Legendary or Special Edition

[Sexysilvr 0]

Hey guys,

Just had a question regarding the two versions and was curious of your opinions. I have been modding legendary edition for the past 3-4 years and I am wondering if its a good time to swap over to special edition. I haven't been keeping up with any mods released for special edition so I don't know if there are any new note worthy mods for special edition or if its all mainly just re-releases of old mods from legendary. My main question is should I switch to Special edition or just continue with Legendary, and if you think I should change what mods for special edition make it standout from Legendary? Thank you all for your time.

[air 812]

I guess it mostly comes down the three things; which version your favorite mods are available for, which version you prefer the visuals of, and whether or not you're having any major stability issues on LE. 

It's hard to say what's noteworthy and what's not since everyone probably has a different idea of that. Also both versions have great mods which are exclusive to only one or the other so it's something you'll have to weigh between yourself. 

Visuals would be another preference and stability depends on your experiences. For me, my LE game has always been quite stable, and I actually prefer the visuals LE to SE, so neither of these things really helped push me towards SE but maybe it's different for you.

I think in any case it's a good idea to try modding SE for yourself to see if it allows you to achieve what you want or not. I did try it myself and learned that it's not quite what I want, but it's not far off either. So I try to keep it somewhat up to date just in case something happens to make me switch sides in the future.

[Kirax 653]

1. Performance wise, as in framerates and smootheness, SSE straight up kills LE on a landslide. 

Also people have said SSE is way more stable than LE - which is not true. LE can be no less stable than SSE, and sometimes even outperform if you mod list is setup right.

2. Visually, I personally think SSE looks like shit compared to LE no matter how I mod it.

[SavrenX 10,319]

If you use Dyndolod and landscape become important factor too, i say go with sse. With LE, dyndolod really burden for engine because 32 bit and it's rules about memory limit. Patched or not it still heavy. As for graphic quality, no argument about Dx9 vs DX11. Modern game shader look better because use DX11.

I can tell dx9 object mostly still feel like "old game" /ps3 compared to dx11 one. But again... good or not..the result depends on your Skill. In my case, my SE quality much better than LE. I play both game heavily modded and seriously for play not just for 10 minutes screenshoots. For technical, 64bit and DX11 sure better. You can make LE stable but too much sacrifice. In SE i can throw everything 4k and still play it well.

My experience... with High Dyndolod i only get 45fps on whiterun tundra ( 2k ). With SE, it boosted to 90-110fps ( no kidding. Same resolution ) plus no stutter, no ctd, and the lod become "alive" than LE. Objects become so much cleaner, thick and " believeable ".

Again..your skill is most important here. LE or SE...if you  don't have skill to use it...both sucks XD.

LE

SE

[sh1ny 186]

Aside from the bunch of awesomeness Don's displayed, keep in mind SE's got ESLs/ESPFEs, which greatly increases the number of plugins you can have installed prior to having to merge good old ESPs. It's mainly patches and a huge array of "light" plugins, but it's a big deal in a heavily-modded setup. SE also supports amazing BC7 texture compression, so huge uncompressed normals for LE is a thing of past. Coupled with SE's general stability, SE is incomparably better in terms of potential mod capacity. This is big: mods are coming.

Like it or not, SE still gets updates, though, so that could be a real PITA. Among other cons is the lack of HDT-PE support, so no flowing Harkon's cape or an HDT Equipment port for SE (a real bummer - for now, that is). On the bright side, HDT-SMP by HydrogensaysHDT has just gone open source, so who knows how many cool things are on their way?

ENB does wonders for LE and SE alike, so that's up to you, really. Personally, I find SE visuals more appealing, especially post-ENB.

[SavrenX 10,319]

53 minutes ago, sh1ny said:

Aside from the bunch of awesomeness Don's displayed, keep in mind SE's got ESLs/ESPFEs, which greatly increases the number of plugins you can have installed prior to having to merge good old ESPs. It's mainly patches and a huge array of "light" plugins, but it's a big deal in a heavily-modded setup. SE also supports amazing BC7 texture compression, so huge uncompressed normals for LE is a thing of past. Coupled with SE's general stability, SE is incomparably better in terms of potential mod capacity. This is big: mods are coming.

Like it or not, SE still gets updates, though, so that could be a real PITA. Among other cons is the lack of HDT-PE support, so no flowing Harkon's cape or an HDT Equipment port for SE (a real bummer - for now, that is). On the bright side, HDT-SMP by HydrogensaysHDT has just gone open source, so who knows how many cool things are on their way?

ENB does wonders for LE and SE alike, so that's up to you, really. Personally, I find SE visuals more appealing, especially post-ENB.

Oh yes that factor is very critical too. BC7 and ESL. For me, dxt5 totally unacceptable for skin perfection in 2019. Make my diffuse /normal map gradient blocky. Usually i use uncompressed. But that BC7 true godsend like FLAC audio. Face normal map almost like uncompressed. Crazy format. Even fading signal admire it. But uncompressed format still needed as backup source incase we want edit it or mix it. I moved to SE because i want invest my mod into better one. 

No game out there provide features like skyrim. HDT schlong...pose..sex scene...ect. That bandit can fuck us XD XD. So yes i want play this game with modern quality. Hahahha.

[Dredd 408]

I'm still on LE because, you know, "never stop a running system". But people who start from scratch may be better of with SE, especially if they just want to play the game.

That said, I'm going to try my hands on SE one more time over the holidays to see if I can create something that comes close to my current setup, which looks something like this (NSFW):

Spoiler

 

[NeutronSphere 346]

Default should be SSE. This coming from someone who mostly rolls LE. It is 64bit, more stable, and the drawbacks get fewer and fewer over time. Since I am either playing Enderal (not on SSE) or in development/testing mode, LE def wins but I am the exception. Being able to go from cold desktop to fully loaded in the game world in 6-8 seconds is too valuable, and the CK is way less of a headache and faster too. So unless stuff like that matters, or you consider HDT from LE or other mods a must, go SSE