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Conclusion and notes: For some reason it may lower FPS lows considerably, but in most cases it still improves performance enough to be worth using.

Mod links and versions:

• lStewieAl's Engine Optimizations (1.0)

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Conclusion and notes: Essential.

Mod links and versions:

• NVTF - New Vegas Tick Fix (10.6)

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Conclusion and notes: Increases CPU performance noticeably in most cases, but compatibility can vary a lot with different GPUs, drivers, and DXVK versions. Unless you're on the Linux AMD RADV drivers, it also causes dithering. All the information you'll need to use DXVK effectively is in the FNV Performance Guide.

Mod links and versions:

• DXVK (2.6.1)

Scenario	60 FPS Loading	350 FPS Loading	No Loading Lock	350 FPS Loading + HFPF Speed Ups	350 FPS Loading + HFPF Speed Ups + Long Loading Times Fix
COC DiamondCityExterior	15.57s	9.91s	9.30s	9.21s	9.10s
Entering DC	20.90s	6.92s	17.20s	3.25s	4.25s
Exiting DC	23.16s	9.16s	29.91s	5.79s	6.83s

Date of testing: 2/9/24

Conclusion and notes: The speed ups mentioned are DisableBlackLoadingScreens and DisableAnimationOnLoadingScreens. Tested using the High FPS Physics Fix loading timer.

The results show that:

• Increasing the loading screen FPS cap from 60 to 350 significantly reduces load times across all scenarios.
• Removing the loading lock entirely breaks the loading time in most cases.
• Applying HFPF's speed ups further improves load times.
• Adding Long Loading Times Fix on top of HFPF speed ups does not always result in further improvements and, in some cases, slightly increases load times.

Overall, Long Loading Times Fix is made redundant by a proper HFPF configuration, as instructed here during The Midnight Ride guide.

Mod links and versions:

• High FPS Physics Fix (0.8.6)
• Long Loading Times Fix (1.1.1)
• Windows 11 Pro Build 26100
• Driver 24.10.1

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Conclusion and notes: Windows already gives CPU scheduling priority to the foreground application, making most of these CPU priority mods pointless and an easy DP farm for people.

Mod links and versions:

• Skyrim Priority SE AE - CPU Performance FPS Optimizer (3.4.0)

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Conclusion and notes: As you may predict, removing a few objects in scenes with thousands of others is not going to do anything noticeable.

Mod links and versions:

• Lightened Skyrim (1.06)

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Conclusion and notes: Grass is instanced and the CPU performance from its draws is barely relevant. This means that the mod realistically only affects tri-count (affecting GPU performance), and clearly not enough to even be measured.

Mod links and versions:

• Insignificant Object Remover (1.2.2)

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Conclusion and notes: CPU performance isn't measured for the same reason as Insignificant Object Remover (instancing). The mod reduces visual fidelity and doesn't bring any noticeable performance improvements. The plugin is also riddled with out of scope changes.

Mod links and versions:

• Grass FPS Booster (7.9.2)

Conclusion and notes: Up until the release of JK's Riften Outskirts, jkrojmal kept stating that the mod could perform at 60FPS with an ENB and who knows what else loaded on an i7 2600 and 980Ti. Considering the age of those components and the huge hit from the mod + just ENB alone, I find that really hard to believe, especially because the statement remained identical for years.

Personally, I find the interior decor of most of the suite to be quite poor taste and more aimed towards maximalist design, which really clashes against the rest of the game's lack of detail and just wants to look fancy for pictures. The performance hit is not justified at all.

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Mod links and versions:

• JK's Whiterun Outskirts (1.6.2)
• JK's The Bannered Mare (1.1.1)
• JK's Palace of the Kings (1.2)
• JK's Warmaiden's (1.3)
• JK's Radiant Raiment (1.0.4)
• JK's Dragonsreach (1.1.3)
• JK's The Temple of Mara (1.1)
• JK's Understone Keep (1.1.2)
• JK's The Bee and Barb (1.1.1)
• JK's Elgrims Elixirs (1.1)

VRAM usage:

Scenario	Vanilla	Terrain LOD	DynDOLOD	Terrain LOD + DynDOLOD
GPU Bound 1	3.03GB	4.38GB	4.96GB	5.02GB
GPU Bound 2	3GB	4.31GB	4.86GB	4.9GB
GPU Bound 3	3.86GB	3.86GB	4.49GB	4.56GB

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Conclusion and notes: Regenerating terrain LOD is a no-brainer, it looks significantly better and the performance impact is minimal. The DBF DynDOLOD settings are fairly maxed out, and even then the performance impact is nothing outrageous. For most systems, the bigger concern is probably the almost 2GB (and this is almost a minimum with how vanilla oriented DBF is) of added VRAM usage when using terrain LOD + DynDOLOD with these settings, so make sure that you have enough VRAM available.

Mod links and versions:

• xLODGen (Beta 132)
• DynDOLOD 3 Alpha (Alpha-194)
• ACMOS Road Generator (4.0)
• A Clear Map of Skyrim and Other Worlds (4.0)
• DynDOLOD Resources SE 3 (Alpha-57)
• DynDOLOD DLL NG (Alpha-36)
• Noise DDS (2.0)
• Far Object LOD Improvement Project SSE (1.1)
• DBF LOD Guide - Whiter Snow LOD Material
• SSE Terrain Tamriel Extend (2.0)
• DBF LOD Guide - Temp Snow Replacement

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Conclusion and notes: The tests were taken with Community Shaders (+LLF because CS by itself reduces performance due to bad vanilla lighting code) for consistency with the setup required by complex grass patches. Grass LOD is very heavy so I'd consider it only for very high-end systems and/or screenarchers.

Mod links and versions:

• All the links from the DBF LOD Guide benchmark.
• No Grass In Objects (1.5.4)
• Grass Cache Helper NG (1.0.1)
• Vanilla Complex Grasses for ENB (1.0.0)

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Conclusion and notes: EVT is a great option for people who want to keep the vanilla look at the same performance. Weirdly, the mod consistently lowers FPS lows in specific scenes, it's not enough to matter realistically but an interesting find nonetheless.

Mod links and versions:

• Nature of the Wild Lands - forest and trees improvement mod (3.12)
• Traverse the Ulvenwald - 3.3 - Trees and Forests of Skyrim (3.3.2)
• Happy Little Trees (2.03)
• Skyland Happy Little Trees Bark (1.2)
• HD Remastered Tree Bark - Happy Little Trees - 16k 8k 4k 2k (3.0.1)
• Lightwood Trees (1.22)
• Fabled Forests (2.1A)
• Enhanced Vanilla Trees SE (2.2.2)

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Conclusion and notes:

• Community Shaders without Light Limit Fix will perform noticeably worse than vanilla due to LLF's replacement of vanilla code that CS would otherwise fall back to. This means that CS with LLF has to be considered as the base setup for CS in order not to skew other results. This might be resolved in future versions of CS, but for now it is what it is.
• For some reason, LLF drastically increases CPU performance variance in interiors, making profiling very tedious and often unreliable. For this reason, don't give much consideration to the percentage lows of LLF.
• Both CS and LLF reduce percentage lows when GPU bound, although the average FPS is often improved.

Mod links and versions:

• Community Shaders (1.3.4)
• Light Limit Fix - Community Shaders (2.3.0)

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Conclusion and notes: Screenspace Shadows is a GPU-bound effect, meaning that it will not affect CPU performance. It performs really well, and bumping up the samples multiplier improves quality without a significant performance hit^[1].

1. This can depend on the GPU architecture. As shown the 2nd graph, a 6700XT might perform marginally better with 3x samples than with 2x. Attempting to delve into something so complex would be too long winded and most likely inaccurate, so it suffices to say that various GPUs will have different optimal settings. Considered how light the mod is, it most likely won't matter much in practice.

Mod links and versions:

• Community Shaders (1.3.4)
• Light Limit Fix - Community Shaders (2.3.0)
• Screen Space Shadows - Community Shaders (1.2.1)