Vanilla Skyrim Visual Overhaul Recommendations

[Ponty]

Hi all! Looking to potentially get back into playing Skyrim later this year and I was after some suggestions for mods to overhaul the appearance of the vanilla game. I have some fairly chonky specs so I'm hoping to get a standout result!

• Intel i5 6600k CPU
• 16GB of DDR4 RAM @2133MHz
• NVIDIA GTX1070 8GB

[Ponty]

I've received the following recommendations thus far:

• Imaginator ENB
• Rudy ENB
• Northern Grass
• Verdant Grass
• Noble Skyrim
• Amidianborn Book of Silence
• Rustic Skyrim
• Common Clothes
• Racemenu

[Curse]

Here are some texture mods you absolutely must have. They cover a huge swath of the game so they make a great baseline for your game. Should you come across individual texture mods that retexture the same assets you can simple override what I list below. 

aMidianBorn Book of SIlence - High Res retexture pack for all vanilla armors and weapons

Noble Skyrim 2k - Gives all of Skyrim's architecture a complete new look by changing its textures to custom ones. Beside the architecture, several other things, such as landscape, dungeons (ruins, mines, caves etc.), clutter stuff etc. have been re-textured as well. 1k version looks just as good and has less of a performance impact

Ethereal Elven Overhaul - Seriously fuck playing elves without this mod. Does away with that massive five-head ridge and makes elves look closer to what they do in ESO. 

Static Mesh Improvement Mod (SMIM) - Replaces those lazy shitty static models that look like paper with far better 3 dimensional models. 

LeanWolf's Better Shaped Weapons - Because bladed weapons shouldnt be thicker than boat paddles. 

[Curse]

I'll keep dropping more of these as I remember them. 

Racemenu - Complete overhaul to the character creation menu including new customization features such as multiple RGBA warpaints, body paints, hand paint, and foot paints.Adds a sickening amount of character creation customization options. 

Bellyache's HD Dragon Replacer - Remastered high-definition textures for the ten dragon types of vanilla Skyrim, Dragonborn, and Dawnguard

[Ponty]

Got some more tips from Teccam over on the discord:

 

 

The visual mods from Ultimate Skyrim might be a good place to start

 I’d guess a lot of the old standards still apply. Noble Skyrim, aMidianBorn, Rustic, Enhanced Vanilla Trees, Realistic Water 2, etc.

 Snowfall and Rudy were the best ENBs when I last played LE but that was at least 2-3 years ago

 Maybe see if hodilton has uploaded and LE ENB videos in the last year or so

[Legendary dragon slayer]

I’ve heard great things about Obsidian Mountain Fog and Real clouds

Obsidian Mountain Fog - https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/88676

Real Clouds - Now this one is interesting. Normally Skyrim clouds are just painted onto a background. But this mod adds in dynamic real clouds that float in the sky. You could even fly through them if you have a flying mod. 

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/39450

[Curse]

Oh absolutely get mountain fogs and real clouds. They add so much depth and atmosphere to the game. 

Id also recommend Enhanced Vanilla Trees https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/76086

[Ponty]

Found this page with a BIG mod list for LE. Noting it here for later! https://www.sinitargaming.com/skyrim_graphics.html