The Elder Scrolls Trekker

After testing for a while, I finally uninstalled Advanced Weather System and reinstalled Natural Environments. I simply missed these kinds of vistas from NE.

Morning
Day
Storm
Sunset
Night

Ayelid ruins at dawn
Clear weather over Imperial City

To be fair, NE has a tendency to be too yellow but I prefer its color sky more and the clouds are just fantastic. In particular, NE's storms are frightneing, with gushes of rain and multiple layers of fast moving clouds. Sunsets and dawns are a beauty and at times, sunny weather is impressive... although it has a tendency to be cloudless a lot (in sunny weather). By contrast, I found AWS too blue at times.

Now to think of it, another reason I chose NE over AWS is that I found AWS used too much ambient light, which tends to wash out shadows. I prefer the crispness of NE's light.

On the other hand, I also prefered AWS at night

I know I am not making it easier on you... it comes down to a question of compromise and personal taste.

My advice - play for a while with on, then with the other. They install textures in different folders so there is no risk of overlap. You can install them side by side and acticate one or the other.

When you want to switch, make sure you go back inside, load your game without any weather mod activated to clear up your game and load the clean game with the other weather mod activated.

After another fight with unreliable performance of my system I traced the issue back to a faulty USB card reader.

I still experienced too many crashes to desktop playing the game, probably a bad mod or issues in saved game, so I waited a few months to dull the pain of starting over yet again.

I had to review the list of plugins, keep only the essentials ones and check load orders again. Then install game and official updates first - save the Oblivion folder at this point in case you need a fresh start. It is easier to copy this folder over than having to go through all the install CDs again.

Then create a saved game in the the prison cell and use it as a reference game for future plugins.

At this point, create these folders in your Oblivion/Data folder : Install, Readme, Unused 

Break down your plugin install files in categories:

- cosmetic, UI, textures (backup visually enhanced folder)

- gameplay, spells, land

- weapons, armors, etc

- quests, companions

Use Oblivion Mod Manager (OBMM) and test your game after each wave of installation to validate your load order. And remember to read all readme files !