Obvious click-bait title aside disclaimer: I love modding whether it be in NMM/MM orvery slight folder changes modding is beautiful. Also I'm not new to PC gaming I've always been a code, hardware, and CAD junkie.
So here's why my title is says what it says, I've been modding Skyrim and FO3 recently and wanted to try out an ENB for both, after thoroughly going the the installation procedures I then completed the install and launched the games. Both crashed. After trying any known trick in the book I gave up, got angry, and then said to myself,"I F%*#$@g HATE ENBs!!!". My question to everyone out there is: How can I go about installing ENBs(and other direct file based mods) without headache? Personally even in the video tutorials I still have trouble with how specific the person may or may not being and it makes me feel absolutely stupid. Please help, discuss, and share your feedback guys!
(Also I may or may not be posting a few hardware reviews in the coming month :D)
It'll be some annoying PC problem on your end that you don't know about unfortunately. Just have a direct copy and paste of the original game so that you can quickly change back if it's wrong, but make sure you copy it back instead of moving it so that you can have more tries.
The very latest ENB files from ENV Dev seem to be giving some users issues, I think I use .262 and have none so far, all my crashes come from load order or conflicting mods, try using an older version of ENB and see if that works.
Firstly, I'd recommend getting 'Mod Organizer' as this doesn't place any mods in your data folder so therefore will avoid errors where there are file remnants.
Uninstall:
If you need to uninstall an old ENB first, copy all files over from the original ENB folder (except the zip/data folder) and click copy and replace, then while they're all highlighted, press delete. This will ensure there are no random ENB files laying around.
Install:
There tends to be more issues with the injector version than the wrapper so I'd recommend you grab that, copy d3d9.dll AND enbhost.exe from the wrapper folder to Steam/steamapps/common/Skyrim.
Personally I've not any issues with .264 on an AMD card, but YMMV. You can always get .262. to be sure)
In the ENB folder, zip up the data folder (if you have one) and copy everything (apart from the zip/data folder) into your Skyrim folder.
Things to check:
Do you have any programs that have an OSD (On screen display)? (FRAPS, Afterburner/Rivatuner, DXtory, EVGA Precision etc.)