Skyrim VR Modding for Mid-Range PCs

Guide to modding Skyrim VR to make it a better game, for those of us who don't have RTX 4080's but can also run the game.

Introduction

Below is the modlist that I personally use with SkyrimVR and how I got everything to work. There will be plenty of links for everything. There are a few graphics mods, but they are lightweight and meant to not slow your computer down to a crawl. Most of the mods add content to the game that is lorefriendly, immersive, and improves the SkyrimVR experience to be closer to what you deserve for paying $60 for a game (or $20 if you got it on sale like me).

My computer specs:
Intel i5 6600K
16GBs DDR4-2400 RAM
Nvidia GTX 1070ti 8GB
SkyrimVR installed on a regular HDD, OS on an SSD.
Oculus Rift S

Setting Up

I'm starting from the beginning. Skip this section if you already know how to download and install mods for SkyrimVR (and it is different from other games).

First, you need to install Vortex mod manager[www.nexusmods.com] from Nexusmods.

Nexusmods has a guide on basic mod installation on their website here.[wiki.nexusmods.com] If you are new to modding, start with this.

Once you have it installed and set up, it will detect what games you have on your PC (you might need to make it look in more destinations if you install games in weird places). I'm assuming if you're someone who doesn't install everything to your default C: locations, then you're going to know how to set up the minutiae with getting Vortex working for you.

For all Nexusmods that we download from this guide, we'll click on Mod Manager Download, and it will automatically open up Vortex and download where they need to go. Vortex makes this whole process so much simpler, so consider dropping a membership to Nexusmods for the faster download speeds. Some of these mods are going to be pretty big anyways.

For maximum stability, only download a few mods at a time, install them, and then run the game for a few minutes to make sure your game doesn't crash. If it crashes, uninstall the mods you just set up and try to reinstall them and try again. Once your game isn't crashing anymore, turn the game off and install the next few.

A Note on Vortex and Manual Downloads

Vortex

SkyrimVR is based on Skyrim Special Edition, so almost all mods that work with SSE work in VR. However, Vortex and Nexusmods are weird about this. So when you go to download many of these mods, Vortex will drop an error on the downloads page saying that the mods aren't designed to work with the game. If you see this error, tell it to install to SkyrimVR anyways. If you go to install a mod and see it hasn't been downloaded yet, check the Downloads page on Vortex - they're probably stuck in there.

Manual Downloads

Some of these mods will require manual downloads in order to work. However, all mods like this in this guide come with very simple readme's for getting them to work. I have passed on a few mods that others have recommended because installing them was too annoying. You won't see any of those here.

Before We Begin, There's the Shadows

SkyrimVR is incredibly buggy, and no amount of mods are going to completely fix that. And one of the biggest issues is with shadows flickering. This is tied to which VR headset you are using, and thankfully Kithara on Steam provided a guide that fixes this. Drop them a like or award for their hard work! Below is a copy/paste of their fix:

If you haven't played the game yet; launch the game, now close the game.

Open %USERPROFILE%\Documents\My Games\Skyrim VR\SkyrimVR.ini and change/add the following lines:

This will make the shadows stop flickering:

[VR]
iShadowUpdateFrameDelay=1

Physics fix for all HMDs at 90Hz:

[HAVOK]
fMaxTime=0.01111
uMaxNumPhysicsStepsPerUpdate=1
fMaxTimecomplex=0.02222

For 72Hz (Oculus Quest) use:

[HAVOK]
fMaxTime=0.0138
uMaxNumPhysicsStepsPerUpdate=1
fMaxTimecomplex=0.0276

For 80Hz (Oculus Rift S / Valve Index) use:

[HAVOK]
fMaxTime=0.0125
uMaxNumPhysicsStepsPerUpdate=1
fMaxTimecomplex=0.0250

For 120Hz (Valve Index) use:

[HAVOK]
fMaxTime=0.0083
uMaxNumPhysicsStepsPerUpdate=1
fMaxTimecomplex=0.0166

For 144Hz (Valve Index) use:

[HAVOK]
fMaxTime=0.0069
uMaxNumPhysicsStepsPerUpdate=1
fMaxTimecomplex=0.0138

Required Mods

These mods are absolutely required in order for modded SkyrimVR to work.

SkyrimVR Script Extender (SKSE)[skse.silverlock.org] - makes mods work.
Go to the Current VR build (2.0.12 at the time of this guide), 7z archive. Extract the files, then copy the .dll and .exe files to your SkyrimVR directory. Usually this is Steam/SteamApps/common/SkyrimVR. Then, copy the Data & src folders to that same directory. The folders should already be in there. If you get confused, sksevr has a readme that you can follow. Just make sure you have a proper extraction program installed like 7zip[www.7-zip.org] or Winrar[www.win-rar.com]. Windows 10 doesn't have built-in functionality with .7z files.

Skyrim VR Tools[www.nexusmods.com] - required for SkyUI and a few of the other VR-centric mods.

SkyUI VR[github.com] - changes the user interface to work better for VR.
Click on the SkyUI.#.#.#.7z, extract the files, then follow the readme.


Once this is all done, run SkyrimVR with the SKSE option, start a new game, and then close it. This creates the files needed for everything to work. If the game crashes after you install the mods in this guide, first disable ALL your mods except these, launch the game like I said, close it, then re-enable your mods and try again.

Pretty Much Required Mods

Unofficial Skyrim Special Edition Patch (USSEP)[www.nexusmods.com] - fixes so many things that have no business still being broken. Just note that it's a little overzealous with the things it changes, so that's why I moved it to this section. You can go to the changelist here[www.afkmods.com] for a full breakdown. Note that we are using an older edition of the mod as new versions break SkyrimVR.

Skyrim VR - USSEP 4.2.2 and SSE 1.5.97 Compatability Patch[www.nexusmods.com] - makes USSEP work with SkyrimVR.

VRIK Player Avatar[www.nexusmods.com] - gives you a body. I don't find this as hard a requirement as others, but so many do that it's worth putting here.

Hand Interaction and Gravity Gloves for Skyrim VR (HIGGS)[www.nexusmods.com] - Bethesda in their infinite wisdom decided to make your collision box much bigger than your actual body, and the furniture in this game is relatively gargantuan. So this is pretty much required if you want to actually pick up and hold a lot of objects you see.

VR FPS Stabilizer[www.nexusmods.com] - exactly what it says. Makes game run gooder.

Centered Messages Box VR[www.nexusmods.com] - so you might be wondering where all your icons like health, compass, sneak indicator, dialogue, magic, stamina, notifications, etc etc go to in VR. The answer, as worded perfectly by Upisnotjump on Youtube, "Wherever they **** want, unfocused as hell and scattered to the cosmic winds." This mod fixes this.

No Stagger Mod[www.nexusmods.com] - unless you like throwing up whenever you get power attacked in VR, you need this.

Haptic Skyrim VR[www.nexusmods.com] - adds haptic feedback for your controllers in VR. SkyrimVR just isn't complete without it.

Binaural 3D Surround Sound for Headphones - HRTF[www.nexusmods.com] - fixes it so sounds from the right, you hear from the right. Stuff behind you, sounds like it's behind you. It is wild we need a mod for this. Get this even if you only use your VR headset with a regular controller.

Crosshairs with Different Colours VR[www.nexusmods.com] - gray is super hard to see in the middle of combat. So this mod fixes that.

Im Walkin' Here VR[www.nexusmods.com] - forced movement in VR isn't good. This makes it so that NPCs can't just randomly push you all over the place.

Gameplay Improvements

Here are some more mods that add content and improve the gameplay experience. Some people take this further, but my aim is for maximum compatibility. None of these mods are going to change the gameplay of Skyrim (so no survival, horror, etc), but they all improve it.

Ordinator[www.nexusmods.com] - massive perk overhaul that expands and improves all the perk trees. They're all useful, and they're all great. Honestly the biggest thing keeping me away from vanilla Skyrim is this wonderful mod.

VR Perk Extender[www.nexusmods.com] - needed for Ordinator to work in VR.

Ordinator VR Patch[www.nexusmods.com] - something else needed for Ordinator to work. I also recommend getting the optional file to replace the attack speed perks. Obviously less useful in VR.

Apocalypse[www.nexusmods.com] - adds a whole lot of cool new spells and populates the world with them so it all feels natural. Make sure to also pick up the optional file for Ordinator compatibility if you use it.

Thunderchild[www.nexusmods.com] - adds some really cool new shouts, and it's fully compatible with Ordinator.

Andromeda[www.nexusmods.com] - changes the standing stones to have more interesting effects, and it's compatible with Ordinator.

Immersive Citizens[www.nexusmods.com] - makes the inhabitants of Skyrim a lot less dumb. Note that we are using the older version 0.4.0.1 of this mod, as the newest version requires Anniversary Edition which SkyrimVR does not support.

Immersive Armors[www.nexusmods.com] - adds a bunch of cool new armors and populates the world with them.

Immersive Weapons[www.nexusmods.com] - Immersive Armors, but weapons.

Immersive Patrols[www.nexusmods.com] - adds more faction patrols on the roads. I personally go for the Lite version, because the large battles can make you crazy rich very early in the game with literally no effort.

Diverse Dragons Collection SE[www.nexusmods.com] - adds some awesome new dragons in the world, and they look great. If it's not working for you, try the older version of the mod.

Dual Wield Block VR[www.nexusmods.com] - lets you block while dual wielding.

Spell Wheel VR[www.nexusmods.com] - adds a fully customizable spell wheel that lets you equip stuff on the fly without going to any menus.

Graphical (and Sound) Enhancements

Reminder, this is aiming for maximum compatibility and lightweight. No crazy ENBs or 8GB texture packs. I like to have all that too, but SkyrimVR is a whole separate beast and this is for Mid-Range PCs. These aren't going to perform any miracles (except SMIM), but they won't (as easily) slow your computer down to a crawl. With all of these, I still have a stable framerate on my i5-6600k and GTX 1070ti.

Static Mesh Improvement Mod (SMIM)[www.nexusmods.com] - really belongs in the Pretty Much Required section, but here it is. No matter your PC, you should absolutely get this mod. It improves so many of the 3D models and it runs flawlessly. It's crazy how much better Skyrim works with this mod and doesn't run any worse.

Mystiriousdawn's HD Skyrim Overhaul[www.nexusmods.com] - there are other texture packs out there, but this one is compatible with all our VR mods. I went with the Mid Quality Pack.

Onyx VR Weathers[www.nexusmods.com] - other weather mods might work great, but they're not designed for VR. This one is, and it's great. It also fixes the lighting situation for Skyrim so we don't need any 2D light-changing mods.

Lanterns of Skyrim II[www.nexusmods.com] - With Onyx VR Weathers, nights are darker in Skyrim. So this mod adds more lanterns in towns and by roads so you can still make your way around at night. And honestly, I think it looks great.

Realistic Water Two SE[www.nexusmods.com] - makes water look great. And it's compatible with our VR graphical mods.

Ethereal Clouds[www.nexusmods.com] - makes clouds look better. Simple, good.

Ethereal Cosmos[www.nexusmods.com] - makes the night sky look better. I went with the regular version, because the twinkle is a bit much for me, and vivid is crazy. Vivid's great if that's your thing, but it's not mine.

Sounds of Skyrim Complete SE[www.nexusmods.com] - adds a lot of new sound effects to the world to make it feel more alive. Don't forget the optional file for Onyx Weathers compatibility.

Immersive Sounds Compendium[www.nexusmods.com] - adds improved foley to the game. The sounds everyone makes change more based on what they're doing, wearing, and stepping. Great stuff.

Immersive Sounds Compendium Patches[www.nexusmods.com] - grab the Immersive Armors patch if you have it.

Leanwolf's Better-Shaped Weapons SE[www.nexusmods.com] - dear lord this is a bugbear for me. If you hate the "paddle" design of weapons as much as I do, this mod goes right up there with the Required Mods section.

Magical College of Winterhold[www.nexusmods.com] - while there are some changes with this mod, it is mostly graphical so I stick it here. An overhaul to the college to make it look more magical without going crazy with it. I went with the ESM version.

Security Overhaul SKSE[www.nexusmods.com] - adds cool new varieties of locks for the minigame

Security Overhaul SKSEVR[www.nexusmods.com] - makes Security Overhaul work in VR.

VR Address Library[www.nexusmods.com] - also needed for Security Overhaul to work in VR.

Your Mileage May Vary

Here are some cool mods that are definitely going to be more for personal taste. They're either mods that promote a certain style of play that I don't really do, or they're great with a caveat or two.

Immersive Creatures Special Edition[www.nexusmods.com] - adds a whole lot of cool new enemies to the game, but there's definitely some variance in model quality and balance. Also, I can't wholeheartedly recommend anything that adds more giant spiders to VR. Don't forget to grab the 2k or 4k texture packs, if you think your PC can handle it. I'd go for the 2k, personally. I have since uninstalled this one for personal reasons.

Rich Skyrim Merchants[www.nexusmods.com] - merchants have a lot more gold on them with this. You pick between 2x, 5x, or 10x. I went for 5x.

Weapon Throw VR[www.nexusmods.com] - lets you throw your weapons effectively, and there's even a Thor option! Just a little silly to deal with unless your going to commit to it. I played around with it for a bit and then uninstalled it, so I can't speak for how it scales or interacts with Immersive Weapons.

Be Seated Skyrim VR Edition[www.nexusmods.com] - With this mod, any time you go to sit, you're given a prompt to sit down IRL. The camera then automatically readjusts to your new position. Great for the immersion of sitting down, but it's annoying if you play with a Quest S like me with a Guardian system.

Sprint Jump VR[www.nexusmods.com] - lets you jump while sprinting. It's great, but the default values are wacky as hell. I've adjusted the HeightIncreaseMultiplier and the SpeedBoostMultiplier 3 different times, and I'm still not 100% happy with it. So you either have to be willing to adjust everything to how you want, or you have to like the idea of being able to jump 20 feet in the air whenever you sprint.

Helgen Reborn[www.nexusmods.com] - a great mod that adds a questline around returning to Helgen. I've played through it before in SE, but I had a crash in VR during the quest that has made returning to it annoying. Because I'm still trying to figure out what the problem is, this mod unfortunately goes here near the bottom of YMMV instead of Gameplay Improvements until I know more.

Open Cities Skyrim SSE[www.afkmods.com] - oh Open Cities. I love this mod and I use it any time I play SSE. But unfortunately, my computer just isn't good enough to run it in SkyrimVR without some serious frame drops. I couldn't even get close enough to Whiterun to see if it truly worked the framedrop was so bad. Since originally writing this guide, I have found a new link to the mod which is linked in this section. However, I still haven't tested it myself so this still definitely belongs at the bottom of YMMV. If you get this mod and want to run it, here is an old Steam Discussion Post about getting it to work in VR.

Incompatible Mods

Earlier, I said that almost all mods made for Special Edition are also compatible with Skyrim VR. That is true, but there are some specific mods to look out for. These mods will break your game or otherwise just not work. The key things to look out for with adding mods from Special Edition are those that change/interact with the user interface or rely heavily on an expected 2D interface. I would also be very cautious with ones that add/change your character's animations.

Here are ones that I know for sure don't work:

• Alternate Start - will absolutely break your game. I really wish it worked, but don't try it.
  
• A Quality World Map - I'm a dingus who had this on the list of graphical mods in this guide. It took me way too long to realize that no version of this mod works in VR, I just got distracted by the fancy VR world map.

Removed Mods

The mods below are ones that were in this guide at one point in the past, but I have since removed for one reason or another.


Locational Damage SKSE VR[www.nexusmods.com] - This mod was in YMMV, and the idea is that it makes it to where you deal more damage with projectiles (and magic) depending on where you hit. Doesn't do anything in melee though (that would be Smilodon[www.nexusmods.com], which I'm not sure how well works in VR). I have removed this mod due to a post by PHANTOMHATE on the mod's Posts section. According to them, they did some tests and the mod seems to be bugged to where locations aren't being recognized correctly. If this is fixed, I will move it back to YMMV or even Gameplay Improvements if done exceptionally well.

True 3D Sound for Headphones[www.nexusmods.com] - Got swapped out for the more up-to-date Binaural 3D Surround Sound for Headphones - HRTF[www.nexusmods.com] mod.

Final Installation

Some of these mods don't work right away once you've enabled them to your load order. I'll have to check which ones, but I know for sure Immersive Armors is one of them. In order to get everything to work, Wait in-game for 12 hours as soon as the game lets you do so. Once that is done, just hang out or play the game like normal and soon you'll see notifications pop up saying that the mods have finished installing. How long it takes depends on the speed of your computer. Once that's done, wait 12 more hours, and you're good to go. When you load your save in the future, you won't have to do all of this. It just takes time for the mods to install, and then the game tries to populate the world gradually with the new changes. Waiting the 12 hours that second time makes it so that everything will work straightaway rather than over time.

After the Downloads

Don't forget that with Vortex, many of these mods will throw errors and refuse to download until you check the error in your Vortex Downloads page.

And don't forget that whenever you want to play SkyrimVR with these mods to run the game through the SKSE option in Vortex (which appeared once you installed SKSE).


And finally, that's it! There are lots of other great mods out there that add new locations and questlines, followers, player homes, and gameplay changes. But the point of this guide is to improve SkyrimVR, while keeping it as Skyrim, and to be able to run with maximum compatibility with a mid-range gaming PC. I'm still playing through SkyrimVR and have a lot more left to do before I start looking at mods that expand it even further.


Oh and btw, my hours on Steam are incorrect because I play almost entirely offline. I live in a rural area and have to turn on my hotspot when I want to connect to the internet, so a lot of my Steam hours are wrong. So don't pay any attention to my "7 hours" of SkyrimVR as of writing this - it's much closer to 80 (now).


If you have any issues with any of this, leave a comment below! I really hope this guide helped you.

2022 Version

I originally wrote this guide in late 2021. I was playing SkyrimVR a good amount then and got frustrated that I couldn't find a good, up-to-date guide that worked for me and my mid-tier (at best, let's be real here) PC. Shortly afterwards though, I moved to a new house with no room for my VR setup, so I had to set the game down. Since then I've tried updating the guide every now and then, but I stayed away from it for the most part simply because I wasn't in a situation to where I could test changes anymore.

After watching PatricianTV's extensive analysis of Skyrim, I decided to really try to put in my effort again to make this the guide I was looking for in 2021. I've added a Removed Mods section, moved the Unofficial Patch to Pretty Much Required Mods section, and updated the descriptions for some other mods including Open Cities. So if you've seen any changes since the last time you read this guide, you're not crazy - I just decided to stop being (as) lazy. If you are having any issues with this guide, please let me know in the comments section! Just note that for specific mod questions, your best bet will be on their respective Nexus pages.

[Aperson]

It is still possible to get older versions of USSEP, there's a thread on the r/skyrimmods subreddit which has links to all of the vortex downloads, since the older versions are unlisted, not deleted

https://www.reddit.com/r/skyrimmods/comments/1gptwh3/heres_a_link_to_every_single_old_ussep_version_on/

[Sanctum]

It is no longer possible to get older versions of the Unofficial Patch. The mod author has hidden all previous versions to purposefully make it incompatible with Skyrim VR and any older versions of Skyrim.

[endarz]

It should be noted that users who install HIGGS need not to change the parameters regarding physics in the "Before We Begin" tab; HIGGS changes those lines itself.

[Kujo]

I followed this guide down to a T and my game instant crashes on start everytime

[Sriracha]

Poggers insight, I fw Mod Organizer but I can respect if you actually deal with the Vortex hassle.

[Starteller]

Is there a Wabbajack for that kind of specs?

[aaroncd]

Anytime I have Even Just Vortex installed with just SKSE and SKSE VR, it won't let Skyrim load, and makes it so Skyrim won't run unless I remove Vortex, and Reinstall Skyrim VR again. Even after uninstalling Vortex it won't let me play Skyrim, unless I reinstall Skyrim VR. It is frustrating. I guess I only get to play the base VR.... and it isn't worth it.

[Chyson]

@NanoX If you go to your Dashboard in Vortex with Skyrim VR loaded, Skyrim Script Extender VR will be listed under the Tools section. When you hover over it, a play button will appear and you click on that. If it works, you can click the 3 dots to the right of it and click Set as Primary so that whenever you push the play button at the top of Vortex it'll run it automatically in the future.

But I would also definitely recommend only installing 1-2 mods at a time to check for stability before installing more. You don't want to install every mod listed before playing and have to go through them one at a time to see which one is messing up on you.

[NanoX]

"And don't forget that whenever you want to play SkyrimVR with these mods to run the game through the SKSE option in Vortex (which appeared once you installed SKSE)."

I installed everything according to the guide. Took me 2 hours, 2 hours of being hyped.
But I can not find the SKSE option in Vortex.
Help please!

[Aperson]

this, this right here is the greatest guide ive seen it managed to get my skyrim vr working once more after it crashes on startup