Essentially, I am looking for mods that improve my graphics without harming the performance of my computer. Whenever I download a mod from the Nexus, it always seems to be I take a framerate hit, so I was wondering if there were a couple of good mods from steamworkshop or SkyrimNexus that improve graphics without greatly harming the framerate or will not make my game crash. I assume there has to be a couple. Or a mod that would improve performance somehow would be even better.

Thanks a lot!

Operating system: Windows vista Home premium (6.0 build 6002)
System model (XPS 625)
Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 Duel Core processor 5600+ (2 cpus) 2.8GHz
3322MB Ram

please post your system specs?

Operating system: Windows vista Home premium (6.0 build 6002)
System model (XPS 625)
Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 Duel Core processor 5600+ (2 cpus) 2.8GHz
3322MB Ram

here is some i use though i play on laptop which is mid-low end i get about 4-5 fps drop but its ok

1)

Realistic Lighting Without Post-Processing (this mod does NOT use shaders or PPI, so it won't touch your FPS):

http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=4323

2)

Realistic Water Textures:

http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=711

3)

Better Landscape textures & bump roads:

http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=4304
http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=679

4) only use this if your pc can handle i get sometime lag with this mod

Enhanced Distant Terrain:

http://www.youtube.com/redirect?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.skyrimnexus.com%2Fdownloads%2Ffile.php%3Fid%3D1598&session_token=kDb8uCPJx_BW39gqmScixWdLfGV8MTM0MjA2OTQ2MUAxMzQxOTgzMDYx

thanks mate. 4-5 fps drop is okay, as long as I don't have to worry about my computer freezing on me

no problem my pleasure.