A comprehensive guide for properly installing and editing ENBs for n00bs and gurus alike -- by the S.T.E.P. Team and contributing members
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GUIDE FORUM THREAD
SUPPORT FORUM POST-PROCESSOR SUGGESTIONS Introduction
'ENB' is short for 'ENBSeries', which is a post-processing 'engine' with versions available for many games, including Skyrim. This Guide will help newcomers become familiar with the basics of installing and using ENBSeries and will also provide answers to many questions applicable to all users from those wishing to quickly install and configure ENBoost or a full-blown ENB preset, as well as, advanced users and ENB preset developers wanting to reference more of the technical information. The main guide is written to address novice and advanced users alike with 'quickstart' in mind. Links to more information and ancillary guides are included.
What is ENB?
ENBSeries (ENB) is a post-processor modification (mod) created and maintained by Boris Voronstov. What this means is that ENBSeries adds digital enhancements to games purely by modifying the video output after (or 'post') the decoding process of game assets into the initial graphical result. Initial post-processing is done by the game's shader program(s), and ENBSeries builds upon this initial post-processing using more advanced techniques that the game's shader engine is either incapable of or simply doesn't implement itself. This is accomplished by using a custom API in the form of a dynamic link library (DLL) to the game shader engine. In addition to advanced shader post-processing, ENBSeries also implements a memory manager, called 'ENBoost', that enhances the efficiency of video memory management, resulting in increased performance and stabilization, in addition to the increased quality provided by the post-processing engine.
If that was too technical, ENBSeries (ENB) is a mod that allows authors to make custom presets (commonly referred to as 'ENBs') which change some effects, like lighting, and enhances or replaces others, like shadows and the sun. Each preset can offer a range of 'look and feel' environments for the game it's used for. Such as providing a cooler or warmer color palette, fantasy or 'realistic' lighting environments, and/or either more vibrant or bleak saturation. The combinations are endless and there is likely an ENB preset that is perfect for every user's personal tastes. However, all those added effects often come at a cost to performance. Luckily, most authors provide 'performance' versions of their presets which are lighter on resources.
ENBoostWhat is ENBoost?
ENBoost is a memory management feature added to ENBSeries to address the crashes and freezes relating to the well-known system memory (RAM) limit of 32-bit applications like Skyrim. It is one major part of a multi-part solution STEP recommends for dealing with this limitation (see 2.C. Extenders section of the STEP Guide). ENBoost is included in the ENBSeries graphics modification and is now incorporated into all ENB presets using ENBSeries v0.192 and newer. ENBoost can also be implemented as a stand-alone video-graphics memory manager for Skyrim without implementing any ENB post-processing effects.
In order to understand how ENBoost works, it is important to first know how Skyrim manages memory. The main Skyrim game executable, TESV.exe, is a 32-bit Large-Address-Aware (LAA) application. This means that although TESV.exe can only use a maximum of 2GB of system RAM on 32-bit Windows systems, it can access up to about 3.1GB of system RAM (4GB - about 900MB of system resources) on 64-bit systems. To drive the video card in displaying Skyrim's 3D rendered graphics, TESV.exe must store object geometry (the shapes of things in the game) and texture data cached in its memory space, which is then copied to your video card's VRAM to display. The memory limit is not a problem with an unmodded Skyrim because the cached data is dynamically loaded and unloaded to make room for new data as it's needed, and it almost never completely fills up all of TESV.exe's available RAM. However, when mods are added to Skyrim, the memory needed for cached data is significantly increased, and the more mods that are used, especially higher resolution texture mods, the higher the chance that TESV.exe will run out of memory. When this happens, either the program crashes or some objects do not get rendered. ENBoost overcomes this memory limitation by ..
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The second method is accomplished by running an executable named enbhost.exe, which adds up to another 4GB of memory available for ENBSeries to manage per instance. The effectiveness and performance of ENBoost is determined by a number of factors, such as size of system RAM / VRAM, quality of video card, version of Windows OS, CPU, and even motherboard memory channel speed. Fortunately, a number of ENBoost user-settings have been added to account for the enormous variety of user's system configurations.
ENBoost Installation
→ENBoost Quickstart Instructions
Notice:ENBoost is not ENB per se. Rather, ENBoost stand-alone configuration implements only the memory-management features of ENB without the lighting enahncemets that most people associate with ENB. Thus, ENBoost is an essential extension that STEP recommends for ALL users, even those that are not running ENB 'proper'.
ENBSeries (in all its glory)
As described in the Introduction above, an ENB Preset (aka 'ENB') encompasses all of the features of ENBSeries, including ENBoost and all the post-processing features.
ENBSeries Features
The latest versions of ENBSeries available to download include many enhanced and new features verses older versions. Most ENB Presets which are still in active development have been updated to utilize one of the newer versions, or have stated that they are compatible with them. Any ENB Preset which uses a version prior to v0.236 is outdated and could possibly have issues when attempting to use them with the latest ENBSeries versions. The Preset recommendations below are current for at least one of the latest ENBSeries versions. So, what's new?
There have been several improvements from recent ENBSeries releases. From v0.236 to the current version the following have been added:
ENBSeries Installation
This is a basic quickstart and generic set of instructions for setting up ENBSeries; however, most ENB Presets include installers or detailed installation instructions of their own. The following instructions provide assistance where certain ENB Preset instructions may be lacking. Always defer to the Preset instructions first, and use the following instructions to fill in the blanks, if necessary.
Warning About Enblocal.ini
Some ENB Presets will include an enblocal.ini file. This is not a recommended practice and users should not overwrite their own file with the one included in Presets. The reason for this is because this enb'local' file is meant to be used for each user's personal system. Best practice is for users to open their personal enblocal.ini file alongside the file included with the Preset and copy over changes only from the following sections:
Recommended ENB Presets
Since the introduction of ENBSeries for Skyrim, there have been hundreds of ENB Presets created; however, most have not been updated to use the latest version of ENBSeries; therefore, please refer to the chosen ENB Preset's documentation to ensure the correct version of ENBSeries is downloaded and used.
ENB Presets come in just about every style imaginable. As such, this section can be extremely subjective. STEP suggests browsing around to find the perfect preset to suit the user's personal preferences. There isn't an official STEP recommended ENB Preset, however, below are a few excellent, widely-used Presets and information about them. For general installation instructions, see the Installation section above; however, it is highly recommended to follow the author's installation instructions found on the ENB Preset's Nexus page.
Vividian - Weather and Lighting
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