There are so many good games out this fall. So, so many. There's a type of video game for just about every type of video game player. But there is one thing missing: There's no vast, open-world role-playing game.
Bethesda, scions of the vast open-world RPG, have dedicated this year to the fantastic but decidedly not-open-world Dishonored. I had to go somewhere to get my fix of wandering, leveling, and exploring. And so I decided to return to Fallout: New Vegas.
Over the past couple of years, I've heard a lot of people rave about the underratedness and overlookedness of Obsidian's take on Bethesda's first-person reinvention of the Fallout universe. I actually played a big chunk of New Vegas when it first came out, but I never finished it. I just sort of ran out of steam not too long after I'd arrived on the strip.
Two years later, with a healthy gaming PC and a new appreciation for how much modding can improve these types of games, I thought I'd dig back in. After so, so many hours in Skyrim, I'm increasingly hungry to return to the darker and, frankly, more interesting Fallout universe. (That's a mouthful! But you get it, right? Obsidian made New Vegas, Bethesda just published it.) I've also heard nothing but good things about the New Vegas DLC, which is now so cheap that I couldn't help but download all of it.
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I'll be writing a few articles about my time in New Vegas—it's a crazy time of year, and I can't guarantee that I'll be able to play the game all the way through or anything, but I've already put in a big chunk of time and have noticed a lot of interesting stuff while doing so.
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For the first post, I thought I'd write about how I've modded the game to get it looking as good as possible. I haven't gone nearly as overboard with mods as I did with Skyrim; lots of New Vegas mods make the game unstable, and seeing as how it's already pretty crash-y, I wanted to stick with the biggest cosmetic upgrades and not much else.
So, here's what I've got installed. These mods, coupled with my solid gaming PC (I'm running an i5 2.8GHz with 8GB of RAM and a GeForce 660Ti) certainly make New Vegas a better-looking, more tweakable, and more interesting game than it was when I played it on Xbox in 2010.
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I've downloaded all of these mods from The Nexusmods Site for New Vegas, and most have been installed using the Nexus Mod Manager. I've made a note of the mods that require manual installation. Here goes:
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Project Nevada
Project Nevada is the only overhaul-ish mod I'm using, but it's a heck of an overhaul. It adds all kinds of crap to the game—hotkeys for grenades, a sprint button, bullet-time, stealth modes, cybernetic implants… honestly, it makes New Vegas feel like a much different—and much better—game. I particularly like the cybernetic implants—my sneaky fast-talker now has a stealth mod installed in her chest, and with a press of the 'X' button, I can activate a stealth field akin to a Stealth Boy. This is great, since I always hoarded stealth boys in the original game and never used them.
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To get Project Nevada to work, you'll have to install the latest version of the New Vegas Script Extender, which is very easy to do. Just follow the directions at the site. You'll also have to check the boxes for the four .esm files in the 'Plugins' tab in the Nexus Mod Manager.
Centered Third Person Camera
This one does just what it sounds like—it centers the third-person camera. Very nice, as the up-close third person camera is weird and claustrophobic. It's especially good for those early hours when you need to run/jump away from radscorpions to get where you're going. It's much easier to see when one of the little biters is right on your heels.
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Fellout NV
Fellout is a mod that, just like the previous version for Fallout 3, removes the orange tint that the game previously had. It, in combination with a couple of other mods, makes the game a much more welcoming-looking thing, and makes daytime in the desert a more arid, clear affair. I dig it.
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NMC's Texture Pack
NMC's texture overhaul for New Vegas is definitely the biggest graphical boost you can give the game, though it can also be a bit persnickety. You can't use the mod manager, and have to extract the archives straight into your New Vegas directory. That's no sweat, but after installing the large version of the pack, my game became hugely unstable. You'll also want to install the 4GB New Vegas Mod, which allows the game to use 4GB of virtual memory. Unfortunately, even with that mod installed, the texture pack caused constant crashes.
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I downgraded to the medium texture pack, and things are much, much more stable now. The game still looks great, and while it does crash every hour or two, I'm A) not certain the crashes are due to the textures and B) can live with it.
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Nevada Skies
Nevada Skies adds a bunch of new weather effects and sky textures to the game, and makes everything that much prettier.
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FNV Enhanced Shaders
This is another big one—I've actually installed the lite version of this mod, since the most recent one forces me to turn off AA and also slows my framerate down. The lite version still looks nice though, and adds a lot of good lighting effects. I generally turn it off when I'm in dungeons, however, as it just makes things too dark. Fortunately, you can turn it off with a simple keystroke at any time.
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And that's that. There are, of course, a ton of other mods I could install, but I don't want to change the core experience too much—I'm interested in looking back at how the game feels a few years after it came out, and Project Nevada brings enough changes to keep me happy.
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I've been playing the game sort of casually between other big fall releases, but I've already noticed a lot of things that are interesting, particularly after spending so much time playing Skyrim (and so much more time theorizing about Bethesda's presumed Fallout follow-up). I'll have some more articles throughout the week about New Vegas, and hey, if you've got any free time between the alien-blasting and stealth-stabbing, download some mods and join in.
After hours of numerous tries finally figured out how to get wrapper version of ENB with preset that have proxy libraries to work under Win10.
Here's a small guide:
0. Make sure game is installed somewhere outside of Program Files (x86) !
1. Install ENB wrapper as usual: enbhost.exe and d3d9.dll into the game root. 2. Copy d3d9.dll from the game root to exes folder. 3. Install ENB Preset instead of game root folder into the exes folder (!. 4. Edit ini files (enblocal.ini and enbseries.ini) as described in the guide. 5. Move ini files back to the game root folder.
6. (Not 100% sure if this step is required. If someone can verify without this step please do and let us know) Follow micmou's guide from TTW forums to take ownership over FNV folder: https://taleoftwowas...-and-windows-10 7. Profit.
Edited by raycrios, 10 October 2015 - 08:44 AM.
A comprehensive guide for properly installing and editing ENBs for n00bs and gurus alike -- by the S.T.E.P. Team and contributing members
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 ...
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.iniHow To Install Blackout Enb Fallout New Vegas
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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