Official Bethesda Softworks forum thread.
NOTE: For optimal appearance and to use PNENB as intended, set your in-game brightness just to the right of center. Also, see the [ANTIALIASING] section of enblocal.ini for more information on various additional AA options to further eliminate jagged lines.
UPDATE: For PNENB v1.99 I created a custom sun sprite shader from scratch using example #3 Boris provides with the default ENB template enbsunsprite.fx file, with additional code to allow for the individual lens controls. See article for details.
- v1.83+ enables separate day and night settings for both interiors and exterior world spaces not only for the custom HD6 shader effects, but also for the built-in ENB brightness, contrast, clipping, and other effects as well! All of these new options can be tweaked through the in-game ENB editor (see ENB Hotkeys below.)
- v1.86 enables balanced, per-weather configuration of all default Skyrim weathers. Individual weather settings can be modified through the shader window of the in-game ENB editor.
- v1.89 adds a custom night sky texture to the optional files section with permission from the original author, Neokore. I originally modified this from an older version of the mod Horizon of Dreams called Aetherian Sky (same author), with corrections to certain over bright and "blobby" stars, and balanced to blend well with this ENB. If you opt for my version, just copy the .bsa file to your Skyrim->Data folder where the PNENB.esp resides.
- v1.91 enables Occlusion Culling, which improves performance by only rendering what is visible to you on-screen.
FULLY COMPATIBLE WITH NIGHT EYE EFFECTS, including all normal Skyrim effects as well as Gopher's Predator Vision mod. Here are a couple videos to show how well they work: Skyrim Night Eye, Predator Vision.
NEW ADVANCED UNDERWATER EFFECTS: The latest ENB enables advanced effects for underwater including light rays shining through shadows on the surface! Here are a couple quick examples showing the radical improvement over vanilla Skyrim underwater scenes: Underwater1, Underwater2. (Sorry for poor quality animated GIFs.)
Supports the latest ENB water surface settings as well. Here is a video that may help you to decide on a water mod to use with PNENB: Realistic Water Two vs. Pure Waters vs. W.A.T.E.R, though I HIGHLY recommend Realistic Water Two with the optional ENB textures available on the page, as it looks by far the best with this ENB.
ENBOOST MEMORY/CTD REDUCTION INCLUDED: PNENB includes the latest ENB memory stability technology (dubbed "ENBoost"), which vastly improves performance. ENBoost allows the game access to additional memory through the enbhost process, and simultaneously performs compression and dynamic unloading to reduce overall memory use, ensuring the game doesn't pass the critical RAM usage limit that typically results in memory-related CTD crashes. You do NOT need to download ENBoost separately if you use PNENB. (Use this utility to view the correct settings for your video card), and follow the install instructions carefully making sure to set the correct value for your video card's VRAM.
ENB Hotkeys:
Insert = Take a screenshot.
Page Down = Clear VRAM.
Shift+Enter = Toggle in-game ENB config editor.
Skyrim Console:
~ = Open in-game console. Type 'tm' (without the quotes) and press Enter to hide all graphical HUD elements for unobstructed screenshots. Type this command in the console again (or restart Skyrim) to turn the game display back on.
COMPATIBILITY
The PNENB graphical mod is performed 100% in post-process and is therefore is 100% compatible with any mods that alter lighting, color, fog, etc. The PNENB.esp helper mod now only contains a few minor edits to fix known issues in ENB such as Word Walls inverting colors in low light/high contrast areas, however this is done to the image space the location uses not the location itself, so nothing is changed to compete or conflict with any other mod's changes.
All of the mods listed below for example (except RCRN) are fully compatible, though whether they look better than PNENB by itself is of course a matter of personal preference.
- RCRN: Not compatible, as it uses its own post-process injector d3d9.dll.
- Enhanced Lights and FX: Fully compatible, though it can cause certain interiors to become perhaps a bit too dark. You can try adjusting the interior day/night settings for the ENB Gamma, Contrast, and Black In settings in the shaders window of the in-game GUI editor to balance it out.
- Realistic Lighting Overhaul: Fully compatible, however may require some additional tweaking as with ELFX since these mods were generally designed to work by themselves.
- Climates of Tamriel: I have found CoT to be fully compatible, though I still need to do per-weather configuration files for all the many CoT weathers.
If you do use CoT, I recommend using just the ClimatesOfTamriel.esm and ClimatesOfTamriel.bsa files by themselves. Any optional files from CoT are a matter of personal preference, but can tend to make things a little too dark with PNENB, especially any night version over 4.
INSTALLATION
NOTE: If you use other ENB's and have made custom tweaks, you might want to back up the enbseries folder for those prior to copying over the PNENB files. That way you can copy them back if you decide to install a different ENB.
- First of all, download ENBSeries v0.246 (mirror). Copy d3d9.dll from the "WrapperVersion" folder to your main Skyrim folder, saying yes to overwrite (this will also make sure you are using the right version and not one from another ENB, which is important).
- Next, copy everything from this mod's "1-ToSkyrimFolder" directory to your main Skyrim directory (should end in SteamApps->common->Skyrim) saying yes to overwrite when prompted.
- Download the enbhelper.dll and EXTRACT it to the "enbseries" folder in your Skyrim directory (created by the previous step if you didn't already have one.) This is needed for per-weather settings and underwater support.
- The default ENBoost config included with PNENB is set up for an NVIDIA card with 1GB+ VRAM running on a 64-bit OS. If you have a different card, use this utility to view the correct settings, then edit the appropriate section of enblocal.ini
- IMPORTANT: DO NOT set iPresentInterval=0 in SkyrimPrefs.ini as it causes all sorts of problems. Either remove this entry or set it to 1 to keep the game's internal vsync enabled, which is the default setting.
- Next download the PNENB_fixes plug-in from the main file section and copy PNENB.esp to your Skyrim/Data directory. Make sure it is checked in your plugins list from the launcher or whatever mod manager you use.
- Lastly, open your SkyrimPrefs.ini file from your Documents->My Games->Skyrim directory, and set bDrawShadows=1, bTreesReceiveShadows=1, bShadowsOnGrass=1 (may need to add manually), bDrawLandShadows=1, and bFloatPointRenderTarget=1. (This is required for all ENB configurations.)
NOTE: It is recommended whenever you install a new ENB or update, that you run the Skyrim launcher to update your config files before checking the above settings, as they can sometimes get reverted after running the launcher for the first time after an update (or after a video driver update). Just open the launcher, verify your settings, and close it as normal. You don't have to change anything to update your settings, just running the launcher is enough. Then check the above values in SkyrimPrefs.ini to make sure they are still correct.
IMPORTANT: In your Skyrim Launcher settings, set Antialiasing and Anisotropic Filtering to "Off (best performance)" since both are handled by the mod with better quality and faster performance. HOWEVER, for the record you CAN set FXAA on in the launcher under the advanced settings, and it DOES help to smooth things out even more. If your system can handle it, this is a decent and performance-friendly compliment to PNENB's SMAA, which looks quite a bit like ENB's EdgeAA. If your system really has some muscle though, I suggest trying out ENB's TransparencyAA (in enblocal.ini) which doesn't look near as blurry as FXAA or EdgeAA.
In your video card settings (NVIDIA Control Panel or Catalyst Control Center) make sure both Antialiasing and Anisotropic Filtering are either off or set to "Application Controlled," and the "Texture Filtering - Negative LOD Bias" (or something similar) is set to "Clamp" or "Off" (this is taken from the official ENB documentation.) Also, if your video card settings support Ambient Occlusion for Skyrim, make sure that is off as well as it will conflict with the better looking ENB version from this mod. Make sure Vsync is set to "Application Controlled" as well since PNENB does this through ENB (and don't try to force it anywhere else either), and if you have a "Maximum pre-rendered frames" option I suggest also setting it to "Application Controlled".
RECOMMENDED: *Memory patch removed pending SKSE-supported version. HERE is how to compile it yourself though. Also, there is a pre-compiled non-SKSE version out now (not tested).
On the topic of SKSE plugins, I also highly recommend everyone download and install the Stable uGridsToLoad plugin which will help prevent certain crashes that can happen even at the default uGrids value of 5.
Also, in addition to the Memory Allocation Patch I suggest opening the SKSE.ini it places in your Skyrim -> Data -> SKSE folder and adding the following:
[General]
ClearInvalidRegistrations=1
This will clear out broken OnUpdate scripts from removed mods over time and help eliminate bloating saves and another possible cause of instability. Native SKSE feature, verified by pro modders like Arthmoor, author of the unofficial Skyrim patches.
One final consideration: If you have any color/saturation/vibrancy settings enabled through your video drivers or any mod that adjusts fog, lights, or lets you configure color and other values in-game, I highly recommend turning them off until you have decided how you like this ENB configuration by itself.
OPTIONS
Optional Depth of Field: If you would prefer to use Depth of Field, which actually looks pretty cool (especially for screenshots), simply enable it from the in-game ENB config editor (see hotkey section). Click to save the configuration at the top of the editor and it will remember your preference. Alternately, you can manually edit the same value in enbseries.ini.
NOTE: This ENB configuration uses SubPixel Morphological Anti Aliasing (included), which is better than FXAA with very low performance cost. It is recommended NOT to change this since forcing AA through either the Skyrim launcher or video drivers will disable several of ENB's advanced graphical features like SSAO. If you would prefer to use a different screen space anti-aliasing (like a custom FXAA), you will need to change the PROXY setting in enblocal.ini to point to the correct .DLL.
Performance Options: If you find the default version too slow, first test setting SizeScale=0.4 and SourceTexturesScale=0.4 under the [SSAO_SSIL] section of enbseries.ini. You can try lowering SizeScale and SourceTexturesScale even lower to something between 0.3 and 0.4, though you must do this manually by editing the file in notepad or something similar prior to running the game (can't be modified in-game). If that still seems too slow you can set EnableAmbientOcclusion=false under the [EFFECT] section and/or DetailedShadowQuality=2 under the [SHADOW] section.
MORE OPTIONS: v1.54+ enables custom configuration of the HD6-based mode 5 shaders via the in-game ENB config editor. (See the articles section.)
RECOMMENDED MODS:
- The official HD texture DLC, plus A MIX from various HD texture mods, including SOME textures from, but not limited to:
- Skyrim Ultra HD Texture Pack by Mystery Modder and Skunky123.
- Skyrim HD - 2K Textures by NebuLa.
- Langleys Wood Metal and Stone Textures Workshop.
- aMidianBorn Book of Silence by CaBaL.
- Hectrol CAVES DELUXE by hectrol.
- Whiterun HQ Texture Pack by Chris2012.
- Telvanni reborn by Mystery Modder.
- Ruins Clutter Improved by raiserfx.
- Landscape Texture Pack by xclear - gorefest2011.
- Apophysis Dragon Priest Masks by pondcypress.
- Beautiful Skyrim - HD Clutter and Furniture by Masterdaz.
- Riften HQ textures by Erik.
- Solstheim landscape and furniture by langley.
- Tobes Highres Textures by Mr Bravo aka Tobe.
- Certain trees and grasses from Vurt's Skyrim Flora Overhaul.
- Brumbek's Static Mesh Improvement Mod.
- UNP Female Armors by exeter (and the body to go with them).
CREDITS
- Bethesda Game Studios for Skyrim and the Elder Scrolls series.
- Boris Vorontsov, for the core ENB that makes these awesome post-processing effects possible.
- PNENB uses SMAA, Copyright (C) 2011 by Jorge Jimenez, Jose I. Echevarria, Belen Masia, Fernando Navarro, and Diego Gutierrez.
- HeliosDoubleSix, for the Post Process Mode 5 effects and outstanding work on the enbeffect.fx file.
- Sheson, for the Skyrim Memory Allocation patch which eliminates engine ILS/CTD issues.
- TES5Edit. This tool has been indispensable in many modding endeavors.
- Matso, for his excellent Depth of Field effects.
- --JawZ--, for the helpful guides and examples of interior separation code.
- KyokushinOyama, Staind716, and solsikke737, for reference on combining various code in certain files.
- Midhras, Bronze316, Tapioks, and countless forum posts and helpful information from the modding community.
PERMISSION
The changes I have made to the code and file structure represent a considerable investment of time and effort and while I absolutely support continued development, I request that you please ask permission before using any of my files directly in your own configs. I would also clarify, you may not re-post, mirror, or otherwise distribute this config anywhere.
DOWNLOAD
Download at Skyrim Nexus
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