#1 your going to want a mod manager. I use nexus mod manager and its never done me wrong. installing it is pritty straight forward. Be sure you do tell it to put your mods on a storage drive if your an ssd user like me.

#2 Clean your master files! there are plenty of guides out there on this Using the program Tes5edit but gopher is my favorite video maker. he keeps it short and sweet and has very nice audio recording. google it for now ill get board at some point and link things.

#3 Know what your MODing. There are all kings of mods out there. some mod scripts, some texture some mod so much it take nasa and 3 java programs to make it work :) so id like to go over some type with you and explain the impact these mods can have.

Ok so lets start with (texture mods).This is pritty much my area of mastery. Most texture mods dont require a .esp wich is very nice. this means they dont have a thing telling skyrim what needs to be were they just replace skyrims file with the new one. were its tricky is parallax, it has its own map so if i replace the some wall texture but it dosnt have its own map that wall is going to distort to what my old texture did. Also it can be hard to make textures blend well. one might look great but then you see it by another and you see it just dosnt look right. Its super important you install these in a good order so you dont get buged out wall and miss matched textures everywere. Performance inpact is alway a factor as well. People will tell you you need a 4k texture on everything... dont buy it. The best goal you can set is 2k 4k inside 1k outside and add some more objects to the game to fill the world space.

(Object adding mods) the best example for this is JK Towns. he just ads clutter in a nice lore friendly way. these mods are nice but will kill even the best rig with 4k textures on everything.

(Sript Mods) there is alot of these. Good examples are better vampires and frost fall. if a mod adds to many scripted events it can cuase major issues. crashing things poping up early "or flying ". I had the 2 guards at white run killing eachother making it so i couldnt get in at the start of the game once lol. script load cuases odd things like that so try not to install alot of these. just what you cant live without.

(dlc style mods) most are super fun and safe to install sense they are there own contenet.

(Animation Mods) efect how things move in most cases npc's or you. i think physics falls in line with this to. for example you can make butts and boobs bounce. physics changes can have a fps impact but in most cases minor. Most require Fores new idles to function and if you follow my npc guide you will be asked to install it.

 #4 Ok so we coverd what things are now lets talk goals vs hardware. with a moded 1k to 2k skyrim no object mods are good to use with 2gb ref cards. Etac, JK dosnt matter what will make playing near a town almost game braking. in fact you will want to limit how many npc's you add if you want good npc textures. 3dnpc was my limit on 2gb cards.

Now 4gb cards are a diffrent monster you can add some more distant objects in veiw and a lil more npc's and clutter.. even then your going to want to keep to performance to get these. so more objects and people = less texturing.

Please keep this all in mind when i say Optional FPS hit.

#5 lets talk hardware! first off there are a number of types of cpu's out there. a moded skyrim realy needs a 8.0 ghz 2 core pcu.. well i dont got one and i doubt you do. There are myths floating around that changing things in your ini will help "LET ME BE CLEAR" its a lie! also while multi core cpu's do a worse job they still spread the butter acrossed the toast in terms of work load. i have tested all cores but 2 and they all spread even. "DO NOT TWEAK FOR MULTI CORE USE"

FX 8350 and familla however can be set to 4 cores in your bios for a performance gain. I can only confirm this for them as for most intels. they go to 4 cores without users even knowing it happend in most cases.

Your cpu can greatly decreas your performance in any case. I would find a guide if you dont already know how to and overclock your cpu. for example the my fx 8305 is sitting pritty at 5ghz thats in 8 core config. at 4 core i got it sitting at 5.3. it comes stock at 4.0 4.2 boost. stock runs with hyper pie "the program i overclock with" in a 2 min process. would finish at 1.25 secounds. while thats ok.. get this.. at 5.2ghz 4 cores it finished in 45 secounds.  53 secounds at 8 core 5.0ghz by my math thats a like a 45% improvment! with a good cooler these clocks can run all day no issues. If life span is your worry its not that big a deal really. i have never needed a cpu more than 5 years. i have 3 from old systems just sitting here  "i feel old now and should throw that shit away :("

As for cards i Have seen a slight difference. by far a EVGA invidia is the way to go for skyrim. as for newer games i have to go with amd/ati from msi is preferd. dosnt mean they really lack in skyrim. im on a 290x now and had a hd 7850 prior. So if your looking to upgrade get what you want.

Thanks for taking the time to read my jabber ill leave some noted video's i learnd from on the main page.

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