GUIDE [WIP] DDSopt & Texture Overhauls

[z929669]

Discussion thread:
DDSopt Guide by STEP
Wiki Link

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GET DDSopt:
Github Pre-release versions
Official Nexus versions (select pre-release update 4)

[MontyMM]

Excellent work. That's a great resource for the whole community.

Kudos, Sir.

[Bealdwine]

Great work after a huge effort on your part... much appreciated and let's just hope that texture modders realise how (relatively) easy it is to optimize their work prior to release :)

[z929669]

Thank you kind Sirs! :deep bow:

[stoppingby4now]

Awesome! Seeing as I haven't gone through another process, I'll use the updated guide this weekend.

[Vond]

Sorry if you pointed this out in the guide (watching football ((soccer)) atm so can't go through it all currently!) but if you didn't, you should mention that there are some SLIGHT issues with using DDSOPT on the default textures. First, we have the hotiron01.dds (.../clutter/common) that will show up as purple, non-textured, in the forge in Whiterun, even if it works in all other places. No known solution to this, even replacing with the original non-DDSOPT version of that particular texture doesn't help. Very, very strange.

 

Besides that, there's another two textures that shows up purple aswell after using ddsopt, but that are very tiny and thus hard to spot at first, which is ..\textures\gray.dds and ..\textures\default_n.dds. They are the "nails" in certain crates. Result can be shown here below on the bottom crate, even if it might be hard to tell from that screenshot. I believe DDSOPT considered gray.dds a planar-texture and thus improperly changed it's format etc, and after that it didn't work properly. Solution: Copy the original gray.dds and default_n.dds from the original BSA, and it will work just fine.

 

 

Edit: Updated path to gray.dds and default_n.dds, they are not under clutter but directly under textures. Sorry for the confusion. To be safe I copied all the textures that are located under the root-dir in the Skyrim - Textures.bsa into it's own 7z that I install via WB, as all those files (black.dds, green.dds etc etc) are considered planar textures and get their format changed by DDSOPT to what appears be an incorrect format. They're all extremely tiny anyway, so would be no performance gained either way (1kb by default).

[z929669]

Sorry if you pointed this out in the guide (watching football ((soccer)) atm so can't go through it all currently!) but if you didn't, you should mention that there are some SLIGHT issues with using DDSOPT on the default textures. First, we have the hotiron01.dds (.../clutter/common) that will show up as purple, non-textured, in the forge in Whiterun, even if it works in all other places. No known solution to this, even replacing with the original non-DDSOPT version of that particular texture doesn't help. Very, very strange.

 

Besides that, there's another two textures that shows up purple aswell after using ddsopt, but that is very tiny and thus hard to spot at first, which is ../clutter/gray.dds and ../clutter/default_n.dds. They are the "nails" in certain crates. Result can be shown here below on the bottom crate, even if it might be hard to tell from that screenshot. I believe DDSOPT considered gray.dds a planar-texture and thus changed it's improperly changed it's format etc, and after that it didn't work properly. Solution: Copy the original gray.dds and default_n.dds from the original BSA, and it will work just fine.

 

 

 

thanks Vond. I knew about the former, but not the latter. I will confirm and add this info this evening.

[Holymartyr]

Think this is the right place to ask, seeing as the first post points directly to the page in question:

 

Seeing as how just using either Skyrim HD Texture Overhaul or Skyrim Realistic Texture Overhaul (the 2K versoin) brings you to over 1gb of VRam, even when they are Optimized AND using Vano (HyN), would it be good practice for [myself and] other users to use the 1K version of almost all texture packs out there IF you use STEP AND have only 1gb of VRam?

[Vond]

Think this is the right place to ask, seeing as the first post points directly to the page in question:

 

Seeing as how just using either Skyrim HD Texture Overhaul or Skyrim Realistic Texture Overhaul (the 2K versoin) brings you to over 1gb of VRam, even when they are Optimized AND using Vano (HyN), would it be good practice for [myself and] other users to use the 1K version of almost all texture packs out there IF you use STEP AND have only 1gb of VRam?

 

 

I'd say yes, I just about max out my VRAM (1280mb) when using 1024 versions.

[z929669]

It is important to note that if anyone is running Xfire or SLI and using GPU-Z to assess, you will need to divide all memory figures by 2, as GPU-Z reports the additive memory allocation, even though GPU memory is functionally acting in parallel. The 2k packs, after DDSopt use about 1,800/2 = 900 Mb of VRAM (that includes optimized HRDLC underneath), so this works fine until a bunch more is added. With DDSopt, it may be possible to operate within the constraints of VRAM on 1 Gb cards even with full STEP. I have yet to test though, so stay tuned.

 

Also note that one can also operate without stutter up to about 1.5x combined VRAM capacity according to my testing. I will address my theory behind this fact in the guide as well. So, this means that you ultimately want to keep your eye on that combined VRAM figure and keep it under 1,500 Mb max for 1 Gb cards.

[Vond]

Just noticed that after copying all the planar-textures from Skyrim - Textures.bsa that I mentioned (black.dds, green.dds, gray.dds etc) rather than using the optimized versions the "hot irons" at the forge in Whiterun is no longer purple. Turns out it was using black.dds, and are now black rather than purple. So the solution above fixes that aswell apparently. :)

[z929669]

good to know. I will inform Ethatron and cite you and your findings ... thanks!

[Vond]

good to know. I will inform Ethatron and cite you and your findings ... thanks!

 

 

Already let him know about it as I posted this here yesterday. :) (I am ztrathego on nexus forums)

[z929669]

Opps!

 

I did not know that ... I also hadn't noticed your EDIT to your post (that I quoted on that thread). I fixed my reduntancy over there ;)

[z929669]

I finished adding all of the data for each texture overhaul. Currently working on adding screenshot links to each bench. Next, I will add performance summary comparisons and general recommendations.

[Bealdwine]

More excellent work zMan :) really looking forward to checking that out.