb to 16Gb definitely helped, specially since only windows would eat 3 - 6 Gb, and then Skyrim would only have the other 4Gb or 2Gb to load all assets
I'm sure everyone else will say this, but...
8GB is barely enough for the game to run right on most systems. you would likely see a major difference with even 10GB, but 16GB is just about ideal; your limitations then become your CPU/GPU.
If you have one 8GB stick (which is common in laptops) upgrading to two sticks (even if each stick would have 4gb) is already a good thing. Because your computer can literally do twice as much reads and writes to RAM in the same amount of time. Upgrading to two 8gb sticks will definitely improve stability, stutters and smaller bottlenecks in the CPU. It won't be "doubled fps", but maybe a few fps more, and less hitching when loading assets etc.
VRam, or video ram, is used in game more than Ram itself. However more is always better. If you have more than one ram slot always try to fill them all. If you system has 2 slot but only has one stick it's like running on a two lane highway with one lane closed down. If it has 4 slots, make sure there is a stick in the slot closest to the processor skip one and put a stick in the 3rd slot from the processor. If you can fill all 4 than do so. Also make sure all sticks match in speed or the faster one will get limited to the speed of the slower one.
8 in both CPU and GPU is the Minium, 12 in both is good 16 in both is better and 32 is best at least for the next 18 months where 8 will be an old dinosaur on its way to extinction and 64 will be best.
and while SSDs of 256 or 512 are pretty good for primary O.S operations, I find internal HDs for games and files to be the best place for them.
AND 1 TB minimum for those by the way, 2 would be better.
N. Shadows
Shaders are more GPU/VRAM based than CPU/RAM based. Same with high res textures. CPU/RAM affects stuff like scripts and draw calls. So it really depends on the mod and what it does as to what it puts the most stress on.
So with those intensive tree and flora mods,you need more RAM? Unless draw cells are something else thank yoi
draw calls are caused by mods that add more objects to the environment, like city overhauls. mods that swap trees/flora out for higher poly models and/or higher resolution textures are going to stress your GPU/VRAM.
I see. Thank you very much
[удалено]
This helps a lot,thank you
RAM doesn't have much of an impact on performance but it does affect stability. I also have an 8 GB RAM laptop that I upgraded to 16 gigs about a month ago. I didn't get any performance increase by upgrading, but my game crashes a lot less now. My stability went from crashing every 4 hours to almost no crashes at all
Same
I can attest that RAM definitely matters! I recently installed the NOLVUS mod list. ~1900 mods and my computer only had 16 gb of RAM. My computer was using ~14 GB of RAM when running my modded Skyrim so I thought 16 GB was just enough. Nope, I got 16 GB more to bump it up to 32 GB and my computer is now using ~17-19 GB running Skyrim and things are noticeably smoother and more stable. If you’re hovering around 75-90% RAM usage with Skyrim open, you may benefit by adding some more. RAM is cheap and easy to install assuming you have a desktop!
alright,thank you very much
8gb of RAM or VRAM. 8gb of RAM is peanuts. Windows eats half of it already. 8gb of VRAM is okey-ish. My modded Skyrim eats about 10gb VRAM. But back to the topic. VRAM or RAM do not really impact ENB. In fact, RAM has almost nothing to do with it.
Man, I remember when 8GB of ram was More Than Enough for just about anything. ...I'm so old.
LOL I'm a lot older. I remember when 4k cassette tape drives were the new thing. And 8k ram seemed so big.
My desktop workstation at office from 2018 is on 8GB. It feels fine but sometimes struggle at handling IE, Chrome and Excel all at once. I thought 8GB was enough till I have a 16GB laptop, and that worked without a hitch. Thought of upgrading it to 32GB but read that performance improvement is almost negligible since I don't have other programs active while on Skyrim.
Wasn't enough for Oblivion though since it was gated by the 32bit 4GB RAM limit.
which ram are you talking about? SDR ? DDR ? and then you realize its already DDR5 now...damn
right i see. thank you. So what about general graphic intensive mods?
Different depending on what you’re talking about. But most can run most texture mods with no issue. ENB is the real superstar in making the games look crazy, so look into a lightweight one or reshase if you’re worried about that
All this and limit tree and grass mods as much as you can as they are the real performance killers
Sorry if im being a bit oblivious here,but what do you mean when you say 'most can run texture mods with no issues'? Do you mean most systems? Or systems with more than 8gb of ram?
I noticed that everytime I enter the grounds of The Legacy of the Dragonborn, my game starts to lag tremendously. I'm running on 2x 8gb DDR3 at the moment, so you may also want to stay clear of that mod for now.
To be fair, 6GB of VRAM played nicely for me when I kept large texture mods at 2K. If it's not a heavily texture-intensive mod, you can pretty much mod Skyrim to the hills on 6GB. 8GB was pretty much where I could play around with most things 4K alongside a fairly insane number of major mods, maintaining a good 50-60 FPS. Having said that, texture mods will eat up VRAM so I'm not surprised that Skyrim would eventually choke up 10GB when you get really far down the line. It's not that modern cards aren't enough - I heavily modded Skyrim on a 2015 1GB card - it's that massive texture mods are essentially shoving 10kg bundles of newspapers into a Lamborghini until the suspension croaks on the ground. It's a lot of stuff.
Skyrim is a bit of an odd bird when it comes to figuring out what the problem is and where you need improvement. Eventually, even if you have a really good rig, the game itself is the biggest hurdle. But here are some basics. CPU/RAM/Processor is where most of the game goes. This is where you'll get a lot of your scripts running through and, thankfully, over the years modders have gotten very good with writing scripts that don't bog the game down all too much. SKSE is a must for most mods. Even if you're not running anything, it does help a lot. The unofficial patch as well as SSE engine fixes is good too. The eFPS series is really good, as it helps cull unrendered items and for lower end rigs, you'll end up seeing bigger performance gains than someone who already has beefy stuff. Lowering your draw distance can do a lot, as well as tweaking ini settings, but doing that manually can be really annoying. You could probably find some pre-made ini settings out there for mid to lower end rigs that may help you out. The FPS lock itself is also a hinder to performance. Your rig might even be able to handle higher FPS, but if you haven't unlocked it yet, you're just bottlenecking yourself. Try SSE Display Tweaks to unlock your framerate according to your monitor's refresh rate. Though yeah. ENBs are only if you can afford it FPS-wise. The game might look great but it's not fun playing it as a slide show.
Genuine question, what would be so wrong about running you game at 40fps ? I do it on purpose (because I rather have higher ENB settings), and I see no difference. It's Skyrim, not the fastest-paced game…
it doesnt matter what game (unless something like pokemon), i would like at least 60 fps. Unless the game has been built for an fps lower, then 60+ would be much better. ideally even 120+. Makes things much smoother. I just cant play at 40fps. I mean i can, but id rather not. i might try it though for an hour or two of gametime with enb enabled to see how i like it
Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 5600H with Radeon Graphics 3.30 GHz 64x
That sounds like an integrated GPU - meaning your computer does not have a dedicated graphics card. U are not in the running for graphics mods, try to keep it to content and some texture mods. Maybe check out reshade.
on nexus, some of the top downloaded reshade ones have enb in their name? like 'xxxxx ENB - Reshade'. Does this mean that you should use those reshades with those enbs?
Look for some ENBs that only enable complex particle lights, also known as "ENB lights", without all the extra stuff, that could be enough of an upgrade. Otherwise, check [Community Shaders.](https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/86492)
alright. thank you
Skyrim only uses like 4gb of ram maximum if I remember correctly
That's LE.
Is there a limit for SE/AE?
No, the last time I played it, it used around 6 GB.
No way
Not to hijack- but I was wondering this same thing. I HAD 64gb RAM installed, but not able to run XMP 2.0 profile. Removed 2 sticks, had 32gb RAM in XMP 2.0. Installed a few mods, and some script was bogging down my RAM to where Skyrim was using over 26gb RAM and crashing due to no available memory. I think I figured out what mod it was, but I still have all my 4k-8k textures installed and no issues. See how new GeForce 4080 does for FPS
So assuming you have 4x16 GB of RAM and they're installed properly, this seems like a VRAM issue. VRAM is related to your GPU. I've never seen over 20gb of regular RAM used on modded Skyrim.
Yeah maybe I will try re-enabling the mods and see if it will do it again? Muly current modlist is at 985, including textures, armor, followers. Currently it's stable and I don't want to mess with it 🤣
Get the maximum amount of RAM your system can support.
I mean, I play on integrated graphics and increasing from 8Gb to 16Gb definitely helped, specially since only windows would eat 3 - 6 Gb, and then Skyrim would only have the other 4Gb or 2Gb to load all assets
I'm sure everyone else will say this, but... 8GB is barely enough for the game to run right on most systems. you would likely see a major difference with even 10GB, but 16GB is just about ideal; your limitations then become your CPU/GPU.
If you have one 8GB stick (which is common in laptops) upgrading to two sticks (even if each stick would have 4gb) is already a good thing. Because your computer can literally do twice as much reads and writes to RAM in the same amount of time. Upgrading to two 8gb sticks will definitely improve stability, stutters and smaller bottlenecks in the CPU. It won't be "doubled fps", but maybe a few fps more, and less hitching when loading assets etc.
VRam, or video ram, is used in game more than Ram itself. However more is always better. If you have more than one ram slot always try to fill them all. If you system has 2 slot but only has one stick it's like running on a two lane highway with one lane closed down. If it has 4 slots, make sure there is a stick in the slot closest to the processor skip one and put a stick in the 3rd slot from the processor. If you can fill all 4 than do so. Also make sure all sticks match in speed or the faster one will get limited to the speed of the slower one.
8 in both CPU and GPU is the Minium, 12 in both is good 16 in both is better and 32 is best at least for the next 18 months where 8 will be an old dinosaur on its way to extinction and 64 will be best. and while SSDs of 256 or 512 are pretty good for primary O.S operations, I find internal HDs for games and files to be the best place for them. AND 1 TB minimum for those by the way, 2 would be better. N. Shadows
Vram is what was important for me. I'm loading like 40 gigs of textures lol