top of page

Burnt bodies

Burnt bodies

Whiterun outpost.

Whiterun outpost.

Another stump.

Another stump.

Burnt bodies

Burnt bodies

1/52

Graphics

updated December 18th, 2018

Maybe you've gotten sick of textures being really blurry when you smoosh your telescopically enhanced eyeballs against your computer monitor. Maybe you think that there's not enough bloom and god rays for that "cinematic feel" you want. Maybe you think that what a small city out on the open plains really needs is more trees. Maybe Skyrim's women just don't look enough like Barbie Dolls or that one crackwhore you fapped to on Xhamster a week ago. Whatever the case, you want graphics mods! Well we've piled through the piles of alleged 2k textures (which is, honestly, just somebody resizing the existing textures in GIMP and using a sharpen filter), found the least-bad ones, and put them all here for you to peruse, choose, and relentlessly abuse.

In this section, we will discuss:

-Texture Overhauls

-Nature Overhauls

-Lighting Overhauls

-Armors, Weapons, and Clothes

-Clutter and Creatures

-Atmosphere and Magic

-Caves and Terrain

-City Textures

-Maps

Before we begin...

This is not the BEST guide to having the BEST looking game. This is just a LIST of mods that will make your game look better and not a step by step modding process. The guide can be confusing for beginners because of all of the textures, meshes, and in which order you install them. We recommend you fiddle around with some of these mods first to understand the basics. I̶f̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶w̶a̶n̶t̶ ̶m̶o̶r̶e̶ ̶i̶n̶-̶d̶e̶p̶t̶h̶ ̶g̶u̶i̶d̶e̶s̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶g̶r̶a̶p̶h̶i̶c̶s̶,̶ ̶c̶h̶e̶c̶k̶ ̶o̶u̶t̶ ̶K̶n̶o̶t̶s̶'̶ ̶S̶k̶y̶r̶i̶m̶ ̶g̶u̶i̶d̶e̶,̶ ̶S̶T̶E̶P̶,̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶T̶e̶x̶t̶u̶r̶e̶ ̶C̶o̶m̶b̶i̶n̶e̶r̶.̶ Actually nevermind, those guides have not been updated in YEARS. So don't even look at them anymore.

If you read the Essentials guide (as you should have) it says that you should get an ENB. If you haven't gotten an ENB or read the ENB page, you should do that now before moving on.

Mods for NPCs and characters are located in the Waifu and Husbando guides and are NOT in this one.

This might seem out of place, but we also recommend you to check out Hodilton's channel. He showcases many mods and ENBs. but what seperates him from every other person who does this is that his rig is AMAZING and it shows in his videos. He has one of the BEST looking modded Skyrim games out there and his videos will help find you new mods and give you inspiration to make your game look as good as his!

Texture Overhauls

These mods are MASSIVE texture packs that hold many refurbished, redone, and even reimagined textures. They can range from the smallest of things like a cup to the largest of landscapes like a castle wall! Here we have listed the best overhauls to start off with. You can customize and switch between textures to find the best looking one's that fit your taste. Don't forget that these are just general texture packs. There are smaller one's that sometimes look better than the overhaul's but don't have a lot included since the packs are only for a specific item or area. This means that these overhauls are mearly bases to cover most of the game's textures while the other smaller mods focus on improving smaller or more random objects such as only ingrediants or even just certain pieces of furniture. If you want the BEST results don't use the official 2k textures by Bethesda.

aMidianBorn - Book of Silence Texture overhaul mod, best known for it's weapon and armor textures. Also covers creatures, unique items and dragonborn dlc.	Skyrim 2k One of the biggest texture overhauls out there. This retextures everything from grass to buildings and ups the size of each texture to 2k resolution.	Serious HD Retexture Skyrim A big texture pack like Skyrim HD, only this one focuses more on terrain....and Riften for some reason.
NobleSkyrim HD-2K Noble Skyrim is a texture overhaul of all of Skyrim's architecture as well as many other things to match. The goal of Noble Skyrim is to give people a younger and cleaner looking Skyrim.	Static Mesh Improvement Mod - SMIM This mod remakes many of the games objects to have a higher polygon count thus making the objects smoother and less pointy. This mod is recommended for people who even don't have a strong rig. The mesh replacement alone makes your game look much better. This also includes the No Stretching fixes for mesh fixes so you don't need that mod anymore.	Realistic Water Two A graphical water overhaul. Not only does it make water look better, this mod changes some of the game cells and adds new types of water! So now still ponds, rivers, and ocean water won't all look the same. This also comes in plenty of different quality options depending on how well you can run the mod!
Watercolor for ENB and Realistic Water Two This is just a simple plugin to change the color of the water making the Sunscattering effect of ENBseries more visible. The sunscattering effect simulates the waves of the water being illuminated when the sun is behind them. The effect will be most visible around dawn/dusk when the sun is low. Looks best with parallax and displacement! Works alongside with Realistic Water 2.	Enhanced Blood Textures Blood was always meh in Elder Scrolls games, but this mod fixes that. Enhanced Blood adds new HD blood textures as well as new variants. So now if you're hit with a sword, you get a cut shaped blood splatter. Blood also drips out more and spreads across the floor where a dead body is.	Vivid Landscapes Hein has made many texture mods for Skyrim. Most of his work is focused on rocks. As seen in his mods, he has some of the best mountain, ruins, and rock textures you can get! We suggest you replace whatever you have right now and use these mods instead! They are all top notch and come in different resolutions for how well you can run these. Now in one convenient pack to install and download.
Enhanced Noble Furniture 4x New textures for noble furniture such as shelves, chairs, and cabinets.	Quality Snow HD 4K Probably the best snow mod out there right now because not only is it seamless, it comes with snow textures for everything so that all the snow will match and won't look out of place!	Real Ice ALL-IN-ONE Overhauls all the ice textures in the game. This also comes with multiple packages to customize your ice whether you like it realistic or fantasy like crystals.
Skyrim Skill Interface Re-Texture Overhauls the skill interface with brand new textures and options. Now back on Nexus!	Enhanced textures detail (UV-tweaks) This mod will increase texture quality for all your existing textures and any other new textures that you will download. This also fixes a lot of the texture stretching on buildings. WARNING: This mod is only recommend for high end computers since this will take a toll on your game's performance.	Langleys Textures Workshop Just a bunch of random textures for everything. Use this to fill in empty gaps.
Bellyaches Animal and Creature Pack Retexture pack for almost every animal in Skyrim. There are many variants you can choose and customize with.	Bellyaches Dragon Texture Replacer With this mod, you can choose from 19 textures for each of the following dragons Choose either this or the UHD Dragon Textures. This is 1k to 4k and UHD is 4k to 8k.	UHD Dragons Skyrim Realistic Texture Overhaul dragons makes dragons ridiculously high detailed. It comes in a 4k and the insane 8k resolutions. Not recommended for weak computers.
Splendor - Dragon Variants 784 Dragons (from 14 in vanilla game) Greatly enhanced visual diversity Using no external resources Extremely Compatible	Ancient Dwemer Metal Complete overhaul of the Dwemer metal textures. This changes everything from Automations to the Architecture. Comes in 2k and 4k.	Fluffy Snow Simple texture replacer for snow. The aim is to make the snow a little more fluffy than vanilla. Download the LE version in the optional files.

And here are some notable texture authors that either make random textures with no rhyme or reason and are not all in one pack or download link. It's recommended you download all of their works but it's not necessary.

Gamwich Known for the RUSTIC series. Has a lot of textures ranging from random objects to clothes and robes.	Kajuan Does a lot of undead and monster textures. Horncandles is really good too.	Jeclxohko Jeclxohko is a modder who has made many new textures for misc items like the ones shown above. I have to say, these are are the BEST looking retextures for any clutter item or any normal item for that matter!
Renthal311 Great weird things he decides to do. Got vegetables and clutter.	Vandrerer Vanderer has made a strange area of different textures, all bumped up to 2k resolution. His ENB is okay but his textures are great. The falmer pod and spider nest are the best looking out there. The Imperial fort texture can be compared to Hein84's textures. The mudcrab texture is totally optional, but if you want a 2k mudcrab, I won't stop you.	Achronos Want some high quality random ingredients? Well here you go!
Pfuscher This man retextures anything and everything. You really should check him out. His terrain textures are damn good.	Rallyeator	hype1

These are non-specific collections of mods that you can use to customize your game. You can interchange these textures to make the game the way you want it to. Now for even better looking textures, you gonna have to get some specific overhauls that work on one or two aspects of the game itself.

Texture Overhauls

Bethesda Performance Textures

If your looking for some textures that look better than vanilla but won't make your crappy computer implode, then try out these. The Bethesda Peformance textures are edits of the Official HD pack released by Bethesda themselves. These however have been tailored for those who don't have a lot of VRAM to spare. Many of the new textures have new color tints, new contrast, and have been resized for best performance and best looks in-game.

Nature Overhauls

How your game's scenary looks is key to making the rest of your game. Sure you can have the best looking 8k textured armor, but it will look awful while your character is in an ugly looking forest. It's all about balance so that nothing sticks out too much.

Nature Overhauls

Flora Overhaul

A very grand visual overhaul of Skyrim's flora. This mod adds new textures as well as more variety in trees, plants, and grass which make the game feel less copy paste. There's a regular variant, a basic variant, and a summer variant. Due to recent updates, it's recommend that you either use the older versions are don't use this mod at all since the newest versions add some really ugly plants and trees around that really break the composition.

If you are using the basic edition for SFO, try out Detailed Terrain and Tree's. This greatly improves the LODs for BASIC EDITION ONLY.

Also try out Trees HD for some alternative tree textures. Do NOT use the meshes this mod gives you since they are old. Use the Meshes from SFO.

Realistic Aspen Trees

Adds more variants and colors for aspen trees. There is a compatiblity patch with SFO but only for regular edition. Basic Edition and Summer Edition DO NOT need the patch and work fine with just the base package

Natural Aspen recolor

Recolored the branch textures of the aspen trees to achieve a more natural look. Let's be honest here, these look more realistic than the Realistic Apsen Trees mod right above this one.

Enhanced Landscapes

Enhanced Landscapes is a project which aims to improve Skyrim's landscape with more objects. This includes floral objects, rocks, ruin clutter and a lot of other landscape assets.

Enhanced Vanilla Trees

This is possibly my favorite tree mod as it does so much for trees in the game and works great with Enhanced Landscapes. The author even includes a tutorial for you to install.

This environment mod hand picks and increases the size of trees in certain areas of the game to feel a lot bigger and more fantasy like. The trees are REALLY BIG and numerous, so this mod might not suite everyone.

Skyrim Bigger Trees

Simply Bigger Trees is a nice and lighter alternative to Skyrim Bigger Trees. This mod just edits all the tree meshes to be bigger.

Flora Mod Collection

Mostly plants and fauna, but there's a bunch of other random stuff too that's worth getting.
Comes in 2k and 4k

Lush Vanilla Trees

A simple mod that makes vanilla trees more lush while keeping the vanilla animations.

As for mods that edit grass, there are plenty of options. Try them all out and see which you like best! ONLY USE ONE

Unique Grasses

Adds new grass variants scatterd all over Skyrim. These can range from weeds to flowers and can even be on roads too!

Unique Grasses Plugin

A quick and dirty patch for Unique Grasses that adds the rest of the unused grasses that were in the files.

Verdant Grass

Another grass plugin that adds a variety of simple looking grasses

Veydosebrom

Fill your Skyrim landscape with beautiful combinations of unique grasses.
Each region's foliage is overhauled so that it has its own distinct and natural feel.

Unbelievable Grass 2 Redux.png

Unbelieveable Grass Two Redux

This is a rework and update to the Unbelievable Grass 2 mod. Adds many grasses (with a high variety) to the different regions of Skyrim. The grasses were carefully choosen to fit the different regions. It was build on a tweak for better performance, while still providing high grass density.

Viscous Foliage

This is a grass mod that brings to combine some of the other grass mods like Unbelieveable Grass Two and Verdant together that will bring a wild and more natural feeling of grasses and undergrowth to Skyrim. Don't forget to get the patch to clear up many spots you wouldn't like grass poking through. >>Viscous Grass Plus Tweaks<<

Lighting Overhauls

Lighting is a very important part of making anything look good. Here are the two most popular ways to overhauling interior and exterior lighting in Skyrim.

Lighting Overhauls

Enhanced Lights and FX

Also know as ELFX. This is still a running project, but it's one of the best interior lighting mods right now. It overhauls and edits may room cells and adds new light sources and make old one's feel more realistic with smoke and shadow casting. Many of the vanilla cells are almost done, and now the author is working on Dawnguard and Dragonborn lighting!

There's also a new performance patch if you're using both ELFX and SMIM.

Relighting Skyrim and Enhanced Lighting for ENB

The other method of overhauling the lighting system in Skyrim is using a combination of these two mods, Relighting Skyrim and Enhanced Lighting for ENB. Relighting Skyrim fixes a lot of the game's interior and exterior light sources, while not going too overboard with the baked lighting like in ELFX. This mod is also lighter than ELFX since it doesn't replace meshes and just edits a few lighting scripts. So if you need performance, Relighting Skyrim is a good match for you. The other mod that goes along with it is ELE. Thought his mod also works well with ELFX, it works better with Relighting Skyrim. ELE optimizes lighting in interiors for ENBs and fixes the unnatural looking brightness in interiors when ENB is on. If you wish to use ELE, please look at its compatible mod list as well as it's specific load orders for maximum performance.

Clutter and Creatures

Because everyone knows that every piece of random junk in this game needs to look like a masterpiece!

Rudy HQ - Miscellaneous HQ meshes for a glazed pottery with a new 4K/2K textures. HQ meshes for in-game silverware with a new HQ candles. Realistic apples, tomatoes, potatoes, and a common bed pillows, plus HQ meshes for a common plates.	HD Serpentine Dragon and Mesh Fix HD retexture of the Serpentine Dragon, based on the previous works of Diostrocole and Bellyache. Also includes an optional "Armored" version, and an optional mesh fix for bad UVs on the teeth.	Forgotten plants textured Remember the glowing flowers in Forgotten Vale? Well they got a upgrade to 1k or 2k texture!
Forgotten Herbs Forgotten herbs of Nord food you who are named Frost mirriam and Elves Ear , now got a 2k update.	Ash Hopper Retexture Simple retexture of the scri- I mean, Ash Hopper.	Better mammoth cheese An hd retexture of the mammoth cheese.
HD Apple Pies Replaces the apple pie mesh and texture with a high-poly mesh and 4k (or 2k/1k) textures.	DK's Realistic and Lore-Friendly Nord Ships Ever thought that the vanilla, banana-boat-meets-Noah's-arc ship models were unrealistic or unbefitting of the ancient seafaring Nord culture? This model set aims to replace the vanilla boat meshes with my own set of original, lore-friendly ship and boat models to Skyrim. These ships are directly inspired by the Viking cultures the Nords reference, and are a living link to the long-lost seafaring traditions of Atmora.	Better Bats Because why not?
Better Honey Nut Treats This mod retextures the honey nut treats to reflect that and general edibility.	Better Bears This mod retextures the vanilla bears with a more natural, HD look. The cave bears look like grizzlies, the regular bears look like black bears, and the snow bears look like polar bears. Bears are no longer in their emo phase.	Better Mammoth Tusks Ysolda will be happy.
HD Meshes and Textures for Animal and Creature Drops Replaces the bear claw, hagraven claw, hawk feathers and beak, horker tusk, and sabre cat tooth meshes and textures with higher poly and higher-resolution combinations. Contains all HD meshes/textures in one package, no esp's. See credit and permission tabs for more details.	LeanWolfs Better-Shaped Talos Statue A simple MESH replacer that gives the statue of Talos a Greatsword rather than that toothpick he was holding - for a more warrior-like Talos statue.	Pretty Gems It's just a small gemstones' retexture. Nothing too fancy. Some of the gems have refraction, and some don't (it's due to the fact that some of the gems look not good with refraction).
Spell Tome Replacer This mod replaces the models and textures of spell tomes. It is not compatible with other mods that do the same thing.	Priscilla Lute This mod will replace the lute in Skyrim with the one from Witcher 3. Be a Bard patch meshes are included, thanks to Jo.	Better Goats Who doesn't love goats?
Better Cows Because you know you need a 2k texture for cows.	Realistic HD Food HD food textures, do I need to say more?	True Wolves of Skyrim The aim is to 'pretty up' the wovles and give them a realistic appearace closer to what they are in nature: stunningly beautiful killing machines!
Dressed Hearthfire Doll Adds a red dress and a face to the doll in Skyrim.	Forgotten Retex Project Small overhaul aimed to retexture small random clutter that is usually ignored by other texture mods.	Realistic Instruments Texture mod that makes the flute, lute and drums look like real instruments!
Detailing the Eldrich This is a bump up in resolution, and detail, for Hermaeus Mora's realm Apocrypha, Miraak's Temple (simply because the exterior of Miraak's Temple shares textures...) and the mysterious Black Books.	High Poly Project This mod enhances the meshes of various objects throughout Skyrim by. This mod is a lot like SMIM and works along with it.	HD Horker Now this ugly piece of shit looks even uglier.
Ancient Automatons At long last, new textures for Dwemer automatons and all associated paraphernalia.	Septim HD This is simply a HD replacement for the default Septim without breaking default design.	Apple Retextures for SMIM Less washed out colors for apples.
High Definition HAY Higher resolution hay textures.	Clothing Iron's retexture HIGH QUALITY IRON TEXTURES. IN FACT, IT COMES IN TWO VARIANTS.	JS Dragon Claws Did it really take this long for this to be made? Questions aside, this mod replaces the Bionicle looking dragon claw in vanilla and replaces it with a model that actually LOOKS like a dragon's claw with complimenting scaly textures.
SweetRoll 2k retexture The most important texture mod you need. I don't care if your computer is so trash that you can't handle 2k textures, you're getting it.	Enhanced Ore Veins This is a texture replacement for the ore veins found in mines and around Skyrim. Each ore also has an optional glow effect if you want them to be easier to find and again different ore types have different glow. This mod also changes the textures of the mined ores and ingots.	Snazzy HD Noble Beds Adds new HD textures for noble beds that come in different patterns and colors. Recommend that you install this after Enhanced Noble Furniture in the Texture Overhaul section.
SLOD - Potions and Poisons Retextured potions and poisons that come in four different variants that you can mix and match with. This means that you can have a really ornate potion bottle and a gritty old bottle for poisons!	Potion Placer A mod that replaces all vanilla potion bottles with brand new potion models with new textures to go along with them. The contents inside of the potions are also animated too! Incompatible with other potion replacer mods.	Pretty Animated Potions This contains 1K retexture and animations for all vanilla poisons and potions.
Unique Booze Bottles Adds new bottles and designs for the alcohol in Skyrim. Bottles will look different with their tint and with the new labels on them that actually say what brand they are.	Retexture for Soup Now the soup items in Skyrim actually look tasty now instead of chunks of poop!	Retexture for Bread - Hearthfire Adds new textures for bread and pastries from the Hearthfire DLC.
LITTLE THINGS All the little effect textures Ramccoid have been combined into one big pack. The pack includes textures from DOOR SOUL, SPRAY, DROPS, MIST, OIL, ELECTRIFY, RIPPLES, STEAM, ATMOSPHERE, RAIN, AURORA, STARS, SNOW, LEAVES, DANDELION SEEDS, DUST, WEBS extended	HD Ruined Book Retexture Totally replaces the ruined books with a new model and new textures.	Deathbell HD New textures for the deathbell and its glow maps for both the flower itself and the leaves.
Honey pot Nicer looking honey pot textures that look good enough to eat.	Skyrim Realistic Texture Overhaul Enemies High res textures for most monster enemies that have 2k, 4k, AND EVEN 8k resolution options. We recommend the skeleton textures above all else!	Business Ledger HD Makes the 5 or so business Ledger's in Skyrim look good.
Hale - Horse Retexture Very nice and clean looking horse textures that thankfully do not add any genitalia.	Death Hound HD A really nice texture mod that makes the death hounds look like fleshy undead hell hounds instead of looking like they're made of black liquorice.	Realistic HD Baskets New high quality textures AND meshes for baskets, because they really needed it...
Retexture for The Scroll Adds new patterns and paper types to the scroll items.	Joy of Ships Adds new high quality wood textures for small and large boats. Also effects small the wooden houses because they share the same textures as the small row boats.	Weathered Road Signs Weathered Road Signs.esp contains cell edits to most of the road signs throughout Skyrim. These edits mostly involve making the signs more informative and the surrounding areas a bit more interesting to look at. Some directional errors were fixed as well. The esp also adds a few road signs to places where they would be most useful and make sense.
Gems of Skyrim Makes all the precious gems in the game look VALUABLE. All of them look like precision cut gems and the new meshes that come along with the mod make them look flawless.	Rens HD Shrines A unique mesh and texture replacer for the divine shrines. Each shrine has THEIR own color palette which really makes sure that each shrine stands out on THEIR own. Some of the more metal looking shrines also have new reflections.	HD Sack Makes your sack HD.
HD Ore and Ingots Makes ore and ingots look like they are actually made out of an earthly materials instead of looking like badly colored play-doh.	HD Misc Makes your misc H-uhhh I mean, it makes miscellaneous objects like practice dummies and pots more detailed and at a higher resolution.	Ruins Clutter Improved Improves the clutter in ruins like nordic urns and pots.

Clutter and Creatures

Atmosphere and Magic

What do these two things have in common? Nothing really, I just didn't know where to put them.

Skygazer Moons Completely new textures for the wonderful Masser & Secunda moons, in glorious 4K, 2K, and 1K resolutions, designed to retain the look and feel of the original vanilla creations.	Real Effect Candle Adds a better candle-light effect to candles.	Real Clouds This mod adds pseudo-volumetric clouds that move and cover the sky like real clouds would. Variations can differ between different altitudes and regions. A great mod to take screenshots with, but maybe not for playing because this mod can take a toll on performance.
Realistic Clouds Clouds look almost photo-realistic and have more depth overall.	ETHEREAL CLOUDS This cloud mod adds different cloud types like smooth ones and broken up little ones.	Lorkhans Vision Simple night sky textures. These are good if you don't want a too colorful and vibrant night sky like in that other mod.
Horizon of Dreams An overhaul on the night sky. This replaces both the sky, stars, and the moon at night to give them that bright fantasy feeling.	Ultimate HD Fire Effects Fire! I'll take you to burn!	Magic Runes HD New textures for the place-able magic runes for the vanilla spells and the new Dragonborn spells.
ETHEREAL AURORAS New textures for auroras that are more detailed a lot bigger that the original game's resolution.	Burn Freeze Shock Effects This is a great mod for any mage. Now when you kill someone with a fire spell, there body will actually burn to a crisp. When you kill someone with frost, they'll freeze and have ice chunks will stick all over them. When you kill someone with a shock spell, their body will turn dark and crispy from the shock and their dead body will sometimes fidget because of it!	Frozen Electrocuted Combustion any fire spell will cause people on the verge of death to self immolate, leaving behind skeletons and smoke. Works for both humanoid NPCs (including beast races) and the player. In v1.2 people now freeze if killed by frost and spasm and become charred if killed by lightning.
Enchantment Effect Replacer This mod adds new textures for the enchantment effects on your weapons. There's a 2k resolution of the vanilla effect, random daedric letters effect, both of them at the same time, and an option to remove the effect entirely.	Subtle Cloak Spell Graphics This is a very simple tweak to the meshes used for the Flame, Frost, Lightning and Poison Cloak spells, reducing the opacity and brightness.

Atmosphere and Magic

Caves and Terrain

And rocks I guess. I couldn't fit the rest in the title.

Rudy HQ - Nordic Ruins HQ texture overhaul of Nordic Ruins, with some UV tweaks, plus a new meshes and textures for a candles :)	Telvanni Reborn These textures (2048x2048) will increase the quality of the Telvanni architecture, which are those mushroom buildings you see in the Dragonborn DLC or for other mods that depend on these building assets. This mod contains 24 enhanced textures which are based on the Skyrim textures from the "official high resolution texture pack", meaning they are increased in size and quality and then went through a filtering process for the best result.	Lush Vanilla Trees A simple mod that makes vanilla trees more lush while keeping the vanilla animations.
Terrain Lod Redone Terrain Lod Redone is aiming for a complete terrain lod overhaul. It features high res lod textures, high res lod normals and high poly lod meshes wich are almost eliminating the stripe effect.	Blended Roads This mod blends the road stones to the surrounding materials instead of trying to create an almost fitting texture.	Majestic Mountains The goal of this mod is a complete mountain rework. The lighting of the mountains was changed in a way to fit much better to dynamic day night cycles and the weather system of Skyrim. There are several differences to other mountain retextures. One of the biggest difference is the mountain texture. There were two textures used for the mountains originally. But one of this textures was barely used.
Ash Rocks This mod replaces the gray paint-like mess that is splattered on top of many rocks and mountains of Solstheim.	Soul Husk Retexture Retexture those weird sponge things from Dawnguard! Cause why not!	Realistic HD Mushrooms HD shrooms, the legal kind.
Gildergreen 4K Parallax 4K diffuse, 2K normal texture for the Gildergreen tree in Whiterun.	Skyrim Landscape Overhaul - Stone Walls This mod is a mesh and texture replacer for the freestanding stone walls in skyrim.	Remove Interior Fog V2 Removes that stupid fog in interior cells like dungeons and houses. Now you can actually see what's ten feet in front of you!
Remove Exterior Fog Removes the annoying fog that's always 2 feet ahead of you when your outside.	Skyrim Realistic Textures Dwemer Another pack from the Skyrim Realistic Texture Overhaul mods. This pack includes retextures for most things dwemer related like architecture, but it also adds new textures for dwemer enemies.	Real Roads for Skyrim Real Roads for Skyrim aims to bring life to the dull roads by using 3D meshes. So rocks aren't just painted onto the dirt now, they're actually bumping out of the ground even without parallax.
HD Road textures A complimentary mod to go with Real Roads for Skyrim. These are probably the best road textures out right now. Each texture is at a 4k resolution and blends perfectly with the extra ground and dirt textures it provides to match with the roads. The snow roads are compatible with Quality Snow 4k, just remember to use the dark version.	High Definition Ivy Makes the ivy growing on some trees and buildings look better with some new 2k resolution textures. It comes in two versions, one is more like the vanilla colors which is a bluegreen and the other is bright green.	Hectrol CAVES DELUXE An amazing cave retexture overhaul! This mod will literally make every cave you walk into look like Luray Caverns!
HD Detailed Terrain Tired of your game 2011 AAA title game looking like Banjo-Kazooie from a far distant? Get this mod, it shall fix your problem. This modification will replace the boring, low detail, blurry and mundane Vanilla distant landscape textures. They will be replaced by 924 brand new High resolution textures with new noise maps as well.	Arri's Snow Elf Ruins Retexture 2K retexture of Snow Elf architecture, introduced in Dawnguard DLC. It affects all buildings in Forgotten Vale, Inner Sanctum, and all Wayshrines.	Fences of Skyrim Tired of those badly aliased fences that you find in farms and towns? Well this mod will fix that! Fences of Skyrim replaces those ugly vanilla fences with new ones that will not show jagged edges!
Detailing the Eldrich New high-res textures for Riekling architecture. The huts look less like they were made out of plastic towels and more like fur this time!	SkyFalls and SkyMills More distance problems? Well this mod will also help. Waterfalls and windmills will still move even from a far distance so they won't look like frozen icicles.	Stunning Statues A collection of statue retextures and meshes created by AnTiWoMaAgNoT. After months have having them individually packed mods, they are now all in one!

Caves and Terrain

City Textures

Textures for specific cities and holds, as well as specific landmarks related to these cities. There are plenty of different packs for you to look at and mix and match with.

Shibui Skyrim High quality rural architecture and furniture textures for the demanding Skyrim player.	Frankly HD Markarth - The White City High resolution retexture of Markarth and Dwemer ruins with a much more epic vibe.	Ivy Walls This mod replaces the ugly moss and stones from the walls in Whiterun. It also replaces the moss in Solitude if you want.
Hi-Resgar - High Hrothgar in HD This mod is an attempt to fix that with a vanilla-friendly (mostly) 2k overhaul of High Hrothgar to bring the low-res textures Bethesda left us with up to match the rest of Skyrim.	Solitude Walls Immersive Moss Fixes the meshes on moss so that it's no longer shiny.	Granite Markarth and Dwemer Ruins Better looking stone and rock texture for the city of Markarth. Also supports Parllax maps
Osmodius Solitude Adds new textures to Solitude which also supports Parallax maps.	Authentic Solitude New textures to Solitude that focus a lot on making the wood old.	MANHOLE OF SOLITUDE HIGH QUALITY, HIGH RESOLUTION, MAN.....HOLE COVER.
Authentic Riften New textures to Riften that focus a lot on making the wood old.	Authentic Whiterun New textures to Whiterun that focus a lot on making the wood old.	Chris2012s Whiterun HQ Texture Pack They're like the Skyrim HD - 2k Textures but are somehow twice as better
aMidianBorn Whiterun City textures made by the same guy that does armors. They're not quite as good, but there are some textures of note that are good such as the doors.	Authentic Windhelm New textures to Solitude that focus a lot on making the wo- I MEAN STONE old.	Osmodius windhelm Adds new textures to Windhelm which also supports Parallax maps.
Windhelm Enhanced - 500 Companions Wall Adds new high quality textures for the Windhelm 500 companions wall.	Windhelm Enhanced - HD 4k Metalwork Adds new high quality textures of all of the metal fences in Windhelm.	Windhelm Enhanced - HD 4k Grey Quarter Flags Adds new high quality textures of all of the Dunmer flags in the Gray Quarter.
Designs of the Nords Overhaul mod for every flag in the game. Changing its meshes and textures to add more design and color to these flags. Best part, no esp needed. Don't forget to get the Markarth Patch!

City Textures

Maps

Mods that improve the map screen or overhaul it all together.

Warbug's Paper World Map Changes the map into a real paper map like in Oblivion. This also replaces the icons with paper themed ones.	A Quality World Map The go to mod for a great looking map overhaul. This mod adds new high quality map textures that show the roads more clearly while still adding more detail around them. DO NOT use the classic map textures. If you want a paper texture map, use Warburgs.	World Map - Skyrim Hold Borders This is a simple texture mod which adds visible borders to the various regions of Skyrim on the map. This also includes options for visible roads as well like A Quality World Map.

Maps

FAQ

Q: Why isn't this or that mod in the guide?

A: This guide was made specifically so that all or atleast most of the contents on this page will work together without any compatiblity issues unless notified on the mod page.

Q: What happend to No Stretching?

A: The fixes are already included in SMIM. Use that instead of No Stretching so that the meshes don't conflict with eachother.

Q: Will you be adding more to these guides?

A: Of course! We'll try to keep all the guides up to date and will notify everyone if something has changed or has been added on. We also accept submissions if the mod is good enough!

bottom of page