Legend-of-SkyrimVR
LoSVR Install Guide
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Legend of SkyrimVR Install Guide
LoSVR Install Index
- 5. The Sharper Eye
- 6. TAA On or Off
- 7. Nvidia Settings
- 8. SkyrimVR and SkyrimPrefs ini
- 9. DO NOT SORT LoSVR WITH LOOT
- 10. INSTALL IS COMPLETE
1. INTRODUCTION and MODLIST FEATURES
Legend of SkyrimVR is a high fantasy theme-based mod list that pays homage to the Zelda series by adding Zelda inspired mods and so much more, this includes:
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Green Rupees.
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Hookshot Claw.
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Epona, Links Horse.
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Hylian Race - Play as Link.
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The Abandoned Deku Tree.
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A Custom Tri-Force Intro Logo.
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Randomly Enchanted Hylian Loot.
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Princess Zelda Follower and Her Attire.
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A Hyrule Castle Player Home with the Iron Knuckle Follower.
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Discover Unique Monsters Mixed with Old and New Zelda Creatures.
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A Subtle Mix of Vanilla and High Performance Cartoon Stylized Textures.
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A DLC Sized Legend of Zelda Mod - Relics of Hyrule, With So Much to Discover.
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Legend of Zelda Music Intro with Full In-Game Zelda Music & Sound FX Overhaul.
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Legend of Zelda Oracle of Seasons’ Tarm Ruins, an Adventure for High Level Players.
2. PC REQUIREMENTS FOR LoSVR
Legend of SkyrimVR should run well on modern PC-VR configurations from medium to high end, I focused heavily on optimizing all performance related settings via ini files, mods, tools and using a low 512k res DynDOLOD configuration for hybrid 3D trees.
Minimum and Recommended PC-VR Setup for LoSVR:
- 20xx graphics cards (30xx cards are highly recommended, and 1080 should still work but it will be laggy and require further performance tweaking, users will need to troubleshoot these issues on their own.)
- AMD Ryzen-5 or Intel-5. (7 or 9 is recommended.)
- 16 GB RAM. (32 GB is recommended.)
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Solid State Drive. (M.2 drives are Highly Recommended for the best performance, but a SSD MUST be used, DO NOT Use a traditional hard drive.)
- This should be a good start for decent performance.
A complete LoSVR install has a total size of roughly 112 GB (this includes the initial LoSVR file download from the Wabbajack software.)
Since I use a Rift S, the skyrimvr.ini files will reflect that, so a few of these .ini settings will need to be adjusted to suit your specific HMD and PC. I will go over that and other recommended settings throughout this guide.
LoSVR is developed and tested with this PC-VR setup:
- Oculus Rift S.
- Win 10 ver.20H2 Fully Updated.
- Ryzen 7 3800x AMD Processor.
- 32 Gigs of 14-34 Low Latency RAM.
- Kingston NVMe M.2 1tb SSD.
- Nvidia 3090 GPU.
3. GAMEPLAY PREP
From here forward, I will be using 2 terms Over and Over.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED and CRITICAL.
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HIGHLY RECOMMENDED is IMPORTANT, but also with flexibility towards other configurations if the player desires.
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CRITICAL is MANDATORY and -MUST BE DONE- in order to make the game run properly, or as LoSVR was intended to run, in all aspects.
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PLEASE PAY ATTENTION TO THESE 2 WORDS FOR THE REST OF THIS INSTALL GUIDE.
3A. SkyrimVR and Steam Install
It is CRITICAL to have a 100% fresh install of SkyrimVR ON THE ROOT C DRIVE.
DO NOT USE –> C:\Program Files and C:\Program Files (x86) <– Ignore these 2 folders for the entire process of this install guide, due to possible admin rights restrictions.
It is also HIGHLY RECOMMENDED and BEST PRACTICE to have STEAM INSTALLED ON THE ROOT C DRIVE.
EXAMPLE:
Steam Install Location:
- C:\Steam
SkyrimVR Install Location:
- C:\Steam\steamapps\common\SkyrimVR
Legend of SkyrimVR Install Location:
- C:\LoSVR
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If you want to use another drive for Steam and SkyrimVR install, that’s fine too, simply follow This Easy Guide to change the Steam game install locations, but regardless of this, The Root C Drive is ALWAYS Highly Recommended for ALL installs regarding Steam, SkyrimVR and LoSVR.
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After you have confirmed that Steam and SkyrimVR are both installed correctly, start the default Steam version of SkyrimVR to have the game create the appropriate .ini file in the documents folder on your C drive, once you see the Bethesda logo pop up, you can close the game and continue following this guide.
3B. Visual C Runtime Installs
- It’s CRITICAL to install the All-In-One Visual C Runtime Packages available if you don’t already have it, as the Feb 2022 release is a requirement for the 3D audio files from the Binaural 3D Surround Sound for SkrimVR mod on the Nexus, install the AIO package to cover ALL Visual C updates.
3C. Windows Antivirus and Firewall Settings
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It’s CRITICAL to add SkyrimVR.exe and ModOrganizer2.exe (LoSVR) to your Windows Antivirus Exclusions to prevent random CTD (even if you have antivirus turned off, it still background scans.)
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Go to Start > Settings > Update & Security > Windows Security > Virus & threat protection, under Virus & threat protection settings, select Manage settings, and then under Exclusions, select Add or remove exclusions. Select Add an exclusion, and then select SkyrimVR.exe, now repeat this a second time to include ModOrganizer.exe AFTER LoSVR has been fully installed, as it is currently not available at this stage of the install process.
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This screenshot above shows a Diabolist VR folder, use this same method to direct the exclusions to your Legend of SkyrimVR folder.
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It is also CRITICAL to BLOCK SkyrimVR.exe (Inbound & Outbound), within your windows firewall settings, to prevent random CTD produced by Bethesda server pings.
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Open your windows search function and type in Firewall, then click on Windows Defender Firewall with Advanced Settings.
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When the Windows firewall options pop up, follow these steps below
- 1 - Click Inbound Rules.
- 2 - Click New Rule.
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3 - Click Program, then Next.
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Now direct this window shown above to your SkyrimVR root folder and select SkyrimVR.exe
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Make SURE you select Block the connection as shown above, then another window will pop up with Domain, Private and Public.
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Enable All 3 as shown below.
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Name this field shown below to whatever you want, or use what I have put in the screenshot provided, then click finish.
- IT’S CRITCAL THAT YOU REPEAT THESES EXACT SAME STEPS ABOVE FOR OUTBOUND BLOCK.
3D. Windows Paging File Size
- It is CRITICAL to set your pagefile size to 20GB (20,000mb).
- 20GB is the modded SkyrimVR standard if you have 16GB RAM, I personally use 40GB pagefile size with 32GB of physical Ram, as I prefer the extra overhead.
- Use this number for both the initial size and max size on 1 free SSD with enough space.
- There is no need to apply this pagefile size setting to multiple hard drives.
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Keeping your Windows drive (typically the C: Drive) set to SYSTEM MANAGED SIZE Is needed while using the pagefile setup with 1 free hard drive in this fashion, how to configure the Windows Paging File Size and additional info regarding System Managed Size is explained HERE
3E. Wabbajack and LoSVR Install
NOTE: A NEXUS PREMIUM ACCOUNT IS HIGHLY RECOMMENDED, OTHERWISE 500+ MODS WILL HAVE TO BE DOWNLOADED MANUALLY! 😵
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Download and install the current Wabbajack software linked HERE, NOTE: this Wabbajack software is a hard requirement for LoSVR to install and work properly.
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Make a folder preferably ON THE ROOT C DRIVE and label it LoSVR.
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IMPORTANT REMINDER: -DO NOT- install ANYthing into your C:/Program Files or C:/Program Files (x86) folders, due to admin restrictions.
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Now once the intitial software is done downloading, and installing, open the Wabbajack software and go to Browse Modlists, as shown below.
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Look for the drop down menu on the top center section, then scroll down to Skyrim VR.
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Checkmark the Show Unofficial Lists option on the top right section.
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Look for Legend of SkyrimVR and click the small Download Modlist arrow as show below to start the install process.
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Once that initial download is done, a new Wabbajack window will pop up, go ahead and select the Installation Location (3 Dots …) on the right side middle field section, then select the LoSVR folder you created peviously, preferably on the Root C Drive to make things easier, and the Download Location section will automatically pick the mod folder for you inside of itself, or you can select a different folder to keep the downloaded zipped mods separate, it’s your choice.
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Now click the big blue arrow, sit back & relax while it installs, if you’re curious, you can watch the mod info that pops up to get an idea of what’s being installed, you can also go to the Wabbajack website and search for this modlist in the VR section, and then look for the Archive Search button on the bottom left of the Legend of SkyrimVR panel, this lets you see the mods currently installed. A friendly reminder: you are downloading 600+ mods so just be patient & let it finish.
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If the install process Freezes or Fails (this may happen several times during the download and install process), simply start the install over, just re-open the LoSVR wabbajack file (located where Wabbajack has been installed) C:'Your Installed Wabbajack Folder’\downloaded_mod_lists & once you start over then click the arrow again without doing anything else & it will resume where it left off, NOTE: If You Cannot Download The FIRST LoSVR File from the SkyrimVR section of the Wabbajack software, then Please Join the DVR & LoSVR Discord for further assistance.
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CRITICAL STEP: After install is finished, close the Wabbajack window & proceed to your LoSVR folder, then open the folder called Game Files Folder, now drag & drop ALL of these files into your SkyrimVR root folder, there should be only 1 overwrite notification, this is for the Skyrim.ini file and is correct, do it.
3F. SkyrimVR ini Tweaker
There are a few .ini settings you should be aware of, because we don’t all use the same PC-VR setup, so it’s best to adjust these based on your VR resolution and CPU threads.
NOTE: Windows 11 users can ONLY use ModOrganizer 2.4.2 or later, LoSVR uses 2.4.4.
Look inside the LoSVR folder & open ModOrganizer.exe (remember to add this exe file to your Anti Virus Exclusions, as mentioned previously in this guide.) Once it’s open, click on this icon.
This configuration window will pop up.⬇️
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Having personalized .ini tweaks will help overall visuals based on SuperSampling settings.
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Example: using 150% SS with SteamVR works out to 2016 x 2172 per eye on the Oculus Rift S, and this resolution is reflected with two .ini settings seen below.
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iHudMenuTextureSize = 2172
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iProjectedMenuTextureSize = 2172
- These 2 sets of numbers above will always equal the largest number of your headsets resolution & they should be adjusted with this ini configuration tool to match your VR headset for best in-game menu size.
3G. CPU Threads
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iNumHWThreads = ?
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iNumThreads = ?
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These 2 ini settings seen above represent how many threads your CPU has, it’s set to 16 threads in the skyrimvr.ini and this will need to be changed to your own CPU threads if it is not 16, (or you can reset this entire thread of ini settings back to SkyrimVR default if you prefer) a good program to find out how many threads your processor is using, would be CPUID, ⬅️️ click to install, if more help is needed with this, don’t hesitate to post in Discord LoSVR Support Chat
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You can close the SkyrimVR ini Tweaker now.
4. MCM Recorder Auto-Load Settings
Start LoSVR through SKSE on the top right section of ModOrganizer, you can create a Hylian race Link character, simply move up to the Hylian race then go to the preset settings and drag the slider all the way to the right, this is the Link preset, once you finish creating your new character and you spawn into the starting area it will spam the top of your screen with MCM mods being enabled in LoSVR, It will also Auto-Load and streamline ALL Highly Recommeneded and Critical specific settings for LoSVR. These Auto-Load settings are Highly Recommended and some are CRITICAL for the best LoSVR experience. This process will give users a notification if they try to interrupt and it will warn them to let it finish, PLEASE LET THIS FINISH, when it’s done loading you will be notified.
The MCM Recorder nexus link is provided for further information, the author provides a short YouTube video to help you fully understand how this mod works.
4A. Fine-Tuned Challenge
LoSVR uses Adept difficulty by default, this is CRITICAL to utilize the Fine-Tuned Challenge mod, but this mod is Not required to use in the game, you can use simply the vanilla difficulty settings without any problems, however, the dmg & spawn multiplier numbers will not function as intended if any other vanilla difficulty setting is used, this mod simply REPLACES the vanilla difficulty settings with detailed % numbers. Experiment if you want, however, Fine-Tuned DEFAULT % with ADEPT set is a good start if you want easy dungeon crawling, however, for the best experience you would set the multipliers progressively higher, for example, I use: Easy: 130%, Medium: 140%, Hard: 150%, Very Hard: 160%, then adjust the Dmg taken & Dmg inflicted sliders based on your preferences, I use 80% Dmg Inflicted and 120% Dmg Taken, I also take followers on my adventures, you’ll probably want to do the same.
- As shown above, these are the DEFAULT settings that Fine-Tuned Challenge comes with.
4B. LoSVR Monster Population
LoSVR uses several monster mods at its core which have either been repaired or enhanced with xEdit and CAO (or both), and to optimize and minimize any 4k textures down to 1k or 2k, LoSVR is hosting over 50 Mihail Monsters, Skyrim Immersive Creatures(SiC) & Relics of Hyrule (RoH) Monsters. Additionally, Skyrim Underground has it’s own set of monsters spread out between 2 massive underground dungeons.
NOTE: Adept difficulty is CRITICAL for ALL creature mods in LoSVR to work with Fine-Tuned Challenge, otherwise you will simply be using vanilla difficulty settings.
4C. Nethers Follower Framework
Difficulty Settings for Followers GIVING & TAKING ALL DAMAGE can be adjusted in the Nethers Follower Framework mod settings inside MCM. It is also possible to ADD custom Followers like Inigo and Lucien into the Framework so they can use the NFF rules, I have tested this feature extensively over months of playtime as I always take these followers with me on ALL playthrough adventures, and it works like a charm, Access their dialogue menu after recruiting them into your party and then simply choose the NFF Import option. Please read this very helpful PDF Guide from the author of NFF, if needed, as this mod has a slew of options to get acquainted with.
5. The Sharper Eye
With SteamVR, I Highly Recommend using The Sharper Eye mod with or without TAA, this mod needs to be downloaded manually and simply unziped and placed inside of the main SkyrimVR folder, It includes the preset, the required shader and a custom VR-enabled Reshade build, additionally, these are the settings I use for a relatively sharp image without TAA for BEST overall performance, There is also performance mode available on the bottom right corner but it is NOT Needed, as My Settings are on par with peformance mode, but click it if you want to experiment anyways, **to Enable this window below, click HOME on your keyboard to open and close this window, it will be visible on your desktop VR screen when clicking the HOME Button.
6. TAA On or Off
TAA makes the distant image in VR have less jaggies (less shimmer but more blur), but this setting also has a rather noticable performance impact, personally I dont mind a tiny bit of shimmer with the LoSVR modlist, it gives a sharper image vs blurry image and FPS drop rates, so this mod list comes with TAA Turned OFF by default, but if you decide to enable this setting then it will be enhanced by a TAA auto-load feature from FPS Stabilizer, this just tweaks the sharpness of TAA, however, you must open your SkyrimVR ini Tweaker tool 
and enable these ini 2 settings (1 for TAA itself, 1 for TAA Water) an example is shown below, this setting is to keep using TAA without manually enabeling it everytime you load your game, and the water is needed to avoid visual glitches while TAA is enabled.
(OVERALL, I SUGGEST LEAVING TAA OFF FOR THE BEST IMAGE QUALITY WHILE USING SHARPER EYE, WITH MY CUSTOM SETTINGS.)
bTAAWater = 1
bUseTAA = 1
Additionally, it is CRITICAL these steps are ONLY taken IF you decide to Enable TAA.
7. NVIDIA Settings
The SkyrimVR specific nVidia Control Panel settings I have provided are for better visual clarity for the Rift S, but they likely work fine with a range of other VR headsets, do some research online and feel free to experiment with your own settings if these are not sufficient for your GPU.
8. SkyrimVR and SkyrimPrefs ini
If you want to Reset your Legend of SkyrimVR .ini files back to install defaults: skyrimprefs.ini & skyrimvr.ini ⬅️️ click this link to get ALL current ini files and then overwrite them inside of your ‘LoSVR\profiles\Legend of SkyrimVR’ folder.
Also make sure to Copy the Skyrim.ini file and place it inside your root SkyrimVR folder if you decide to Reset these files.
9. DO NOT SORT LoSVR WITH LOOT
LoSVR has been manually sorted from top to bottom & using loot WILL destroy the correct plugin order.
- Want to add more mods? then you will NEED to know where to place those new plugins and loose files.
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You will also need to incorporate your new mods into the many custom made patches if this is needed after checking xEdit for plugin conflicts, additionally, I WILL NOT be providing support with changing ANY aspect of this modlist so please do not ask.
- LoSVR support is EXCLUSIVE to the modlist provided, that being said, If you mess up the plugins order somehow, you can simply click the circular icon on the Mod Organizer window to restore the original plugin order based on the most recent date as shown below.
10. INSTALL IS COMPLETE
- You’re Ready to Play!
- Please post on LoSVR / DVR Discord support channels if you need any additional support or if you find any critical bugs to report.
- Friendly general chat is also available. :)
Thanks for downloading Legend of SkyrimVR.
…but most importantly …
Have Fun in your Hyrule themed Tamriel!
- Latest LoSVR Guide Update, 03/16/2023.