¶ Welcome to the ENB Migration Guide
Welcome to the official Community Shaders User Wiki.
This page outlines a guide on migration from an ENB based modlist to one that is based around CS.
This wiki is powered by the Nexus Mods documentation system and maintained by the community.
For more advanced information, see the GitHub Developer Wiki.
Need help or want to chat with the community? Join us on Discord:
¶ Navigation
- Basic conversion:
- Full Conversion: WIP
- Effect11 Post Processing: COMING SOON
¶ Basic conversion
In this section a basic outline will be given on how to get CS up and running with the least amount of work.
¶ Step 1: Removing the ENB binaries.
CS disables itself when it detects the ENB DLLs, this means that firstly we need to remove the ENB DLL files.
Normally these are either located in your game root, where your SkyrimSE.exe is located, or if you're using Rootbuilder in a mod that has a Root folder.
The file names you're looking for are: d3d11.dll and d3dcompiler_46e.dll.
You can also remove the enbseries folder and ENB inis, but it's not necessary in order to get CS to work. And in fact, you may want to keep them if you decide to use Effect11 Post Processing.
¶ Step 2: Removing ENB specific and incompatible mods/files.
ENB is usually set up with ENB specific mods that are not necessary with CS, either because CS has a replacement for these or CS is not compatible with them. They will need to be removed. A good practice is to leave these disabled under a different separator, just in case you need to revert your mod list back to ENB.
First, please review the FAQ to see if you need to remove or adjust other incompatible mods. That list is maintained more often.
Second, you may have some following mods installed that need to be removed:
- Enhanced Volumetric Lighting and Shadows (EVLaS/AELaS) - Replaced by CS Sky Sync
- Trainwreck
- ENB Extender
- KiLoader
- ENB Worldspace Weatherlists
- ENB Helper SE
- ENB Input Disabler
- ENB Helper Plus
- ENB AO Toggler
- ENB Custom UI Color
- ENB Anti-Aliasing - Replaced by CS Upscaling
- ENB Frame Generation - Replaced by CS Upscaling
- Skyrim Upscaler - Both paywalled and free versions are not supported.
- ENB Light and all other ENB Light mods such as ENB Lights For Effect Shaders and all the Rudy ENB Light mods. ENB Light is not supported by CS.
- ENB Terrain Blending Fix - CS includes this fix.
Be aware that Particle Patch is supported by CS and doesn't need to be removed. Just place it early in your load order so other mods overwrite it. It is also not replaced by the CS Particle Patch, they can be used together. Water for ENB despite having ENB in its name is fully compatible with CS, and actually has FOMOD options specifically for CS.
The list provided here is not exhaustive, as the list of ENB-specific mods is incredibly large. As a first pass, you can search your entire modlist for anything containing the term "ENB". The vast majority of the time, with the exception of the two mods we just mentioned, the mod can be safely disabled if you are switching to CS. But ultimately you should do your due diligence and read the mod page(s) to see if the mod is no longer required with CS. Many mods "for ENB" will still work with CS, but there are many that won't.
This list was last updated on 2026/01/31.
¶ Step 3: Installing the CS requirements.
You can read the Installation Guide to get started with CS, then return here when complete. However, brief instructions are provided here if you know what you are doing.
CS has its own set of requirements, be sure to download and install all of them. The following are minimum requirements for Special Edition:
Specifically for SSE Engine Fixes you will need to install the SKSE64 Preloader into your root folder, where you had your ENB binaries that you removed before.
If you are playing VR and a VR version of a mod is available, install that instead.
¶ Step 4: Installing CS.
CS consists of the core mod and the addons, the core mod is always required and should be loaded first, then you can load all the addons after, you can pick and choose which ones you want and like.
First you install the Core mod.
Then you can choose which ones of the following you want to use:
- Cloud Shadows - Adds shadows cast by clouds (CS Exclusive).
- Grass Collision - Adds physics collision to grass.
- Grass Lighting - Adds better shading to grass and supports complex grass.
- Hair Specular - Advanced rendering of hair (CS Exclusive).
- Screen Space Global Illumination (SSGI) - Adds more realistic lighting through the occlusion and bouncing of light, significantly higher quality than ENB SSAO/IL (Very heavy).
- Screen Space Shadows - Adds small scale shadows.
- Sky Sync - Replaces EVLaS and AELAS, synchronizes the direction of light and the sun position, allows for adjustment of the sun path.
- Skylighting - Adds shading under covered areas such as overhangs, trees and in structures. Significantly higher quality than the ENB version.
- Subsurface Scattering - Adds simulated light bounce under semi-transparent materials like skin.
- Terrain Helper - This addon is also used by ENB, adds support for extra textures for terrain.
- Terrain Blending - Blends meshes with the terrain mesh, prevents an ugly seam.
- Terrain Variation - Removes tiling from textures on the terrain mesh. (CS Exclusive)
- Upscaling - Replaces Skyrim Upscaler, adds upscaling and frame generation.
- Wetness Effects - Adds new wetness effects when it rains, including rain ripples on water and puddles.
This list was last updated on 2026/01/14. Ensure that the addon is not marked as "obsolete" before installing it, a list of obsolete features is provided in the FAQ.
¶ Step 5: The Weather Mod
While ENB relies on weather mods to form a base for its visuals, CS relies a lot more on the weather mod for the visuals of exteriors.
There are some CS patches for some popular weather mods, do not uninstall the original weather mod:
- NAT.ENB III:
If you're using NAT.III based ENB, you can install NAT.CS. This will adjust NAT.III to look correct with CS. Do not uninstall the NAT.ENB weather plugin despite having ENB in its name, NAT.CS requires it. - Obsidian Weathers:
If you're using an Obsidian based ENB, you can install Obsidian CS. This mod will adjust Obsidian to work well with CS. If you were previously using Rudy ENB, you MUST remove the Rudy ENB Obsidian Weathers patch. - Azurite Weathers:
If you're using Azurite 3, there are multiple mods you can use to adjust it to work with CS. Some of these are: Azurite III - HDR, Azurite III CS and Azurite Weathers III - Enhanced.
There are also plenty of weather mods specifically designed for CS such as: Astralite, Nirn Whispers and Real Weathers. Check out the ENB full conversion guide below.
Please double check that you are not using any ENB-specific weather patches, such as Rudy ENB Obsidian, when switching to CS. Please note that NAT.ENB is an independent weather mod, not an ENB-specific weather patch as its name suggests, so it is still supported with CS.
Only one base weather mod can be installed at once. Do not mix different weather mods together. However, CS weather patches are designed to be applied on top of the base weather mod, such as NAT.ENB III and NAT.CS.
¶ Step 6: The Lighting Mod
In general CS supports all lighting mods, however you're probably using Lux, which is the main lighting mod used for ENB. if you are, a strong recommendation would be to also install Lux CS. Lux CS adapts Lux to be more compatible with CS, it also covers Lux Orbis. Lux users should also reinstall Lux and uncheck any "optimized" meshes or particle light options.
If you want to try something else, there are also other options available such as True Light which combines well with Window Shadows Ultimate or you can try LPO. Just be sure to read the descriptions thoroughly as there are quite some requirements. Check out the ENB full conversion guide below.
To add to the lighting mod a strong recommendation is to install CS Light as we will later mention. This is a mod that tries to replace all the ENB Light/Particle light mods with a Light Placer based solution. Be sure to install it after the lighting mods mentioned above as the FOMOD has specific settings for some of the lighting mods discussed. This is covered by the Vanilla Setup Guide.
Only one interior lighting mod can be installed at once. Do not mix different interior lighting mods together, such as Lux (main) and True Light.
¶ Step 7: Replacing ENB Light with Light Placer
ENB Lights will not work with CS. They must be replaced with an alternative, such as Light Placer
This was mentioned earlier in step 2, but we will go over it again since this is the cause of the most friction when converting from ENB over to CS. Unfortunately, it may be a difficult task to remove ENB Lights from your modlist since it's such a widely adopted feature, so some modlists can have dozens of ENB Light patches or ENB Light dependent mods. At best, you can identify a large portion of them, and disable them.
Search your modlist for any mods containing the term "ENB Light", these all need to be disabled.
Unfortunately, mod naming is not enforced and there are mods that require ENB Light that are not clearly mentioned in the mod name. This includes MLO2.
If you ended up removing some ENB Light mods, you will need to replace them with an alternative if you would like them to continue emitting light. The community accepted replacement for ENB Light is Light Placer. Light Placer is a powerful tool that allows mod authors to attach real light bulbs to various meshes and references through a .json file. Since these bulbs are real they also affect stealth. It's a framework so it does not do anything on its own. When installing Light Placer, please follow the instructions and requirements.
The most popular Light Placer addon is CS Light, aptly named. CS Light attaches bulbs to many vanilla meshes that would've been lit with ENB Light. It also includes mod patches for some popular ENB Light mods.
Light Placer is much newer than ENB Light, so some niche mod patches may not exist yet. However, these patches are much easier to create compared to ENB Light patches.
¶ Step 8: Wrapping up.
This is a simple rundown of what needs to be done to somewhat get a usable conversion from ENB to CS, as CS evolves this may change and it may become more complex. If you have any questions you can always join the CS Discord for more thorough support, The Nexus page isn't monitored a lot.
¶ Full conversion
In this section, we will continue from the basic conversion to convert your whole modlist to take full advantage of all the features CS has to offer.
¶ Step 1: Complete the Basic Conversion
First go through the Basic Conversion Guide in it's entirety before beginning the full conversion.
At this point, your game be running without any graphical issues.
¶ Step 2: Removing Additional ENB-Specific Mods
In the basic conversion guide, you removed many ENB-specific mods that were directly incompatible with CS or causes issues when left installed with CS.
Again, please review the FAQ to see if you need to remove or adjust other incompatible mods. That list is maintained more often.
You may also have the following mods installed that don't break the game, but are no longer needed:
- Sky Reflection Fix for ENB - CS includes this fix.
- Capture Warmer for ENB - CS includes this fix.
- Bright Waterfall Fix for ENB
- Footprints - ENB - ENB patch not needed. The original mod works normally.
- ENB Light Detection Fix
- NVIDIA Reflex Support - Most reports say it does nothing if installed with CS.
- Word Wall Transparency Fix for ENB
The general rule for compatibility is to do your due diligence and read the mod page(s) to see if the mod is no longer required with CS. Many mods "for ENB" will still work with CS, but there are many that won't.
This list was last updated on 2026/01/31. There may be other mods that are no longer required with CS since CS may already include the fixes, as those mods are discovered, they will be added to the above list.
¶ Step 3
This wiki is a work in progress. In the meantime, if you want to look into fully converting your modlist over to CS, check out the Vanilla Setup Guide.
But TLDR, you will want to install PBR materials. These make a huge difference in visuals.
¶ Effect11 Post Processing
This feature is currently in development and as soon as it becomes available this section will be updated.
For those that are curious, this feature will enable the ability to load the post-processing portion of most ENB presets directly within CS without needing to modify any of the ENB preset files. This feature is not publically released and while there are public test builds, it is not fit for regular gameplay yet. Stay tuned in the Discord Server.
¶ Contributing
Get involved via the GitHub Repository and Discord Server.