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)

[statmonster]

Good idea. Start with SMIM, Skyrim HD, SRO, Serious HD Retexture - all in "Foundation". See if 2k for these and 1k for normals (including the Beth HD DLC) works for you. With your VRAM you might have to go 1k for both, but I'm not sure. I found doing this (2k and 1k for normals) helped but I have a GTX 680 w/ 4 GB VRAM so you might need more optimization, I'm guessing.

 

I found doing the DDSOpt really helped. One warning - apparently you should not do WATER.

 

Good luck.

[Iroha]

So I just got my Skyrim Revisited install finished, tried running around for a bit.  No game breaking CTDs (yay!) but lots of stuttering.  I have a GTX 470 graphics card, 9gb ram, ~1.5gb vram... so middle-of-the-road set-up I think.  Would now be a good time to work through the DDSOpt guide? Or should I have been doing this all along?  I am not really sure what big texture mods I should start at and what resolution / normals I should crimp them to.  I did use DDSOpt to optimize the Bethesda textures as per the SR guide's instruction.  Am I doing it okay?  Thanks!

 

Guide I'm referencing: 

https://wiki.step-project.com/Guide:DDSopt_%26_Texture_Overhauls#tab=STEP_Mod_Texture_Properties

I recommend to use 1k versions of mods in foundation (I use it myself. NP.), or resize your 2k versions to 1k (not all of mods easy to find now).

[bpr5016]

Great thanks for the advice! Ill definitely start there at the foundation. I try to use 1k textures whenever possible, maybe I mistakenly used some 2k in the foundation. I've read some stuff about half sizing normals that helps... would that be 1024x512 textures?

 

Sorry for if the questions seem basic! This is the most in depth into modding I've gotten, can't stop!

[Iroha]

I've reduced size of normal-maps to 1024k yesterday for ALL INSTALLED mods (a little custom from Revisited), just as experiment. Zero performance boost. Well, may be 1-2 fps, hard to determine if you have 35-40 with ENB EdgeAA, SMAA, SSAO. No profit for me, but can be for you.

Just for note: unresized and not optimized nmaps was 10,4 Gb in occupied space, and optimized+resized - 6,8 Gb.

 

PS.

Also, I looked for long on screenshots comparing quality, visually there is no difference between after-before.

Ah, yeah, funny story:

I've made screens of optimized&resized texture (right), and original (left), placed it together and shown to my colleagues, they said that right have better quality. LoL

[Aiyen]

Well you should not expect to get any FPS boost, since RAM-VRAM transfer is most likely not the bottleneck in any computer...

 

You can use silly high texture sizes for anything in the game... once it is loaded into memory no further computation is done on it other then to call when it needs to be rendered. And then it does not really matter how much space it takes up, since VRAM reads so fast that you cannot notice it.

 

The performance boost you can get from optimization is when you need to swap large amounts of textures (like when you change cells or go from interior to exterior), since then the RAM-VRAM transfer might be a bottleneck... or in the case when you do not have enough and cache have to be used.

[Iroha]

Well you should not expect to get any FPS boost, since RAM-VRAM transfer is most likely not the bottleneck in any computer...

 

You can use silly high texture sizes for anything in the game... once it is loaded into memory no further computation is done on it other then to call when it needs to be rendered. And then it does not really matter how much space it takes up, since VRAM reads so fast that you cannot notice it.

 

The performance boost you can get from optimization is when you need to swap large amounts of textures (like when you change cells or go from interior to exterior), since then the RAM-VRAM transfer might be a bottleneck... or in the case when you do not have enough and cache have to be used.

Good explained, wanted to say the same:)

[statmonster]

Great thanks for the advice! Ill definitely start there at the foundation. I try to use 1k textures whenever possible, maybe I mistakenly used some 2k in the foundation. I've read some stuff about half sizing normals that helps... would that be 1024x512 textures?

 

Sorry for if the questions seem basic! This is the most in depth into modding I've gotten, can't stop!

When people speak of half sizing a 2048x2048 normal they usually mean 1024x1024. If you are going with 1024x1024 textures I would suggest seeing if the same size normals will work for you. 

 

The better test than looking at FPS is to see if you can generally avoid CTDs.  Try some of the notorious spots (heading up from Whiterun across the bridge and towards the Ritual Stone (though this can sometimes gives CTDs even with vanilla), entering Riverwood from Helgen, maybe exiting Helgen, leaving a building into a large city and leaving a city into the world). 

 

I also found that leaving the skyrimpref.ini shadows (both primary and secondary) at 2048 rather than 4096 really helped a lot. Neo mentions this. If you only have 1.5 GB of VRAM I wonder if you might not want to set the secondary at least down to 1024. Keep in mind that changes to your ini file will not happen quickly on a saved game unless you force them via cc.  Aiyen's suggestion not to implement the z-fighting techniques also really helped me avoid infinite loading screens in Solitude.

[bpr5016]

Hmm okay, again thanks for the advice. I will try to remove the z-fighting tweaks as per your suggestion and see if that helps.

 

The main issues I have seen with my install so far is when leaving an interior and entering Windhelm. Or entering Windhelm from Skyrim. Major lag encountered here. Also, generally whenever I try to turn my character quickly there will be a long (2-3 second) lag time before my game catches up with it. Mostly noticed this in Windhelm and some of the surrounding Skyrim world space. I will run through some of the common problem areas when I get off work and see of I get any major issues / CTDs.

 

I'm assuming these stuttering issues go back to Aiyen's comment above about VRAM. Think DDSOpt will still help? The texture files I downloaded in "foundation" of the guide are mostly 1024x1024.

[Aiyen]

Lag during super swift turning is to be expected. Skyrim has implemented a forced vsync feature and the turning lag is (most likely) because of this.

It becomes more noticeable if you are also running with an ENB since this reduce your overall FPS... But it is generally not a huge issue since skyrim is not meant to be played as an action FPS where you need to turn 180 super fast all the time.

 

For testing for memory/performance CTD´s just running though Riverwood from Helgen and then onwards to Whiterun.

If you have installed the FULL SMIM then Riverwood is a real memory hog due to all the extra poly counts that mod brings.

Even more so if you are using the "more farm animals mod" since AV makes it so that you load in even more textures. I have removed that mod because I would rather sacrifice a few farm animals then some of the other stuff.

 

Lowering the Shadow resolution helps free up CPU... All decals, animations, shadows etc. etc. are all handled by the CPU... Mods like enhanced blood increase the decal count as well. In general it is easy to test if this is your bottleneck since the CPU cooler will start to spin more when more work is being performed... at least that is how I test it! :)

[bpr5016]

Thanks Aiyen! I've got a lot of places to check out it seems. What do you mean by SMIM ? Just to clarify :D

 

So a good strategy could be to first lower settings in the skyrim.ini & skyrimprefs.ini (such as z-fighting and shadow res, etc) and then work through DDSOpting some of the larger texture files? I will probably disable the "more farm animals" mod and see if that helps w stuttering too. My check will be the walk from Helgen through Riverwood in game and see how it plays.

[WilliamImm]

SMIM = Static Mesh Improvement Mod.

[bpr5016]

Ahh okay, duh. Thanks! Could disabling this improve performance? Or would it be game breaking? Maybe I can switch to a performance friendly SMIM as I've got the full version installed.

[statmonster]

Perhaps. You can probably use any mod (or setting) you want, you just can't use all the mods (or settings) you want. So there are some good general guidelines on what to do but then you will also have to make a judgement concerning which tradeoffs you find better.

 

SMIM is game breaking one way or the other - it just makes things look better. Try a lower resolution version of it and see if that helps. The advantage of MO is that you can quickly swap in and out different options and try them out to see which combinations of performance and quality you like.

[bpr5016]

Okay excellent, thank you statmonster. I am thankful that I have everything configured with MO as that will hopefully make this tweaking process a little easier to manage. How about rebuilding the compatibility patches for various mods (as per Skyrim Revisited instructions)? Is that necessary if I am switching from a high res to a low res textures? I'm guessing I should assess that on a case to case basis. The .esp files shouldn't change though I think..?

[statmonster]

I don't think it's strictly necessary for this. (If you are fiddling with AV textures or weapon and shield meshes it might be much more important.). Sometime I just take the AV and DSR mods out for initial testing so I don't have to worry about it. I would probably ignore it for initial testing, but the do it before you make a final decision.

 

BTW, I am certainly no expert on ths and if others with more knowledge or experience suggest otherwise you should strongly consider their advice.

 

Also, for testing use Arthmoor's Live Another Life. You can quickly start out in a variety of places and check things out. It's a great resource for testing mods and performance. In particular I like to check out starts in Whiterun (heading east to the Ritual Stone), Markarth (going out the gate and then northeast to the Forsworn mine) and Solitude. The Fall Forest outside of Riften might be another good place. Sometime I do a quick run from Markath to Whiterun and points east. The Helgan camp into Helgen and then to Riverwood and the Whiterun to Ritual Stone runs are both brutal for CTDs - if you get through these several times with a low probability of a CTD you're doing well.