Skyrim SKSE/ENBoost Stability Guide

Delivering on a holiday promise, here goes!

So you've got your Skyrim modded all to hell, right? That's my first thought when I return to Skyrim. Grab those unofficial patches, texture mods, player model, hair, flora, lighting, weather, creature and monster overhauls, gameplay and skill tree overhauls, weapons, armors, quest changes, immersion mods like populated cities and roads and forts and civil war and... oops.

You see this.

If you're lucky. Very lucky. Sometimes all you get is your desktop and, on repeat occurrences, a realization that you may have to backtrack and uninstall everything to start over. Not fun.

Holy mod list Batman!

Even if you're on top of your game, or you've been modding since the old days, or you've read someone's modding guide and followed it step by step, you can have issues. A perfectly tuned load order? A bashed patch to end all bashed patches? A Skyproc'd patch to make your ancestors proud? None of that is going to save you when the Creation Engine rears its ugly head and torches your game in a rush of flame.

And it'll do that a lot.

However, dealing with dragons in-game and dealing with the beast that is Skyrim's engine can both be trivial with the right precautions, and tools to assist.

You've got this, right?

Most people have SKSE. If you don't, for whatever reason (you sure you're in the right place?), you can grab the latest version here:

http://skse.silverlock.org/
Grab the installer link. There's a 7zip link as well, but I only recommend that if the installer absolutely does not work for you.

Now go get the ENB.

http://enbdev.com/download_mod_tesskyrim.htm
Grab the highest number on the list, that'll be all you need.

A lot of people have this, or at the very least know what it does. This is the beast that bogs down your computer with all sorts of fancy effects that make things look really pretty but run really slow.

Or, you can shut all that off, and it actually INCREASES your performance.

Yeah. That's the reaction I've gotten from quite a few people. They didn't realize that just because you have ENB installed, it doesn't mean it needs to run with a special graphical package.

If you have the steam version of Skyrim, you'll want to go into the Wrapper folder in that zip you just grabbed. From there, take:
d3d9.dll
enbhost.exe
enblocal.ini
enbseries.ini
And extract those to your Skyrim folder. The one with TESV.exe in it.

Now open "enblocal.ini" in your favorite text editor (probably Notepad by default), and take a quick look.

See the [Global] section? Change it. It should be...
UsePatchSpeedhackWithoutGraphics=true
UseDefferedRendering=false

Now keep in mind that if you ever want to use a fancy ENB in the future these two will likely need to be inverted again, as well as grabbing at least one additional file from the zip known as enbeffect.fx. It also means that ENB's special blocky shadows fix will be disabled, but we're not worrying about that right now. There's a lot of small tweaks you can do with ENB, but we'll just stick to the basics.

If you're curious, check this out and save it for later: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/50214/

CONGRATS! First step complete!

Still listening, kiddos?

Good! Now we get to the SKSE stuff. You installed it earlier, right? If not, do that now. I'll wait.

Got it? Ok, now, first step.

Go to Skyrim/Data/SKSE

SKSE folder doesn't exist? Make it. Oh, and make a Plugins folder inside of that as well, you'll want it in a few minutes.

Inside the SKSE folder should be a file named "skse.ini". There isn't one? Make it too. You can do so by opening notepad really quick, then saving a file to the SKSE folder as "skse.ini". Then you can edit it from there, or open it up in your favorite text editor, and make it look like this.

http://pastebin.com/EMwUmXkC
I'd drop it here, but Imgur doesn't like random code in the description boxes and kept cutting stuff off. Go figure.

This is stuff everyone should be doing whether they mod heavily or not, due to how it effects Skyrim's base stability.

STEP TWO COMPLETE!

Now we start getting into the dirty stuff.

Time to show the Creation Engine who's boss, and turn on SKSE's powerhouse mode. Don't let comments on the mods themselves fool you, while some people will claim so-and-so is outdated, I 99% of the time end up with problems when I remove them, even after starting a new game.

Go get these:

-=(( IMPORTANT ))=-
SafetyLoad - http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/46465/
Prevents the infamous "Infinite Load Screen". Now, if something's beyond its ability to correct, it'll close Skyrim to desktop. That usually means there's something worse than just a bad save or lack of memory, so if you crash from a loading screen, you dun blown it bad somewhere.

Stable uGridsToLoad - http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/41592/
Despite only claiming to allow you to change the uGridsToLoad setting as much as you want, it adds quite a bit of stability at any setting.

-=(( OPTIONAL ))=-
OneTweak - http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/40706/
Adds a bunch of useful features, but the one we're after is the Dynamic Process Priority.

ShowRaceMenu Precache Killer - http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/33526/
Helps prevent crashes during character creation. Will create some lag, however. Personally, I'd rather have that than a sudden CTD.

Fuz Ro D-oh! - http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/14884/
Provides a single set of blank sound files for NPCs without dialog. Modders have to package these with the mod themselves, so if they forget, it can sometimes cause... issues. This'll prevent that.

AutoSave Manager - http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/34842/
Highly configurable SKSE saving. Tends to be more stable than the built-in autosave function as well, and will save you those moments of frustration if you crash/die after doing something difficult. Highly recommended!

Oh, you want to crash, do you? How 'bout no.

For those of you using Mod Organizer, which I EXTREMELY recommend, installation of all of these is a snap. Download though MO, install, launch SKSE through MO. Easy as that, no configuration necessary, EXCEPT for OneTweak, which I'll explain below.

For those with Nexus Mod Manager, you should be able to install these through NMM as well, however I would double check the file structure just to make sure it went to the right place. You can do so by checking the folders mentioned below.

For those of you who mod manually... who hurt you...? *rubs back*
But still. If you don't trust those crazy machines to do the work for you, you'll need to extract the DLL and INI files in every one of those mods to "Skyrim\Data\SKSE\Plugins". In the case of Fuz Ro D'oh, also make sure the Sound folder was placed in your "Skyrim\Data" like any other mod, and for AutoSave Manager you'll need to do the same with the Scripts folder.

Now, for configuring OneTweak, you'll need to open OneTweak.ini. If you use MO, this involves rightclicking on the OneTweak mod entry, Information, Filetree tab, and then inside the SKSE, then Plugins folder, rightclick the INI and Open. For anyone NOT using MO, you'll have to navigate to Data/SKSE/Plugins, and open it yourself.

Now, see the line under [Global] that says "Driver = 1"? Change that to "Driver = 2". That will enable greater support for D3D9 DLLs such as the ENB you installed earlier.

And of course, never forget that LOOT is your best friend. This beast of a tool digs into the mods themselves and checks for conflicts, then rearranges your load order accordingly. It comes build into Mod Organizer by default, but for the rest of you, go grab it!
LOOT - http://loot.github.io/

Launch Skyrim. Enjoy a stable game.

Congratulations, you've made it! Now you have a strong platform to start modding on, or may have just saved your heavily modded install from 5-10 minute restart sprees.

Keep in mind, this won't solve ALL your problems. A bad load order will still cause problems. The lack of/corrupted bashed patch (or any other patch type) will still cause CTDs or other issues. Too many scripts running or mods that require mass amounts of graphical processing will still cause poor FPS. This guide only brute forces some Creation Engine fixes, knowing what your computer is capable of is still immensely valuable.

If you're interested in digging deeper and moving beyond the basics, I suggest looking into these:

Skyrim Project Stability - http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/32363/

Speed and Stability Guide for ENB - http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/50214/

Skyrim Stability Guide - http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/50244/

Skyrim Graphics Guide - http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/55921/

These guides will overlap with each other in some areas, but they all touch on things that the others don't, so they're all worth your time. You'll be surprised at how even the smallest changes in your Skyrim configuration can result in much better performance and stability.

Potema CTD Fix - http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/24290/
Any outfit that changes the Jarl clothes will conflict with the Wolf Queen quests. This will fix the issue, in exchange for giving Potema an... interesting wardrobe choice.

Fast Respawn 72 Hours - http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/50346/
Makes grid cells clear and respawn much more quickly, which means less save game bloat and faster load times.

Artificial Intelligence Limit Increaser - http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/50823/
Increases the simultaneously running AI limits. For those of you with a lot of increased population or heavily scripted mod sets, this will just about ensure that everything runs smoothly. Will add some lag however, due to the increased scripts running at once. Place at the VERY BOTTOM of your load order, even lower than the bashed and skyproc patches.

Cat tax.

-- Other guides I've written:
Skyrim Beginner Modding and Good Practices Guide
http://imgur.com/gallery/9zFrn (breaks imgur somehow)
http://imgur.com/a/9zFrn (full album)

Skyrim Mods For Budget Systems (in progress)

Fallout NV Clean Modding & Stability Guide
http://imgur.com/gallery/GCmE1/

-- Graphical Tests:
Skyrim ENB+SweetFX Test: World
http://imgur.com/gallery/ExhCj/

Skyrim ENB+SweetFX Test: Dungeon
http://imgur.com/gallery/Wqnui