Have you ever gotten knee deep in shi into your own Riften overhaul and realized "wow my framerate sure sucks butt in here no matter what I do."  Have you ever wondered why Bethesda not only put the entirety of the rift and lake outside for you to load, but also put the entirety of Riften inside the walls so your framerate could eat the asparagus just by walking close to it?  Have you ever thrown up your arms in exasperation and went to mod Whiterun for the 26th time instead?

If you answered yes or no to any of the above questions, then this mod is for you.  A girthy gate was planted in front of both canals (and partially into the orphanage. F you Grelod). Inside Riften AND outside.  You're welcome.  Occlusion panes were put up in both Riften and Tamriel to block everything off, including the two sides of the city Bethesda didn't put panes in front of for some reason.

This mod is compatible with build your own Ryften though obviously the hidden water entrances to the city are inaccessible.  The upper entrances still work.

Q&A

Q: Why have you done this?
A: Why does anyone do anything?

Q: Isn't that too many occlusion panes?
A: I have all of the eFPS mods installed and experience no problems

Q: Performance gains?
A: For me about ~7 FPS and 2 gigs of VRAM.  YMMV.

Q: Can you make it look nicer?
A: No

Q: I could do this 10 times better with 5 minutes in the creation kit.
A: Please.  When you put your mod up, I'll take this one down.  Or I can put it up here as the next version.

Q: This mod broke such and such vanilla quest
A: I have a massive team of QA testers and their daddies work for Bethesda. They didn't find any issues.