Kelmych

I've been working on the DDSopt guide addition for this new batch file, and it will be uploaded soon. However, the short version is: Extract mods and put each mod folders in Mod Extracted (similar to what was done for the vanilla textures with Vanilla Extracted). You can put as many mods as you want in the Mod Extracted. It is designed to handle multiple mods simultaneously, to reduce the large number of tedious steps otherwise needed to optimize a large set of mods. Run the batch file; if you want to separate exterior textures and normal maps from other textures (so lower resolution textures can be used for exterior textures) enter Y when asked . When it completes there are 4 new folders (if you entered N) and 6 new folders (if you entered Y). This is where you are now. Now if you haven't already done so follow the instructions in the DDSopt Configuration section here to prepare DDSopt, including downloading the updated version of DDSopt.ini from the guide and putting it in the DDSopt folder. At this point the steps will be similar to those for optimizing the vanilla textures in the "Optimize the Vanilla Textures" section here. like steps 1-3 in that section, run DDSopt selecting the Mod Ordinary Textures folder in the upper Window (input) and Mod Optimized (output) in the lower window. Set the constraints tab values based on the example picture you choose to follow: S1, H1, or V1 then hit "Process". The next 4 steps are like steps 4-7 in the "Optimize the Vanilla Textures" section. Choose "Mod Normal Maps" initially, set constraints tab values, run Process then choose "Mod Uncompressed Textures, set constraints tab values, run Process. Since you have Exterior textures folders you will then do the same steps with "Mod Exterior Textures" in the upper window and then "Mod Exterior Normal Maps" in the upper window, changing the constraints tab values as needed. When you are all finished you now have optimized mod folders in "Mod Optimized". You can continue with optimizing other mods if desired; if you do this you can leave folders in "Mod Optimized" but don't leave mod folders for already optimized mods in any of the other folders. If you want when all finished you can run the other new batch file 5_Compress_Mods_7z.bat to automatically make 7zip archives of each mod, add _opt to each name, and move the archived mod files to "Mod Optimized Archive". If you run it on an HDD it is takes a long time if there are a lot of mods, but it doesn't need any user input so you can start it up then leave. By the way, texture files end in .dds. Files ending in .nif are meshes and we have no current way to optimize these. [Edit] The full version of the Batch File use description is now in the DDSopt guide; it hasn't been added to the Quick Start tab yet. The short description above may still be easier to use for many users; the full description goes into more detail that not everyone will need.

and there are questions about whether it is should just be eliminated and leave the moons at the vanilla size as multiple STEP users have recommended.

There haven't been many comments on world object textures in the STEP forums so there doesn't seem to be any consensus on how to optimize these. A number of mods with world object textures provide them as uncompressed, including the tamriel.objects texture & normal map in High Res DLC2 as well as those in SDO. As you did with these, keeping uncompressed textures (especially normal maps) as uncompressed files is recommended. Changing the format to one with a little less numeric precision, as you mentioned in your SDO post, yields some performance improvement and there might be very little quality loss in doing this. Z didn't see any noticeable quality loss when changing the Terrain Bump normal maps from R8G8B8 to R5G6B5. The batch files for vanilla textures put the HRDLC2 tamriel.objects textures in the Vanilla Uncompressed Folder so they can remain uncompressed after optimization. The new batch file for sorting mod files prior to optimization (4_Mod_Sorting&Pre-optimization.bat) also sorts terrain folder uncompressed world object textures into the Mod Uncompressed Textures folder so they can be left alone or reduced slightly to R5G6B5 or similar uncompressed format (like what you did with SDO).

There seems to be a reasonable consensus that limiting exterior color map and normal map textures to no greater than 1Kx1K helps reduce VRAM use. You might even want to have the exterior normal maps reduced to 512x512 and the regular normal maps to 1Kx1K, but it depends on how much texture load there is with the mods you use.

Vanilla Skyrim textures include a large number of monocolor textures, especially in terrain folders. DDSopt collapses these to 1x1 since all the points in the color map have the same value. This collapsing saves VRAM. Graphics cards are supposed to be able to properly handle these collapsed textures; a few users have reported problems where their graphic cards have problems with such textures in some circumstances. The current version of the batch files moves the uncompressed tintmasks (in STD\textures\actors\character\character assets\tintmasks) to Vanilla Uncompressed Textures. These are not monocolor textures and should not be collapsed by DDSopt. When these are optimized with DDSopt using the recommended processing parameters they remain as uncompressed textures, and DDSopt makes almost no change to these textures. In some previous versions of the batch files DDSopt changed these to compressed textures, but they were not collapsed.

There have been a lot of reported bugs in various forums about not getting the steward dialog from NPCs who are allowed to be stewards. When I had a problem I did a Google search and found an example that was similar to the problem I was having.

The smaller compressed normal maps from Skyrim - textures and the 3 addon DLC were put in Vanilla Ordinary Textures so they wouldn't be reduced in size during optimization. They were put there in case Vanilla Normal Maps was processed using the percentage reduction option for the resolution limit parameter; the smaller normal maps should not be reduced in size. The percentage reduction option isn't the recommended option, but this was done in case it is selected. If users are unlikely to use the percentage reduction option the batch file can easily be changed so these normal maps would be put into Vanilla Normal Maps. In any case, the documentation should reflect what is actually being done so the guide and batch file readme need to be changed. The guide and batch file also need to be changed to say there should be 16 blank lines.

I looked at one of the textures with Compressonator and the vanilla texture and the one in Skyrim Performance Plus seemed different when viewed at the same resolution, but I didn't look at a whole set of them. The textures have animation, and I'm not sure whether the Skyrim Performance Plus textures are simple reduced resolution versions of the vanilla textures or edited versions that are designed for use at lower resolution.

I thought all the references had been updated, but I looked and found several that were missed. They have been fixed. Were there any other problems that you found with the guide text? Note also that it's a Wiki, and we encourage users to edit the guides to make them more useful.

Z recommended using Compressonator and I've been using it for a long time for this and some other functions. The viewer in DDSopt is also quite useful since it shows the alpha channel separately and can show a picture of the differences between two versions of the same texture.

We need to look at the new versions to see how they compare with the old. The new versions have received favorable comments in the Nexus mod page forum posts. We will need some screenshots at a few representative locations with the old and new versions.

Compressonator (free - download 32 bit version from AMD; 64 bit version doesn't work) has a texture comparison capability.

There are 2Kx2K textures in the HRDLC, but most are smaller.

I uploaded a new version of 1-HRDLC-Clean.bat which removes a directory tree (this eliminates the error message about an directory that isn't empty), and a new 2_Pre-optimization.bat that fixes a typo that was causing the batch file to stop working properly partway through it's execution. They are in Batch_Files_for_DDSopt_guide_v2.52-beta.7z which is now referenced in the DDSopt guide.

An updated version of the batch files for the DDSopt guide has been uploaded, and the guide now points to the new version. Two small bugs (one in 1_HRDLC-Clean.bat and 1 in 1_Pre-optimization.bat) were fixed, and additional uncompressed textures and now being detected by the beta version of 4_Mod_Sorting&Pre-optimization.bat .

It means that there was a post (now removed) that violated the terms of use.

I expect the idea is that for 2.3 the goal is to have all the decisions made on alternative mods, while for the intermediate releases we will get as much decided as possible while aiming at fairly regular updates. Sometimes the alternative mod discussions take a fairly long time.

No, the previous optimization was fine and the results in Vanilla Optimized are the same. The changes were made for consistency with the process for optimizing STEP mods, and a folder name change to reduce some confusion.

Its hard to know what might cause this. Check the number of files and folders in your vanilla optimized archive files with the numbers shown at the bottom of the "Optimize the Vanilla Textures" subsection in the DDSopt guide to make sure you haven't somehow lost some texture files. DDSopt collapses some monochrome texture files, and you might also check to see if your graphic card has a problem with this. This happens with a very small percentage of graphic cards, but it does happen. Temporarily add back the textures from the original \textures\terrain folder from Dragonborn and HRDLC2 to see if there is a problem with the optimized version of these; restore the optimized versions of this doesn't fix the problem.

Would this be any problem? I mean if I got mod x and y, y being lower in the installers order overwriting stuff from x. If I now optimize x and y, WB flagging both and then reinstall x, will the conflicting, optimized textures of y get overwritten?They shouldn't be overwritten The best way would be if you had a function in wrye bash to repack textures from a mod into the archive overwriting files in the archive. When TES5Edit cleans a plugin WB will flag the mod since the plugin has changed. When this happens I open the mod archive file in Bash Installers and copy the revised plugin into the archive file. You could potentially do the same for the revised textures if you have a copy of the textures for the individual mod, or you could overwrite the mod in Bash Installers with a revised version that has optimized textures. This does require that the optimized textures for the mod are in a single folder and there are no textures from other mods in that folder, or that you have some other way to isolate the textures so they are only those from a single mod.

Many people on the STEP forums have optimized the vanilla textures without having any problems. We didn't create the current vanilla optimization batch files until there had been many reports of manually performing this optimization without issues, and after creating them several forum participants used them to optimize the vanilla textures and did some detailed surveys in the game to see if there were any purple textures, etc. The only reported issue is with "collapsed' textures yielding purple textures. DDSopt "collapses" single color textures with no alpha channel into a single 1x1 texture to reduce texture file size and associated VRAM use. DirectX supports textures that are collapsed, and the Skyrim game engine doesn't have any problem with these. Graphics cards that support DirextX are supposed to handle these correctly. There are apparently a few graphics cards that don't handle these properly; so far there have been two user reports of problem with these. If you think this is a problem you can always overwrite the collapsed optimized textures with the associated original textures. Almost all of the collapsed textures are in the textures\terrain folder. Discussions of stability are one of the main topics on these forums since it is an especially complex situation and while there are some guidelines on avoiding stability problems there is no simple answer. I suggest posting on one of the Support and Troubleshooting threads that discuss stability. Mods with scripts and dynamic textures to create interesting effects are one of the most commonly discussed topics in these forum posts since effects increase the likelihood of stability problems.

The purpose of the new batch files is to allow optimizing a set of mods at the same time, so it significantly reduces the amount of work needed. They need to then be individually loaded with WB or MO, but they needed to be individually loaded prior to optimization with the other approach. We too are trying to find more efficient ways of loading and optimizing STEP mods.