GUIDE xLODGen Terrain Settings Compare

[DoubleYou]

I think we should at least increase the size of lod32 so that the map can benefit. It won't really show up in the worldspace anyway.

[z929669]

  On 7/31/2021 at 3:04 AM, DoubleYou said:

I think we should at least increase the size of lod32 so that the map can benefit. It won't really show up in the worldspace anyway.

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Beyond 512? Do you have screen compares? Pretty sure that 512 is indistinguishable from 1024

EDIT: Unless you have a 4K monitor, but even then ...

[DoubleYou]

xLODGen settings used as described in the current STEP 1.0 guide. This baseline uses lod4 @ 512, lod8 @ 512, lod16 @ 256, and lod 32 @ 512.

      

Compares:  

In-game LOD as seen from the top of High Hrothgar looking down toward Windhelm

  Reveal hidden contents

 

• lod16: 256
• lod32: 512

• lod16: 512
• lod32: 1024

  

• lod16: 1024
• lod32: 2048

 The difference is very slight, and really the best place you can see it I highlighted here: 

This compare basically only features lod16, as the lod32 terrain textures are too far away to see a difference. You could set lod32 to whatever and you probably won't see much difference in-game. It is on the map that you primarily will see it. However, these compares give a good case to recommend setting lod16 to 512. I can't really see much difference at 1024, but I see significant detail improvement in the circles area at 512 versus 256 resolution. The VRAM cost is very slight, as you can see in the upper right.

Map

  Reveal hidden contents

 

The map is using lod32 terrain textures with the following resolutions: 512 > 1024 > 2048

As seen at Loreius Farm:

   

Rotating from Loreius Farm toward the Swindler's Den:

  

And as seen on Solstheim:

   

It is easiest to see the resolution change on the brighter colored (read snow-covered) terrain textures. You will see that the detail gets less blurred and more refined as the resolution increases. I find that lod32 looks better at 1024, and perhaps just slightly better at 2048. I am recommending using 2048 based on these compares and my own testing. Paths on snow covered areas are more easily detectable at that resolution.

 

TLDR: I recommend setting lod16 to 512 resolution and lod32 to 2048 resolution.

[TechAngel85]

  On 8/1/2021 at 10:58 PM, DoubleYou said:

TDLR: I recommend setting lod16 to 512 resolution and lod32 to 2048 resolution.

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If the 512 for LOD16 is getting rid of that banding, then I agree...if that is something else, then I can't really see much difference even in the area you pointed out. Not worth it, imo unless if gets rid of banding.

As for LOD32, I totally agree that 1024 is a good improvement. However, from 1024 to 2048...not worth it again for the same reason as above. The difference isn't perceivable or just looks like noise is being added. I'm at 1080p, so if you're at a high res, that might be why you're seeing more detail change?

[z929669]

  On 8/1/2021 at 10:58 PM, DoubleYou said:

xLODGen settings used as described in the current STEP 1.0 guide. This baseline uses lod4 @ 512, lod8 @ 512, lod16 @ 256, and lod 32 @ 512.

      

Compares:  

In-game LOD as seen from the top of High Hrothgar looking down toward Windhelm

  Reveal hidden contents

 

• lod16: 256
• lod32: 512

• lod16: 512
• lod32: 1024

  

• lod16: 1024
• lod32: 2048

 The difference is very slight, and really the best place you can see it I highlighted here: 

This compare basically only features lod16, as the lod32 terrain textures are too far away to see a difference. You could set lod32 to whatever and you probably won't see much difference in-game. It is on the map that you primarily will see it. However, these compares give a good case to recommend setting lod16 to 512. I can't really see much difference at 1024, but I see significant detail improvement in the circles area at 512 versus 256 resolution. The VRAM cost is very slight, as you can see in the upper right.

Map

  Reveal hidden contents

 

The map is using lod32 terrain textures with the following resolutions: 512 > 1024 > 2048

As seen at Loreius Farm:

   

Rotating from Loreius Farm toward the Swindler's Den:

  

And as seen on Solstheim:

   

It is easiest to see the resolution change on the brighter colored (read snow-covered) terrain textures. You will see that the detail gets less blurred and more refined as the resolution increases. I find that lod32 looks better at 1024, and perhaps just slightly better at 2048. I am recommending using 2048 based on these compares and my own testing. Paths on snow covered areas are more easily detectable at that resolution.

 

TLDR: I recommend setting lod16 to 512 resolution and lod32 to 2048 resolution.

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First, don't comparte anything to recs in the 1.0.0 guide. Please use 2.0.0 as your baseline. 1.0.0 is far outdated with respect to LOD config settings for all LODGen.

I don't see any difference in 512/1024/2048 ... at all. None. Same image but for the clouds/fog. 256 is optimal unless you are running a 4k monitor with 4k res.

Terrain LOD is just not that important once you get to a certain point. All we are doing is eliminating the jaggies around water and letting the color of the full landscape textures through. people spend way too much time worrying about terrain LOD, IMO. It is trivial but for fixing these basics.

I vote to leave it at 256 for all levels, and would be fine with 512 for the map, but no more. It's a total waste of resources otherwise, IMO.

[TechAngel85]

I'll vote...

• 256 for LOD16
• 1024 for LOD32

I just can't see any difference on LOD16 even in the snowy areas. Blew it up and it mainly looks like noise in the grand scheme, where there are slight differences. However, 1024 is a good improvement for the snowy areas, marsh, and tundra. (based on compares)

@DoubleYou What was the size difference between 512 & 1024?

[z929669]

Again, 256 is optimal for all 512 for LOD32 ... for 4k, then 512/1024 is probably beneficial. Why hog VRAM for an unnoticeable diff in terrain LOD? Terrain LOD just doesn't contribute much to the overall.

[DoubleYou]

  On 8/1/2021 at 11:35 PM, z929669 said:

First, don't compare anything to recs in the 1.0.0 guide. Please use 2.0.0 as your baseline. 1.0.0 is far outdated with respect to LOD config settings for all LODGen.

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This was unclear to me, as I mentioned in my first post on the subject. I'll have to compare using the 2.0 settings.

  On 8/1/2021 at 11:27 PM, TechAngel85 said:

If the 512 for LOD16 is getting rid of that banding, then I agree.

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The banding I mentioned on Discord on the map? If so, that is unrelated. I'm unsure of any other banding you may be referring to.

  On 8/1/2021 at 11:27 PM, TechAngel85 said:

As for LOD32, I totally agree that 1024 is a good improvement. However, from 1024 to 2048...not worth it again for the same reason as above. The difference isn't perceivable or just looks like noise is being added. I'm at 1080p, so if you're at a high res, that might be why you're seeing more detail change?

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I'm at 2560x1080, as are my shots, which will actually become smaller for you guys. 1024 would probably be ample on HD. For me, I appreciate the extra detail of 2048.

[DoubleYou]

  On 8/1/2021 at 11:35 PM, z929669 said:

I vote to leave it at 256 for all levels, and would be fine with 512 for the map, but no more. It's a total waste of resources otherwise, IMO.

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It isn't a waste of resources because you will not see any lod32 anywhere except for the map, and there are so few textures used for lod32, the VRAM difference is splitting hairs. For all of Tamriel, it is merely 16 diffuses and 16 normals -- 32mb VRAM @ 1k resolution. Versus 8mb VRAM @ 256.... I don't think anyone is needing the extra 24 mb that badly. Actually, the vanilla game uses 2k textures for lod32.

Edit: The vanilla game uses 256 for lod32. I'm not sure why the xLODGen hover says it uses 2k.

Edited August 2, 2021 by DoubleYou

[z929669]

  On 8/2/2021 at 1:47 AM, DoubleYou said:

This was unclear to me, as I mentioned in my first post on the subject. I'll have to compare using the 2.0 settings.

The banding I mentioned on Discord on the map? If so, that is unrelated. I'm unsure of any other banding you may be referring to.

I'm at 2560x1080, as are my shots, which will actually become smaller for you guys. 1024 would probably be ample on HD. For me, I appreciate the extra detail of 2048.

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I am at 2560 x 1440 (QHD) and don't notice any diff between 1024 and 2048.

But it's the map, so shouldn't be a performance hit in game. Still ... I don't see any diff.

[DoubleYou]

I see that the 2.0 settings have mipmaps used for lod4 and lod32 but none of the others. I might understand for lod4, but why lod32? In my testing, adding mipmaps to the lod textures actually increased VRAM consumption.

[z929669]

  On 8/2/2021 at 2:26 AM, DoubleYou said:

I see that the 2.0 settings have mipmaps used for lod4 and lod32 but none of the others. I might understand for lod4, but why lod32? In my testing, adding mipmaps to the lod textures actually increased VRAM consumption.

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That's a mistake then ... mips don't make any diff that I can see, so they can be off for all, especially if you notice higher VRAM consumption. However, quantifying VRAM consumption is pretty much impossible unless there are huge diffs. VRAM is allocated dynamically, depending on many factors, and high VRAM usage is not really a 'bad' thing.

[Katarsi]

Hi guys, could you tell me if there's any noticeable difference between LOD4 and LOD8? Both visually and performance-wise. I wasn't able to glean anything from your example images.

[z929669]

  On 12/5/2021 at 2:28 PM, Katarsi said:

Hi guys, could you tell me if there's any noticeable difference between LOD4 and LOD8? Both visually and performance-wise. I wasn't able to glean anything from your example images.

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LOD8 renders farther out than LOD4. With respect to terrain, there really isn't much visual diff when similar settings are used. Performance impact is minimal with the settings we recommend in the guides.

[pesodilla]

Quick question: Would the discussion here be applicable to Step Skyrim LE xLODgen as well? I just finished my install for LE and I was immediately unhappy with the terrain LOD in game. I don't know anything about what the LOD settings mean so I just followed exactly what was in the guide. My output is only 2.4 GB though so I assume they were pretty low-end settings. Given that Skyrim LE is so old and I have a good PC, I'd like to try higher quality LOD, and I am just looking for guidance on what settings to tweak. No discussion of it in the LE forums (understandable, no one plays it, but I have been unable to convince myself to pay again for a new copy of the same game so here we are), but there is a lot of good data and discussion here, as long as it is safe to apply it to the older version of the game.

I will probably just start trying things and see what happens. But since LOD generation takes so long it would be nice to be able to use settings I know are good instead of just trial and error