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)

[Kelmych]

I have 2Gb VRAM and it is usually enough, but there are a few places (e.g., on the road near Whiterun) where a little less VRAM use would be helpful particularly in dynamic situations such as combat.

[z929669]

You probably won't gain much with your 2GB then, but it can't hurt. I am not sure, but Skyrim likely has a cap on how much available VRAM it will utilize, and it is probably not much more than 2GB.

[Syrophir]

My gpu has 3 GB vram of which both gpu-z and asus gpu tweak have logged over 2 GB memory used but no idea how it's used. That is with a lot of high resolution textures, some ini tweaks, RCReN(RCRN + enb) and 2x super-sample AA. :\

[JudgmentJay]

You probably won't gain much with your 2GB then' date=' but it can't hurt. I am not sure, but Skyrim likely has a cap on how much available VRAM it will utilize, and it is probably not much more than 2GB.[/quote']

 

I'm fairly certain Skyrim has no issue using as much VRAM as you can throw at it. After cranking my shadow resolution up to 8192 on a maxed out STEP install, my game was using close to 4GB with no issues.

[z929669]

You probably won't gain much with your 2GB then' date=' but it can't hurt. I am not sure' date=' but Skyrim likely has a cap on how much available VRAM it will utilize, and it is probably not much more than 2GB.[/quote'']

 

I'm fairly certain Skyrim has no issue using as much VRAM as you can throw at it. After cranking my shadow resolution up to 8192 on a maxed out STEP install, my game was using close to 4GB with no issues.

Thanks for confirming my incorrectness ;) Good to know

[Azum]

Question regarding the wiki and the ddsopt for the standard and HRDLC. In the wiki it states that you need to filter out all the .png files, which means they won't be included in the resulting optimized texture archive/bsa (they aren't there in mine after optimizing the Standard textures, anyway). Are you supposed to recopy or extract them back into the folder before you archive the optimized textures? Or do they just not matter at all?

[z929669]

Question regarding the wiki and the ddsopt for the standard and HRDLC. In the wiki it states that you need to filter out all the .png files' date=' which means they won't be included in the resulting optimized texture archive/bsa (they aren't there in mine after optimizing the Standard textures, anyway). Are you supposed to recopy or extract them back into the folder before you archive the optimized textures? Or do they just not matter at all?[/quote']

They do matter, so you should copy them manually (textures/interface/books folder). you can also set them in the INI file, but it is simpler to just manually copy. Also, there is no need to repack into BSA, but there is nothing wrong with that either. However, you will need to run DDSopt in two steps this way (it is possible to tell DDSopt to move the PNG files without processing, but I seem to recall that this also disables some of the processing algorithms that should be applied elsewhere).

[Syrophir]

Didn't check which file but there are only 6 in this folder (HiResDLC2/textures/blood) optimization turns some weapons purple after spilling some blood with them. Adding these blood files manualy resolved the problem. Enhanced Blood Textures only overwrites one of these files so 5 are left to do some damage. ^^

[z929669]

Didn't check which file but there are only 6 in this folder (HiResDLC2/textures/blood) optimization turns some weapons purple after spilling some blood with them. Adding these blood files manualy resolved the problem. Enhanced Blood Textures only overwrites one of these files so 5 are left to do some damage. ^^

OK thanks. Will check this out .... can you provide the texture names?

[Syrophir]

The blood folder has 6 files:

bloodedge01.dds

bloodedge01_n.dds

bloodedge01add.dds

bloodhitdecals01.dds

bloodhitdecals01_n.dds

decalsbloodsplatter01_n.dds (overwritten by Enhanced Blood Textures)

 

One or many of these have issues with optimization, I just added all manualy to mod organizer.

The weapon of which blade I noticed turning purple with blood on it was Steel dagger, didn't test much else.

[z929669]

OK, thanks!

[PCG4m3r]

You mention SRO as an example of already optimized texture files. Is there some way we can tell from the texture files whether the textures have already been optimized well enough that DDSopt won't help' date=' or do we need to create such a list for STEP based on previous STEP forum discussions and discussions with mod authors? By the way' date=' I haven't seen almost any texture mod authors mention using texture optimization such as DDSopt in the mod description on Nexus or in comments posts.[/quote'']

Mod authors that are familiar with standards of texture compression and layering do not need to use any specific tool, they only need to know the attributes of a given texture and the most efficient corresponding compression format (e.g., see Better Bedrolls and old version of Dragon Glyphs for examples of improper texture compression formats).

 

I am not certain what tools most mod authors use to manage texture compression, but I can understand why they might choose to leave that info out of their description (e.g., how many mod authors note the tools that they use, and if you note one of them, why not note them all? ... seems like unnecessary dev info that is irrelevant to most users).

 

An example of a good use for DDSopt (other than correcting some of the redundancies of specific texture packages) is what I recently did for myself: I isolated all of the *_n.dds normal maps of 2k SRO and ran them through DDSopt to constrain to 1024 and re-mip, then I replaced all of the originals (roughly 25% of all of those textures were affected normal maps). This effectively reduces the burden of the 2k package with a minimal quality loss ... 2048 color maps remain unchanged, but the size (and VRAM consumption) of the normal-map layers is reduced by one half (or as much as 25% in many cases).

 

Unfortunately, to determine if a texture pack is optimized, one pretty much needs to use DDSopt (or similar??) and examine the logs and results ... unless the author is known to be aware of best practices and meticulous enough to be trusted to have employed them.

Hi, I'm fairly new to DDSopt, but have read through all 45 pages of this thread and I'm excited about what DDSopt can do. I have a GTX 580 with 1.5GB VRAM, so want to spend the time going through all the vanilla+HR and all other texture packs I use (i.e. TPC and more) to try and free up as much VRAM usage as I can, while not severely impacting quality.

 

I need some help in understanding how to setup DDSopt to do what z929669 wrote above. I would like to do a first pass by reducing the size of the normal maps and then run through all the remaining textures as a second pass. Based on what I've read here and elsewhere, I believe for the low res vanilla normal maps, which most are 1024x1024, I would want to reduce their size to 512x512 as uncompressed (1:1); likewise I would take the 2k HR packs and reduze the 2k normal maps to 1024x1024 also as uncompressed. If my understanding is correct, then does that mean I first setup DDSopt per z's Post #430 ("My recommended settings for DDSopt Pre5b"), then in Constraints I set "Tangent-space normal-maps with specularity" to "A8R8G8B8 (1:1, lossless)" while also changing both "Resolution-limit" values for "Uncompressed" and "Compressed" to 512x512 (for lowres vanilla) and 1024x1024 (for 2k HR packs)? 

 

I assume if that's all correct, then I would just deselect all texture files, filter on *_n.dds per z's post above and only select those to process first. Then once I've completed resizing all normal maps, I would change DDSopt settings back to z's Post #430 and select all other NON- *_n.dds files to process the second pass (i.e. Constraint size changed back to 8192x8192 and normal-maps set back to DXTx). Am I on the right track so far?

 

What I'm also wondering is: I've noticed in the lowres vanilla folders, some normal maps area already at 512x512 size and in the 2k HR packs some are already at 1024x1024. Should I leave those as is or should I further reduce those to 256x256 and 512x512 respectively, while converting the rest as I mentioned above, essentially making ALL normal map sizes half of what they are currently sized at? Or should I just focus on converting everything at 1024 and 2048 to 512 and 1024 respectively, but not go lower than that?

 

As a DDSopt feature request, would it be possible/worthwhile to get the file resolution sizes and display them as an additional column in the lower half of the Browser tab, next to each file? And also provide a second filter option so that we could filter on a specific size to isolate those? My thought is we could then filter all the 2k normal maps only and resize appropriately, then filter on 1k or 512 textures and resize those appropriately. Maybe it's not necessary, but just a thought I had. :)

 

Last question. When resizing, what will happen with normal maps that aren't square in size, such as trees (i.e. 512x2048). Will DDSopt detect and match on the longer size, thereby reducing from 2k to 1024 for example, while retaining the proper size ratio...so 512x2048 would become 256x1024...or will it mess up the ratio?

 

Sorry for the long post! I just want to understand and do this right. Thanks for this awesome thread and awesome DDSopt tool!! :D

[Nirodha]

@pcg4m3r Did you ever do this or are you waiting on a response? I'm hoping for the feedback.

[PCG4m3r]

@Nirodha

 

I did end up giving it a shot and so far I haven't noticed any problems yet. I do see the normal maps are now smaller resolutions, while other textures remain the same resolution, but have lower file sizes after DDSopt processing. I haven't done enough thorough testing to determine whether there's an improvement with VRAM usage/performance. So far no crashes or odd textures and I've gone to several locations.

 

Here's what I did (I realized my previous post didn't mention the other two "normal-maps" settings in Constraints).

 

EDIT (13 JAN 2013): Updating this post to avoid confusion and to reflect latest Wiki updates and tips from z929669. I had PM'd z some questions about this and he was kind enough to help me out, but I forgot to update this post, so hopefully this will help others who read this. Any changes to my original post are in this cyan color. Thanks again z!!! :)

 

All textures, EXCEPT Normal maps:

 

NOTE: With the latest DDSopt updates on the Nexus, some Bethesda textures have been known to turn black in game. This is not a problem with DDSopt, but rather how Bethesda made the textures (some were made properly, while others were not). Those identified have been added to the latest DDSopt.ini file by Ethatron. See later posts for reference and if you find any problematic textures not yet addressed, please identify them and provide screenshots. You can also add those yourself to the DDSopt.ini file.

• Setup Behave, Apply, Ignore, Compression, Settings, and Constraints per z929669's Post # 430 OP / Wiki Guide (https://wiki.step-project.com/Guide:DDSopt_%26_Texture_Overhauls#tab=Using_DDSopt)
• Per z's Post 430 (https://forum.step-project.com/showthread.php?tid=228&pid=15687#pid15687) set the values under the >>Behave >>Textures sub-menus (NOTE: These values are not yet listed in the Wiki Guide):

Resizing Normal maps by 50%:

- Changed only Constraints as follows:

 

- Model-space normal-maps: R8G8B8 (1:1, lossless)

- Tangent-space normal-maps: R8G8B8 (1:1, lossless)

- Tangent-space normal-maps with specularity: A8R8G8B8 (1:1, lossless)

- Resolution-limit: 1024x102o4 (for normal maps 2048x2048) or 512x512 (for normal maps 1024x1024)

• First make sure all settings are configured per the OP / Wiki Guide
• Under "Apply" uncheck "Re-compress and re-mip all textures (DDS)
• Also under "Apply" uncheck "Compress all known image-formats (PNG, BMP, etc.)
• Under "Ignore" check "Don't process any of the known file-types at all (DDS, PNG, etc.)
• In "Constraints" tab change "Resolution-limit" to 50%

NOTE: Per z unchecking both options under "Apply" will effectively make sure "the Optimize / Compress options under Constraints tab will be useless". 

• Filter *_n.dds files (include only those and no others) per z's suggestion

I really hope I got the settings right. My understanding is reducing resolution size of normal maps won't have an impact, except improved usage of VRAM, as long as the reduction is lossless. Here's a post I stumbled on during my research that explains why/how:

 

https://forums.bethsoft.com/topic/1330609-if-youve-released-a-texture-mod-or-plan-to-please-read/page__view__findpost__p__20017660

 

The only thing I'm not certain about is whether I should be using the same Resolution-limit settings for non-square textures like tree bark normal maps. Like I said, I didn't notice a problem in-game yet, to include forested areas (checked Falkreath, Riverwood, Riften areas). I noticed the Resolution-limit dropdowns have options for 100%, 50%, and 25%, but I'm not sure if those would produce different results compared to the the settings I chose (above).

 

I've started going through several of my favorite texture packs (i.e. TPC) and running through all textures with those settings. You just have to remember once you've processed the normal map reduction to go back to Constraints and change settings per z's Post # 430 the OP / Wiki Guide or you'll end up reducing the size of other textures per the Resolution-limit settings...unless that was the desired action. :). I made that mistake a couple times before I realized and had to go back and redo. 

[PCG4m3r]

It seems to me that the DLC section of Wiki STEP Installation Guide needs a little update. In the high VRAM case it mentions the HD Textures DLC fix' date=' but doesn't mention the HighResTexturePack DLC Tweaks that should be applied after the HD Textures DLC fix as Z described in an earlier post in this DDSopt thread.

First, do the following before applying DDSopt v8.0 pre III to the vanilla textures. Fri may elect to add this now that it is pretty clear that Eiwyn's mod has grown quite stale ....

 

• Download DLC tweaks 3.2. Extract to its own folder (e.g., HRDLC_Tweaks) in the working directory.
• Download DLC tweaks 3.1 beta. Extract to same folder as previous, overwriting all files.
• Download the HRDLC Fix. Extract to its own folder (e.g., HD_Texture_DLC_Fix) in the working directory.
• Extract HighResTexturePack01.bsa to its own folder in the working directory (e.g., HRDLC1).
• Extract HighResTexturePack02.bsa to its own folder in the working directory (e.g., HRDLC2).
• Extract the customized BAT files into the working directory (i.e., not into a sub-folder though).
• Run the START BAT and examine the logs as well as the resuting HRDLC1-2 folders.

@z929669

 

Hey, thanks for those instructions. They worked perfect for me! :)

 

I just wanted to point out something I noticed missing from the HRDLC_Fix.bat file, which DDSopt helped identify actually. It's a minor thing, but as I was setting up to process the HRDLC1 pack, DDSopt showed blue text on a file called "barkeeper - max.lnk". In the HRDLC_Fix.bat I noticed it included the following lines:

 

del "r:\clothes\barkeeper\barkeeper - nif.lnk"

del "r:\clothes\barkeeper\barkeeper - psd.lnk"

del "r:\clothes\barkeeper\barkeeper - tga.lnk"

 

 

It's missing this one:

 

del "r:\clothes\barkeeper\barkeeper - max.lnk"

 

I manually deleted file after I ran the bat, but just wanted to point it out in case others haven't noticed yet.