[Linux] TES Skyrim SE - 0.452 vs 0.347

[Fatal Neurology]

I've discovered a breaking bug with ENB for Skyrim on linux.

Upon first launch, the game runs immaculately with enb installed using the same minimal cathedral weather preset you tested with and cathedral weathers as the only installed mod.

However, when the game is launched again there is only a flicker across the screen as skyrimse.exe crashes to desktop the moment it begins to run as its launched from stock native skyrim launcher.

There's an issue with the dxvk shader cache implementation. If SkyrimSE.dxvk-cache exists, SkyrimSE.exe will fail to launch. If it does not exist, or if ShaderCache=false in enblocal.ini, the game will run appropriately.

My system is almost identical to yours, mattie.

Steam launcher
Proton 6.5-GE-1
Skyrim AE (current)
Protontricks d3dx11_43, d3dcompiler_43, d3dcompiler_47
DXVK 1.7.3
Vulkan 1.2.182
Gentoo kernel 5.10.61
KDE Plasma 5.22.5
EVGA Nvidia GTX 1070 SC
ENBSeries v0465
ENBSeries presets tested: Cathedral minimalist, Rudy's ENB for Cathedral Weathers (Zangdar72 Lux varient)
Mods: Game runs with a large number

Performance is a real doozy. In 4k resolution, the clean skyrim install+cathedral weathers+minimal enb couldn't render the carriage scene smoothly on my system. That was before any mods. Reducing the resolution to 2560x1440 helped significantly.

I can try to get some logs for you if it would be helpful, at the moment I don't know where any generated log file would be but I could potentially create some debugging output by launching skyrim via shell using a stock version of Proton if that would be helpful for you. I do appreciate the attention and work you've put into getting to a working linux implementation, I regret that I can't send something your way on patreon for the good work you've done so far right now as I'm out of work atm. Hopefully this report is of some utility, it took some time to figure out exactly what was happening.

[ENBSeries]

Sorry to disappoint you, but i did almost no effort for linux version. It's just one user here reported that some old version worked with linux so i compared code and gave him for testing to find out what exactly is broken. I dont have linux for debugging, so can't fix anything actually.

[Fatal Neurology]

So it turns out everything is running near perfectly in Linux. I have ~300 of the latest top mods running using a selection of 4k to 1k textures with a screen resolution of 2560x1400. Everything is mostly fluid as I take a look around Dragon's Bridge, Windhelm, explore the world, etc. There are occasionally bursts of latency as the game appears to be loading in assets, but after that it's quite fluid again. That's quite reasonable output for my 1070 given the heavy mod load, and wow. Words cannot describe how incredible the visuals have become. It is honestly beyond my wildest imagination when I first started tinkering with skyrim modding a few weeks ago. I was even able to use the Re-Shade tool seemingly successfully, albeit I'm not sure how to validate that it's up and working.

That said, I have not yet been able to get everything perfect yet, with 4 issues (or 3) I'm dealing with. Two of them might be due to my enb preset.

1) The first issue is the crash on shader cache. Its a nuisance and makes it harder for linux users to adapt, but it has a clear and reliable workaround.

2) The second issue is that everything outside is way to bright. Instead of things going dark when cast in shadow/not in the presence of light, everything that should be a dark shadow is perfectly clear like there is a good amount of light everywhere, with everything illuminated in a perfectly even fashion. If there is no light, the objects aren't going to 0 luminosity and instead staying quite lit. Then in actual bright sunlight everything become overpoweringly bright, like light shining on things is getting added to this base-level illumination that's always present and it makes everything get way to bright. This ~only~ happens outdoors. Everything is working absolutely perfectly indoors. (It also happened to look exactly right in a foggy daylight in the swamps of morthal. It looked absolutely perfect there in that light. Could be just a random fluke.)

This could be an issue with my enb preset and not with the enb engine. The fact that indoors renders perfect and I'm only having issues outdoors is suggestive of this, but I am definitely getting a different outdoor experience than every other user and nobody is else seems to be having this problem.

3) The third issue is that enblocal.ini directly in Skyrim's main folder doesn't appear to affecting the enb. It isn't reading the ShaderCache=false parameter and keeps saving a cache that crashes it on the next launch if I forget to delete it.

4)(3a) The fourth issue, maybe just an extension of the third issue, is that I can't get the ingame enb menu opened to save my life. Only one single time on this enb preset I got it open. It was the first time I changed hotkeys to something of my choice and it opened the menu up (albeit I couldn't figure out how to close it after), but since then I've never been able to open it again no matter what I set it to. It's been making issue #2 impossible to further evaluate and resolve.

Both of these could be because of something funky in my enb preset that's causing it to not take values from enblocal.ini. If But if it is, I haven't been able to figure it out or seen the issue replicated elsewhere.

The enb preset I'm using is Rudy's ENB for Cathedral Weathers. https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecial ... mods/39113

I'm sharing this information, for one, to share the fact that even with very minimal effort enb is working on linux with all of its effects. Optimization for performance didn't turn out to be a serious problem when reducing the screen resolution to <4k (this is on hardware that was never meant for 4k to begin with). There are just a couple of hiccups to iron out and you have something the linux community could really enjoy. I'm also wondering if there's anything that immediately jumps out to you about a configuration problem I might have. I can certainly post some screenshots if anyone's curious to see..

[ENBSeries]

Maybe preset not completely installed, missed some of files. And about menu, just get my official enblocal.ini instead of preset's one, after all this file is not desinged to share in presets.

[Fatal Neurology]

That was it. Just an nooby user error on my part.

The correct linux installation method is: Place the contents of WrapperVersion into the Skyrim directory -> Overwrite the .dll with the file in Linux Version -> Place the contents of the ENB preset into the Skyrim directory, overwriting files.

Doing this loaded in all of the rest of the ENB visual effects, like really properly working particle lighting. With my careful mod selection, it makes the game look like some kind Skyrim live action film!! But all the effects loading in has made me finally face the performance limitations of my poor GTX 1070 SC. The game still remains mostly fluid during stress tests, such as being able to fluidly looking around atop dragon's bridge, except for a few last problems.

Whenever I have a direct view of the sun, I have horrible stuttering. It doesn't matter what whether its being partially occluded or my field of vision is pure sky, or what the whether is (provided the weather has a sun in the sky), massive stuttering happens and continues so long as the sun is in my vision. The moment I don't have direct sight of the sun, such as when its fully covered by a house or I look away from it, the game immediately returns to a fully fluid framerate.

The other lingering bug is that I still can't get into the enb menu ingame. I used your stock ini file and still couldn't get it to work, even setting some different keycodes. So its very hard to find the sun effect that broken for me and turn it off.

Is it possible you could suggest an ini edit that would disable a vision-of-the-sun effect that sounds like it could be the culprit here? I would be happy to try out a few edits. This seems like the last issue needing a workaround to fully use enb on linux.

[Fatal Neurology]

Actually let me just go ahead and try some edits to enbsunsprite.fx.ini, it doesn't seem like there's a whole going on here. I'll let you know if I find a fix.

[Fatal Neurology]

I figured out the culprit for the sun problem.

Under enbseries.ini, setting EnableSunGlare=false completely fixed the stuttering looking at the sun problem.

I would characterize the Skyrim ENB as fully working on linux right now the following workarounds:

1) Perform the standard installation but then overwrite it with the linux dll.
2) In enblocal.ini set ShaderCache=false. If SkyrimSE.dxvk-cache is still being created, you will need to delete it prior to launching skyrim.
3) In enbseries.ini, set EnableSunGlare=false

These are the only extra steps needed if you already have Skyrim working on linux. You can expect excellent performance and full use of all mods (with the same limitations as on windows, using mods isn't easy).

[ENBSeries]

Weird, sun glare should not have any performance issues, very cheap thing.

[DocM]

Hi there!

Just trying to follow the above installation steps but can't seem to find the Linux version anywhere on the site, is it still available so I can grab the .dll file?

Also is there any way of changing the key that brings up the ENB Menu in game?

All the best!

[ENBSeries]

It's in LinuxVersion folder of zip.
Key mapping is in the menu of editor.