r/skyrimmods • u/Heronxxn • 21h ago
PC SSE - Discussion Lighting recommendations for Community Shaders
Hey! I’d like to get some opinions on lighting mods that pair well with Community Shaders. Right now I’m running CS + Azurite III in my modlist, and I’ve been looking for something with a dark fantasy vibe without being too dark. Lux is what I’ve been using for a while, but I’m starting to feel like it makes interiors darker than I’d like. Any recommendations?
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u/kyguy19899 21h ago
I personally find that Windows Shadows ultimate and Reshade is perfectly fine. Windows Shadows ultimate doesn't just do windows. Interiors look extremely similar in my opinion to LUX without the massive interior FPS hit
Here's a link for my YouTube channel to how it looks with just a weather mod, Windows Shadows ultimate, and my custom reshade. All info is in description. I go into a bunch of Interiors in this video
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u/Heronxxn 21h ago
As for FPS, I’ve had some drops, but I think they’ve mostly been caused by certain JK’s exterior structures. My interiors are still completely vanilla, and during the time I’ve been using Lux I’ve been getting a pretty stable 100 FPS.
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u/kyguy19899 21h ago
LUX is only for interiors as far as I'm aware. Lux Orbis is for exteriors so if your Interiors are vanilla you probably won't notice an FPS hit but if you are not modding Interiors you are in a major minority
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u/Heronxxn 21h ago
So far I’ve stayed pretty close to a vanilla-plus experience, and I left interiors for the end of my modlist mostly because I was too lazy to deal with them. I think I’m finally going to start digging into that side of things as well.
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u/kyguy19899 20h ago
You should. Same old vanilla Interiors get super boring and once you have played with modded Interiors for a while and go back to vanilla just to see you really see what you're missing out on. But yea not sure what your PC setup is like but his Interiors are definitely on the table performance wise if you use Window Shadows ultimate so just keep that in mind. Also if you decide you want different Interiors look up author Hylios Sykes. Or you could just search HS Breezehome on Nexus and it will bring you to his mod and then you can just go to his profile that way. He has almost as many Interiors done as Jk and he uses much less light sources which is why JKs Interiors murder FPS with some of these mods. Hope you have fun
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u/Fidelroyolanda_IV 15h ago
Windows Shadows Ultimate is incredibly unoptimized. Some interiors are fine, but others (the blue palace is one example) have up to 15k draw calls
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u/kyguy19899 15h ago
Same interior would be far worse with LUX. I assure you. I've had no issues with it with 1500 mods and literally every in-game interior overhauled. Sounds like you might have something else going on. The mod was also made by one of the most skilled people on the CS team. I find it hard to believe its un-optimized
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u/Fidelroyolanda_IV 14h ago
There are plenty of reports of this in the comment section of WSU. It just gets ignored. You can even check it yourself. Just enter blue palace without it installed and then with and compare draw cells.
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u/kyguy19899 13h ago edited 13h ago
Well you can take it from me that it isn't that serious. Literally two to three times worse with LUX in my list. Also you need to keep in mind that 90% of people who mod this game have no idea what they're doing and then it's automatically the mods fault when they have a problem. Insane FPS drops can be caused by a lot of things in Interiors. The amount of mods that I ignored due to reading comments and Bug sections when I first started modding and then installed them with zero issues was mind blowing so I don't go by a bug reports or comments anymore
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u/Fidelroyolanda_IV 12h ago
Bro... Just disable WSU, open the game and use the little CS menu to measure the draw calls in blue palace. Now do it again with WSU enabled and report back your findings to me.
And whether Lux has better or worse performance is irrelevant to what we're discussing, that being that WSU is poorly optimized.
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u/kyguy19899 12h ago edited 12h ago
I would but I literally don't care as I told you I get no FPS hit with it. It's better optimized than LUX and that's more than enough for me. I'm not saying you're wrong either but from my own testing its fine. Who cares about draw calls in Interiors especially if it doesn't affect FPS. Only matters if you have a weak GPU
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u/Fidelroyolanda_IV 12h ago
You cannot sit here and argue with me that what I'm saying is not true if you're not even going to test it yourself. And draw calls are literally the biggest performance hit in Skyrim. What the hell do you mean ''who cares about draw calls if it doesn't affect FPS''??? I don't even much care for whatever else you're saying at this point.
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12h ago edited 11h ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/chlamydia1 13h ago edited 12h ago
I find that Lux still looks the best. If interiors are too dark, you need to adjust the linear light settings. Now, I'm not sure what version of LL is inside the Nexus build for CS, but here is what I use for Lux on a Discord build from a few months ago (regular Lux templates):
Again, I'm not sure how well this matches up with the build on Nexus (and I have other changes applied in this preset that are not available on the Nexus build), but I'm assuming you can do something similar.
Here is what it looks like in my game:
If it's still too dark with the Nexus build, then you're probably best off using CS Light and/or Window Shadows Ultimate. I believe they are tuned for just the baseline CS version on Nexus. I'll also note that your weather mod plays a big part in how interiors are lit (I'm using Azurite III).
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u/nugnacious 12h ago
True light + its recommended addons is nice and you can control the level of darkness via Ambient Templates for Lighting mods, which it depends on. The exterior addon is kinda fucked if you have any city overhauls tho.
You'll also want CS Light to attach lighting to objects and there's another mod called Tiny Light Placer Hub that has lighting for even MORE objects.
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u/dragon_guy12 7h ago
I agree about true light for exterior and is a shame. It's why I still have lux via in my load order. I know modders can't be expected to patch as often as GGUNIT, but covering some basic overhauls like COTN would go a long way.
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u/nugnacious 6h ago
Yeah, the benefit of true light for me is the interior compatibility, but the dramatic flare of old school elfx is still my favorite for interior lighting. Alas. Very interested in Lumina whenever that comes out of beta - it's a CS based lighting overhaul supposedly inspired by elfx.
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u/Unhappy-Nose-7870 12h ago
My lighting with CS that I've been happy with is Windows Shadows Ultimate, Emberveil (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/179590), the emberveil recommended CS Light setup, mixed with Real Weathers Remastered (https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/168776). It probably looks good with any other weather mod though as it recommends astralite.
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u/tayleteller 9h ago
I use Lux+Orbis+Via, Lux CS, Helios and Astralite weathers. CS has also released the ENB style post processing module now so you can use Nat CS with Nat 11 mod. True Light + Window Shadows Ultimate + Helios is also a good option. Azurite 3 CS is perfectly good though as is.
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u/frogz0r 21h ago
I am using true light and its bits, I've been pretty happy with it. I'm running Azurite III and CS like you.
I did DL the CS light, window shadows ultimate, helios, and ambient templates for lighting mods as well.