DynDOLOD 3.00 Alpha 198

[sheson]

2 hours ago, aedhan said:

Hi Sheson,

I am not using a grass cache and did not generate grass LOD. I use NGIO just to eliminate grass in objects. 

I did some further testing. I tried a different grass mod with no improvement. I removed NGIO and my grass mod, toggled off Community Shaders (i.e. grass collisions and grass lighting), but the error still occurred even with plain vanilla grass. On a new test save I was still getting the non-rendering distance effect and the black floating rectangles over the tundra. Here is another screenshot taken approaching the giant camp outside Whiterun. 

 

Zoom in. What is that thing? It's not simply a black void. It seems to rotate in place, disappearing if side-on. If approached it blinks out. It cannot be selected with More Informative Console. There are only the two: this one and the other near the shrine of Zenithar.

The <tg> command disable the rectangles and stops the non-rendering of the distance from occurring, so it must be grass related, but I am not sure what more I can change/check.

Thank you.

Make sure the Skyrim.ini setting are default. https://stepmodifications.org/wiki/Guide:Skyrim_INI/Grass

If no NGIO *.cgid files exist and NGIO is to create grass when cells attach. If full grass behaves weird, then it might be a problem with the object bounds of grass records or the actual NIFs that are being used by GRAS records. https://dyndolod.info/Help/Object-Bounds

Refer to the NGIO author and comments if the issues do not happen with NGIO disabled.

[sheson]

3 hours ago, Fantasi said:

Hi Sheson,

I figured out why my Papyrus is not generating the logs, I keep trying to make the ini changes in MO2 instead of BethINI, which is overwriting my changes.

Anyhow here are the logs

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MxiyHlJDbcSCNarjW-GnE9dd3OZm18pX/view?usp=sharing - Papyrus log when game have low FPS using Ultra Tree LOD

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eUvkKS0v6bsYfYrsHj1w1-eoRA8-eRnW/view?usp=sharing - Papyrus log when game is fine

Here are my Screenshots

My PC Usages when game have low FPS

https://imgur.com/jy0zKs1

 

My Ultra Tree LOD generated LOD files

https://imgur.com/lCAdn72

 

Thank you!

This looks like a too many draw call issue. Use ENB or CS to measure the draw calls. I am not sure why there would be such a drastic between saving and loading a save. it should be about the same,  since normally the same full models and LOD should be showing. Also compare draw calls before/after save with the LOD output you do not have performance issues with. Maybe there is something else causing extra meshes being loaded/show after save for some reason. Maybe you can test disabling bunch of mods at time to see what else has a huge impact.

Nevertheless, these BTOs are huge. About 10 times what they are for the vanilla game with 3D tree LOD. Open one of the largest one in NifSkope and report how many children (Num Children) the root NiNode has, more out of curiosity.

Maybe consider a different tree mod that has less demanding 3D tree LOD models or use ultra tree LOD with Billboard4 and and the HD billboards instead of Level0 for the 'tree' mesh mask rule.

[hosaf]

Im using seasons of skyrim. When running dyndolod should i select all seasons (spr, sum, aut, win) in dyndolod advanced menu or selecting seasons then only select default will be enough? 

[sheson]

1 hour ago, hosaf said:

Im using seasons of skyrim. When running dyndolod should i select all seasons (spr, sum, aut, win) in dyndolod advanced menu or selecting seasons then only select default will be enough? 

Moved to the DynDOLOD 3 Alpha thread.

See https://dyndolod.info/Help/Seasons#Settings
Select the desired and available seasons in the drop down menu. A season in the drop down menu only becomes available if swap data for the season has been loaded successfully. The Default season should always be generated. It can only be deselected in expert mode. Only generating the default season is equivalent as not checking the Seasons checkbox.

If you want LOD for a season to be generated, then that season needs to be checked.

[Fantasi]

20 hours ago, sheson said:

This looks like a too many draw call issue. Use ENB or CS to measure the draw calls. I am not sure why there would be such a drastic between saving and loading a save. it should be about the same,  since normally the same full models and LOD should be showing. Also compare draw calls before/after save with the LOD output you do not have performance issues with. Maybe there is something else causing extra meshes being loaded/show after save for some reason. Maybe you can test disabling bunch of mods at time to see what else has a huge impact.

Nevertheless, these BTOs are huge. About 10 times what they are for the vanilla game with 3D tree LOD. Open one of the largest one in NifSkope and report how many children (Num Children) the root NiNode has, more out of curiosity.

Maybe consider a different tree mod that has less demanding 3D tree LOD models or use ultra tree LOD with Billboard4 and and the HD billboards instead of Level0 for the 'tree' mesh mask rule.

Hi Sheson,

https://imgur.com/sQpL4bJ - Using Basic Tree LOD with no FPS Issues

https://imgur.com/iTeScf0 - Using Ultra Tree LOD with FPS issues

There does seem to be quite a difference in draw triangles, however shouldnt that also mean I would get low frames when loaded into the Tamriel worldspace, even areas like Falkreath or Riften I dont get this issue, just seems to be Whiterun

Here is a screenshot from Falkreath for comparison

https://imgur.com/8U0ZbzR

 

 

https://imgur.com/mM5FwoI - Nifskope of the largest BTO file, the Num Children count is 47

 

Also, another thing that I noticed, not sure if relevant, when I first regenerate a new DynDOLOD output and create a new save to test, the first time it loads it seems to be fine? For example spawning into bannered mare and exiting into Whiterun would be fine, but subsequent loading into the same save that is directly into Whiterun would have the FPS issue. I will try again to regenerate a new output without my tree mods, but I feel like if it is the issue more people would be reporting it as well.

 

Thanks Again!

 

I uninstalled all my tree related mods, and somehow still get the same fps drop issue after generating Ultra tree LOD, should I also disable landscape mods?

Edited 19 hours ago by Fantasi

[aedhan]

20 hours ago, sheson said:

Make sure the Skyrim.ini setting are default. https://stepmodifications.org/wiki/Guide:Skyrim_INI/Grass

If no NGIO *.cgid files exist and NGIO is to create grass when cells attach. If full grass behaves weird, then it might be a problem with the object bounds of grass records or the actual NIFs that are being used by GRAS records. https://dyndolod.info/Help/Object-Bounds

Refer to the NGIO author and comments if the issues do not happen with NGIO disabled.

Hi Sheson,

Reverting the grass settings in Skyrim.ini to their default/recommended values fixed the problem.

I then went through each setting to figure out exactly which one was the cause.

Turns out it was related to iMaxGrassTypesPerTexure (and/or Ensure-max-grass-types-setting in NGIO). Changing this to any value >3 led to the issues described above.  Why an iMaxGrassTypesPerTexure of 7, 11 or 15 would cause render issues or a mysterious black obelisk in the sky, I don't know, especially when on previous playthroughs I have used exactly those values without problem. It may be something about my current modlist that is causing incompatibility somewhere. 

Thanks again for your help, especially as this was not a DynDOLOD issue. I never would have suspected it was due to a grass setting. Cheers!

 

[sheson]

5 hours ago, Fantasi said:

Hi Sheson,

https://imgur.com/sQpL4bJ - Using Basic Tree LOD with no FPS Issues

https://imgur.com/iTeScf0 - Using Ultra Tree LOD with FPS issues

There does seem to be quite a difference in draw triangles, however shouldnt that also mean I would get low frames when loaded into the Tamriel worldspace, even areas like Falkreath or Riften I dont get this issue, just seems to be Whiterun

Here is a screenshot from Falkreath for comparison

https://imgur.com/8U0ZbzR

 

 

https://imgur.com/mM5FwoI - Nifskope of the largest BTO file, the Num Children count is 47

 

Also, another thing that I noticed, not sure if relevant, when I first regenerate a new DynDOLOD output and create a new save to test, the first time it loads it seems to be fine? For example spawning into bannered mare and exiting into Whiterun would be fine, but subsequent loading into the same save that is directly into Whiterun would have the FPS issue. I will try again to regenerate a new output without my tree mods, but I feel like if it is the issue more people would be reporting it as well.

 

Thanks Again!

 

I uninstalled all my tree related mods, and somehow still get the same fps drop issue after generating Ultra tree LOD, should I also disable landscape mods?

Based on those screenshots it is not draw call related either.

You could try binary search to see if you can narrow it down to a specific *.BTO where you remove half of them and if that had an effect, you instead remove the other, until only the one(s) that cause the effect remain. If that does not reveal anything because you can not really narrow it down try this:

I also still believe there must something else going on in addition to just LOD meshes. So for example, if you actually use ENB, try what happens without it. Then try what happens if you disable all other DLL mods. Then with other mods. Like start with a new profile where you just have the base game with rudimentary stuff like  EngineFixes, Unofficial Patch and whatever tree mod with 3D tree LODs. Generate LOD for it. Test if that works fine. Then enable the rest of the mods to see if it still happens. If it does, try enable mods in batches first, then if a batch causes it in smaller batcher, then one by one to see if you can narrow it down.

[sheson]

3 hours ago, aedhan said:

Hi Sheson,

Reverting the grass settings in Skyrim.ini to their default/recommended values fixed the problem.

I then went through each setting to figure out exactly which one was the cause.

Turns out it was related to iMaxGrassTypesPerTexure (and/or Ensure-max-grass-types-setting in NGIO). Changing this to any value >3 led to the issues described above.  Why an iMaxGrassTypesPerTexure of 7, 11 or 15 would cause render issues or a mysterious black obelisk in the sky, I don't know, especially when on previous playthroughs I have used exactly those values without problem. It may be something about my current modlist that is causing incompatibility somewhere. 

Thanks again for your help, especially as this was not a DynDOLOD issue. I never would have suspected it was due to a grass setting. Cheers!

That could mean that problematic GRAS records are only used beyond that limit.

[ikonomov]

On 1/22/2026 at 4:34 AM, captainlei1993 said:

Seems pretty nice. What complex grass texture for vanilla grass do you use?

Sorry for the late reply.  I'm not using any texture mods for the grass.  Community Shaders' grass lighting seems to work better with complex grass billboards so I set ForceComplexGrass=2 to force DynDOLOD to generate complex grass billboards from the vanilla plain grass textures.

[frazzlesnap]

While I run Dyndolod for Skyrim SE, I'd like to be able to play Starfield, or some other game, but the "Please Wait" or similar popups from Dyndolod that sometimes show up keep stealing focus in the game. I haven't found a way to suppress them so I can do other things. Dyndolod hardly uses any system resources, so I'd also love it if I could force it to use more RAM, if that would speed things up a bit. As it sits, it never uses more than about 16GB.

[aedhan]

9 hours ago, sheson said:

That could mean that problematic GRAS records are only used beyond that limit.

Hi Sheson,

This got me thinking about what else might change my grass records. I had already tested my grass mods so I knew those weren't the cause. Then I remembered I was using Depths of Skyrim. It affects the 'grass' along the streams that cross the tundra, including distributing driftwood in the streams. I had a mod overwriting Depth's driftwood meshes. Disabling those meshes got rid of the problem! I can now increase the iMaxGrassTypesPerTexure without issue.

Thank you so much for your help.