Well, I might be of some help there. I have a mid-tier gaming rig with a CPU clocked at 3.33GHz, 8GB of RAM (Skyrim can only use 4GB anyway), running a Nvidia GPU (Gigabyte GeForce GTX 560Ti). I've installed a hellovalot of texture enhancers, run most settings on High, and run poloENB, which is an ENB profile arranged by a Japanese fellow that IMO blows most other shit out of the water in terms of both performance and prettiness.



Have some screens:
EDIT: Click the thumbnails for the full-sized images.















TBH, you can probably make a rig that can run at least this level of graphics now for less than a grand, provided you've already got a decent monitor. The Z77 mobos run pretty damn cheap lately, and if you're willing to spend a bit you can probably find a good deal on a decent processor to boot.

 

What's your framerate like, Lutris? Fairly solid? I had a 560 Ti myself, but didn't actually try too many texture mods, because they recommended more than 1GB of VRAM.

 

As long as I keep all the effects to my ENB (ENB series 0.146 enables a whole slew of effects like reflective surfaces) I get sexy graphics at minimal frame rate loss - in low-density areas I get 45+, and in high-density areas like Whiterun or Riften, I get hit up with 20~25 fps.

Texture mods are no sweat unless you go and have really far draw distance settings, but just find a sweet spot and jiggle them around.

 

Man, Lutris. You take such an awesome set-up of graphics mods and ruin the whole thing with a plastic Barbie doll facelift. :<

 

Lies and slander!

But yeah. I've since found a better one that I actually like that doesn't change her face to an unrecognizably bad degree (link has NSFW images since the mod includes body textures so take care). Makes her look older too, which is good for RP purposes in that I can say that she's been with the Companions for a decade before dragons start coming out of the woodwork.

 

Omg... does want so bad. I'll install if I ever finish this SKyrim run, which was a restart of my first game. Hell I've gotten like a hundred hours in between pirate version and legit version, and I've barely gone down the main quest path.

 

SO. This is a necro, but it's going to be totally relevant.

Some of these are in the original post, but a fair few are not.

I've decided to do a writeup on what I think are the best/most important skyrim mods, and why. Along with links to all of them.

1. SkyUI The best mod for Skyrim. Bar None. Takes the Console-optimized UI and makes it 10000% more PC friendly. Cannot recommend fiercely enough.

2. Categorized Favorites Menu Like SkyUI, the entire point of this mod is to make the UI more PC friendly/efficient. Though this one focuses entirely on the Favorites Menu. I think you're all smart enough to figure that out, though.

Note: If you're going to use this one with Skyrim Redone or Apocalypse Spell Package, you'll need a Compatibility Patch. This is the one I use, but there are others out there.

3. Unofficial Skyrim/Dawnguard/Hearthfire/Dragonborn patches. They fix an assload of bugs that make playing through Skyrim LOADS better.

4. A Quality World Map - With Roads Self Explanatory. A 3D, high quality worldmap. Very useful and much better than Vanilla.

5. The Dance of Death If you're a Melee player, The Dance of Death is for you. It re-enables a host of ignored/unenabled Killmoves in Skyrim's files. With several options about how to access them. Either Perk based, or freely.

6. T3nd0's Skyrim Redone Massive Skyrim overhaul that is centered around the Perk system, and then branches out to affect nigh everything either directly or indirectly related to Perks. As well as a large amount of non-perk-related things. Improves and changes so many things in so many great ways that I could write about it for entire pages worth. But instead I'll just recommend you read the mod description and give it my hearty approval.

Warning: WILL make the game more difficult and the combat more varied. But in a much more interesting way than just 'They have more health and you do less damage while they do more damage.'

7. Ultimate Follower Overhaul Gives you much greater control over your followers, really quite fantastic. Also includes MULTIPLE followers at a time. So if you want more than one, you can totally do that now! Though I don't, personally.

8. Deadly Dragons Dragons will rape your face again. Adds new varieties of dragons (if you want, there's a lorefriendly version if you don't), the ability to have dragons come after you more often, to make dragons tougher, smarter, and hit harder. All very customizable in a mod menu that can be accessed in game.

9. Apocalypse Spell Package Lets face it, Vanilla Skyrim's Magic is.. badly balanced and somewhat boring. This spell-mod adds 130+ new spells, though, to be honest, some of them are pretty freaking OP. Still, many of the spells are flat out awesome. It made playing a Mage interesting again for me.

10. Convenient Horses OMG. A horse that doesn't charge into battle and get it's ass killed! OMG, a horse that you can summon if you lose it. OMG, a horse that monsters ignore. Very highly customizable mod that makes horses so so so so much better.


I personally use a lot more mods than this, some of which are really great. But this is just a personal top-ten list. I'll add in more if people are interested or if I feel like it, later. Each one of these mods is expertly crafted and really adds something to the Skyrim experience. If you're thinking about another playthrough, I can't really think of a reason to exclude any of them.

 

So, a bit late to the party, but I've finally got a computer where I can pretty much add any amount of mods I like and not see any performance dip. So of course, the first thing I did was look into making people naked.

This is more complex that it first appeared, because not only do you have to find a nude body mod, you also have to make it look good, make it move right, and mod the clothing to actually show off the changes you made. So I spent almost all of yesterday fiddling with mods to get things working right, and in particular finding body and clothes meshes that responded to the sliders in the character creation screen.

My first attempt, using the CBBE nude body mod, was just a fixed body that couldn't be adjusted in any way. I then tried a CCBE advanced variant, the CBBE Bodyslide (which includes a host of additional sliders for character creation), but I couldn't get this to work with the character creation slides either, I think because, while the body was responsive to sliders, the clothes meshes weren't.

So I eventually switched to a UNP-based body. This is a slightly more realistic shape, but has far less in the way of clothing meshes made for it. Still, I'm happy with the result:



NSFW album.

So, what mods was I using? Quite a few.

Pre-requisites:

Skyrim Script Extender (SKSE) (Steam Store)
Fores New Idles in Skyrim
Showracemenu precache killer

General mods (not directly related to the body):

Unofficial Skyrim Patch
Static Mesh Improvement Mod
Enhanced Lights and FX
SkyUI
Falskaar

The body itself:

Enhanced Character Edit
Dimonized UNP Body (Base)
SG Female Textures Renewal
The Eyes of Beauty (player and NPC)
Apachii SkyHair - Female Pack (cannot stress how much good hair improves the look of the character)

Physics to get the body non-static:

HDT Physics extensions
XP32 Maximum skeleton
Realisitc Ragdolls and force
HDT Breast and Butt physics
UNP HDT-PE BBP TBBP - UNP HDT-PE BBP (this is a UNP body compatible skeleton that allows HDT animations)

Clothing:

UNP Minidresses collection (HDT version for compatibility with the physics)
UNP Minidresses HD textures (same link as above)
UNP Minidresses No panties (same link as above)

I was in two minds about the physics, because it's a bit too bouncy and jiggly, especially the butt. But in the end I decided that too much bounce was better than a rigid character model, and it's not so bad if you make a relatively lithe character. Also, because I haven't changed the vanilla armour meshes, just the clothes ones, if you're wearing armour there's no jiggle (which makes sense).

Still, the excess jiggle does annoy me, so I might try HDT Bounce and Jiggle as a replacement for HDT Breast and Butt Physics, as it is reportedly more restrained. Fortunately I think I already have all the pre-requisites so can just install it without worrying too much about load order. I also need to get a mod that has physics work on the hair, which is too static.

I'm keeping an eye out for new UNP-compatible clothing that's relatively lore-friendly. The minidresses collection, though it sounds like modern clothing, is actually just skimpier versions of the vanilla clothes (you can see the skimpy version of the roughspun tunic in the album above). It would be nice if someone were to adjust the armour meshes to match the UNP body type without changing the design of the armour (i.e. no bikini mail).

Also will probably add a cloaks mod to the list in the near future.

I think I've put all the mods in the correct order for installation, but it goes without saying that you should read all of the instructions/compatibility details to make sure. Also because lots of them have different versions and you should download the version that suits your preferences.

 

Skyrim Special Edition was just released. I think it was mainly some graphics and engine upgrades. But the interesting thing is you get it for free if you own the base game and the old dlc. So that was cool of them. It's a new game though, so mod won't transfer over, and some game saves might be iffy if it wasn't from an unmodded game.

 

For Skyrim Special Edition im running the following mods, all of them worked right away with the exception of Vivid Weathers which bugged the skyline into total darkness.

1. Unoffical Skyrim Specail Edition Patch
2. Ars Metallica
3. Ordinator - Perks of Skyrim
4. Apoclaypese- Magic of Skyrim
5. Relationship Dialogue Overhaul
6. Book Covers of Skyrim
7. Reberb and Ambiance Overhaul
8. Immersive Sounds- Comprehensive Overhaul
9. Open Cities of Skyrim
10. Diverse Dragons Collection
11. Immersive Patrols II
12. Point The Way
13. Realistic Death Physics
14. Imperious- Races of Skyrim
15. Chesko Lore Based Loading Screens
16. SMIM
17. Alternate Start - Live another Life
18. Weightless
19. Cutting Room Floor
20. XPMSE
21. The Paarthumax Dilemma
22. Better Vampires
23. Wildcat- Combat of Skyrim
24. Sky TEST Realistc Animal behaviou
25. Skyrim Flora Overhaul

The game runs great, the perk overhaul and combat mods make it a totally new game. Animals are much more dangerous now, even on lower difficulties. Wildcat changes stagger from a camera shake to a full knockdown and adds injuries, AI is also much better and harder to abuse.

 

Now that I've got a new hard drive and gpu, I'm thinking I'll finally get back into Skyrim.

Which do you guys suggest, Skyrim Legendary Edition or the new Skyrim SE?

I've heard the new one is a lot more stable because they upgraded it to 64-bit, but I've also heard a lot of mods haven't been ported over yet.

 

There is no SKSE yet for new Skyrim, if you need any mod that use it then you should wait.

 

The SSE looks a lot better than the old Skyrim and is massively more stable, but it has barely any mods, and none of the big, complex ones that require script extender or such. If you're fine with no mods or some simple ones, get the Special Edition. If you're a mod junkie used to 200+ mods, either wait a few months or play the old version.

 

I can recommend:
Lightning Final Fantasy 13 - in Skyrim by sanul17
Enhanced Character Edit by ECE team
Skyrim Beautiful Followers - SBF by hrk1025
Better Females by Bella
CBBE (by Caliente) & UNP (by dimon99) body replacers
Characters in Skyrim are so ugly, that I can't even play this game without this kind of mods.

 

Those of you on SE probably already know this, but this thread on Reddit has a good number of mods for SSE that are quite useful. The lack of SKSE64 does hamper mod creation, particularly since it means no SkyUI, but we should have SKSE by March sometime, so that's something.

Mods that I prefer

You have the commonly known mods like
Unofficial Patch
Quality World Map
Cutting Room Floor
Static Mesh Improvement Mod

EnaiSiaion (sp?) has a ton of mods that work quite well together or apart, overhauls of various aspects of the game.
Ordinator - Perks
Aurora - Standing Stones
Apocalypse - Spells
Imperious - Races
Summermyst - Enchantments
Sacrosanct - Vampires
Thunderchild - Shouts
There's one for combat too, and maybe others, but these are the ones I use.

Aside from that,
Improved Dragon Priest Masks SE
UNP
Total Character Makeover
Unique Uniques
Relationship Dialogue Overhaul
Open Cities
Sovngarde Font Replacer - I highly recommend this one, it looks much better than the default font
Immersive Armors
Immersive Citizens
Better Dialogue Controls
Better Messagebox Controls

 

Figured I'd bump this with my mod list and some screenshots...
Screenshots

Spoiler

Active Mod Files:

Spoiler

[xml]
00 Skyrim.esm
01 Update.esm
02 Dawnguard.esm
03 Hearthfires.esm
04 Dragonborn.esm
05 Unofficial Skyrim Special Edition Patch.esp [Version 4.1.9]
06 BSAssets.esm
07 BSHeartland.esm
08 BS_DLC_patch.esp
09 Paradise_City_RESOURCES.esm
0A ApachiiHair.esm
0B LegacyoftheDragonborn.esm
0C RigmorCyrodiil - Sounds.esm
0D RigmorCyrodiil - Textures.esm
0E EFFCore.esm
0F AnnaNPCs.esp
10 AnnaNPCs-WhiteWaterInn-BBL-Patch.esp
11 AnnaNPCs-Meadery-Undeath-Patch.esp
12 RigmorCyrodiil.esm
13 BBLuxurySuite.esm
14 Campfire.esm

17 RaceCompatibility.esm
18 LCHB_HomeBase.esm
19 Blowing in the Wind SSE.esp
1A SMIM-SE-Merged-All.esp
1B Blowing in the Wind - SMIM Merged All Patch SSE.esp

1D SkyUI_SE.esp
1E NorthernGrass.esp
1F EnhancedLightsandFX.esp
20 Dark_Forests.esp
21 S3DTrees NextGenerationForests.esp
22 iNeed.esp
23 iNeed - Extended.esp
24 Undeath.esp
25 Immersive Sounds - Compendium.esp
26 TrueStormsSE.esp
27 dD - Enhanced Blood Main.esp
28 Cutting Room Floor.esp [Version 3.1.4]
29 Obsidian Weathers.esp
2A EmbersHD.esp
2B 1nivWICCloaks.esp [Version 2.4]
2C DeadlySpellImpacts.esp
2D Joy of Perspective.esp
++ BlendedRoads.esp
2E mintylightningmod.esp
2F WondersofWeather.esp
++ RUSTIC SOULGEMS - Sorted.esp
30 mathys_resources.esp
31 FNIS.esp
32 icepenguinworldmapclassic.esp
33 tpos_ultimate_esm.esp
34 SOTFull.esp
35 Rigmor.esp
36 JS Barenziah SE - Johnskyrim.esp
++ S3DRocks.esp
37 Smoking Torches And Candles.esp
++ True Storms - Obsidian Weathers - Patch .esp
38 SOSRaceMenu.esp
39 RaceMenu.esp
3A XPMSE.esp
3B RaceMenuPlugin.esp
3C Perfect Legionnaire - Troops Re-equipment.esp
3D FranklyHDImperialArmorsAndWeapons.esp
++ BarenziahQuestMarkers.esp
40 Beards.esp
41 Castle Volkihar Rebuilt.esp [Version 2.0.4]
42 CollegeOfWinterholdImmersive.esp
43 The Great Cities - Minor Cities and Towns.esp
44 JKs Skyrim.esp
45 Grand Admiral Thrawn - Skyrim.esp
46 Invasion of Skyrim.esp
47 LC_Citadel.esp
48 Skyrim Immersive Creatures Special Edition.esp [Version v6.6a]
++ EBT - IC PATCH.esp
49 GreatWarSkyrim.esp
4A S3DLandscapes NextGenerationForests.esp
4B Obsidian Mountain Fogs.esp
4C Solitude Expansion.esp
4D Morrowloot.esp
4E Undriel_QuaintRavenRock.esp
4F OBIS SE.esp
50 Immersive Weapons.esp
51 Bijin NPCs.esp
52 Bijin Warmaidens.esp
53 Bijin Wives.esp
54 Improved Eyes Skyrim.esp
++ RichMerchantsSkyrim_x10.esp
55 Serana.esp
56 NoBSAIProjectileDodge.esp
++ OBIS SE - SoT Bandit Patch.esp
++ SkyrimIsWindy.esp
57 Wildcat - Combat of Skyrim.esp
58 3PCOFull.esp
59 CCO - Diverse Races And Genders.esp
5A CCO - Dynamic Skill Progression.esp
5B CCO - Oblivion Carry Weights.esp
5C Character Creation Overhaul.esp
5D CWICRFSEPatch.esp
5E InigoPerkPointGiver.esp
5F Moonlight Tales Special Edition.esp [Version 1.35]
60 TKDodge.esp
61 Fantasy Soundtrack Project - Combat.esp
62 Fantasy Soundtrack Project.esp
63 TERAArmorsSSE.esp
64 LKVM by Nimee - Part I_ SE.esp
65 Hunting in Skyrim.esp
66 OpulentThievesGuild.esp
67 Man Those Borders!.esp
68 Serana Dialogue Edit.esp
69 0Kaidan.esp
6A Settlements Expanded SE.esp
6B SkyTEST-RealisticAnimals&Predators.esp
6C skyBirds_SSE.esp
6D HearthfireMultiKid.esp
6E RomanceOfNPCs.esp
6F The Brotherhood of Old.esp
70 EMCompViljaSkyrim.esp
71 EMViljaInSolstheimAddOn.esp
72 LKVM by Nimee - Part II_SE.esp
73 Aurlyn.esp
74 HF_Lakeview_AvantGarden_EX.esp
75 Wintersun - Faiths of Skyrim.esp
76 FlowerGirls SE - Wintersun.esp
77 CFTO.esp
78 JK's Riverwood.esp [Version 1.3d]
79 Tel Mithryn.esp
7A Inigo.esp
7B Paradise_City_Merged.esp
7C BecomeKingofSkyrim.esp
7D Immersive Patrols II.esp
7E CaesiaFollower.esp
80 Frostfall.esp
82 Skysan_ELFX_SMIM_Fix.esp
83 S3DSigns.esp
84 Provincial Courier Service.esp [Version 4.0.4]
85 CCO - Permanent Birthsigns.esp
86 Recorder Follower Base.esp
87 RigmorCyrodiilPatch.esp
88 FlowerGirls SE - Adventures.esp
89 Convenient Horses.esp
8A SamuraiBlades.esp
8B Lucien.esp
8C ThievesGuildLadder.esp
8D naruto overhaul.esp
8E UchihaClan.esp
8F Blowing in the Wind - JK's Riverwood Patch SSE.esp
90 Heart of Thunder - Ragnarok Edition.esp
91 My Home Is Your Home.esp
93 Sneak Tools.esp
94 DudestiaMultiMarriages.esp
95 BBLuxurySuiteENM.esp
96 LycHairstyler.esp
++ LycHairstylerFG.esp
97 DBM_CWIPatch.esp
98 Tainted_Blood.esp
99 Better Vampires.esp
9A RaceCompatibilityUSKPOverride.esp
++ Sneak Tools - Embers HD Patch.esp
9B Sneak Tools Vanilla Hoods.esp
++ Sneak Tools Vanilla Masks.esp
9C Aesthetic Elisif.esp
9D ThievesGuildLadder_Patch_OTG.esp
9E AllThievesGuildJobsConcurrently.esp
9F GreatWarSkyrimDGPatch.esp
A0 Less Tedious Thieves Guild.esp
A1 SamuraiBladesWeapons.esp
A2 BetterStaffofMagnus.esp
A3 SINful CBP.esp
A4 TimingIsEverything.esp
A5 True Scholar.esp
A6 UltimateDragons.esp
A7 EFFDialogue.esp
A9 hmkLockOn.esp [Version 0.3.5]
AA HearthfireMultiKid_LastName.esp
AB Ordinator - Perks of Skyrim.esp
AC Apocalypse - Magic of Skyrim.esp
AD CWIOrdinatorPatchSSE.esp
AE Alternate Start - Live Another Life.esp [Version 4.0.9]
AF ELFX Fixes.esp
B0 BBLS-ASLAL.esp
B1 RealisticWaterTwo.esp
++ RealisticWaterTwo - Beyond Skyrim Bruma.esp
B2 Bashed Patch, 0.esp
[/xml]

 

Fuck you Arthellion, I refuse to reinstall and re-mod Skyrim. You’re not dragging me back to that hell.

 

But...Lydia...

Spoiler

Or Aela...

Spoiler

Or thor...

Spoiler

 

Arthellion I'm not installing a mod that makes all the models anime characters for fuck's sake.

 

Huh
Honestly don’t really see the anime influence if you’re talking about the chicks

There are mod to make the models look anime, but this was one of the more realistic beautification mods out there. Their faces were done by bjinns mod

As for male, I like the akaviri culture in elder scrolls. *shrug*