Enigmatica6 VS usefulmods

The first modpack I ever played was enigmatica 6 expert. But i think plain enigmatica 6 would be better for your first time! https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/modpacks/enigmatica6

There are tons of modpacks for 1.16.5 and up. You should try out Modpack Index if you have some mods you know you want and don't know which packs have them (I recommend sorting by number of downloads to help filter out the chaff). You didn't really give any rules so how about FTB Endeavour as a decent choice for a general kitchen sink pack on 1.16. You could also try FTB One if you want something really new, AKA 1.19. Enigmatica 6 is another high-quality 1.16 kitchen sink you could check out.

The one thing that I absolutely take issue with is that Enigmatica packs are objectively high effort and have been polished and improved over a huge amount of time - you can go look at the GitHub pages for each of them and see just how many commits there are and when they were made. For E2E, there are nearly 1k commits over five years - (https://github.com/EnigmaticaModpacks/Enigmatica2Expert/commits/master) - that's far more than most packs. Enigmatica 6 has over 10,000 commits (https://github.com/EnigmaticaModpacks/Enigmatica6/commits/master), which is the most I've seen in any modpack so far (and here I was proud of my ~1.3k in Valhelsia 3).

E6 IP & link - 91.208.92.218 https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/modpacks/enigmatica6

Enigmatica comes in two flavors (four if you count 1.12.2 and 1.16.5). Did you play the regular version of Enigmatica, or the Expert version?

If you want a really good kitchen-sink, you gotta jump into Enigmatica 6. It's unbelievably well made and works super well. You can check it out here.

Perhaps try Enigmatica 6 or All the Mods 6

Perhaps FTB University or FTB Academy may be good as a first introduction to modded. For something slightly less aimed at walking beginners through, I would recommend Cuboid Outpost or Enigmatica 6. For a difficult pack, Multiblock madness could also fit quite well

Perhaps try All the Mods 6 or Enigmatica 6

I wouldn't install optifine, the majority of mods don't play well with it. Opt for Rubidium, Sodium, or another combo with the mods listed here: Modlist Link

highly reccomend using rubidium/magnesium if you're on forge, they are faster and have less incompatibility issues, here's a list of mods that work well for performance enhancing https://github.com/NordicGamerFE/usefulmods

does laptop have a GPU? if yes, is it being used? in-game F3 screen to check. top right about 4th or 5th line down. if no, optimizers may help a little. a good list

I would suggest that you try out any performance-enhancing mods, after a bit of research to see if they have any known conflicts with anything you already have (this is a good list). Be careful (back up first!), and be prepared to back out any changes.

Source: https://github.com/NordicGamerFE/usefulmods/blob/main/JavaArgumentsOptimization.md