1K or 2K Textures?

[menko2]

Hi guys.

 

Im almost finished modding my game and my last step is which resolution should i use for the mods textures in the game.

 

I will be watching in 1920x1080 monitor. I dont know if there is a lot of diference visually between 1K or 2K textures. So my choices will be:

 

1K Textures= less quality but less stuttering?

 

2K Textures= more quality but more stuttering?

 

Vram and Ram are not a problem as my card has 4Gb Vram. I use a Samsung 840 Pro SSD that is fast, but the stutter...still i get some. My FPS are around 40 in exteriors with some drops-stuuter when cell loading.

 

If there is not much difference in quality 1K to 2K whatching in 1080p i guess will be better for less stutter.

 

3740QM.

GTX 680M 4GB

SSD Samsung 840 Pro

 

What do you think??

[torminater]

Have you tried to cap your fps at 40?

 

 

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[Galrick]

1k + Vanilla normals. Always (when available).

 

Eventually, no matter how nice "pretty" is, you'll want to play the game - and you'll want to do so with minimal stuttering and crashes. 1k allows for that. 2k+... not so much. I can attest. I have a good rig and a beastly vid card. Even then, with around 300 mods, there are limits to what I can run.

[torminater]

It also critically depends on your enb setup.

 

 

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[Aiyen]

Depending on rig, and a properly setup system, and ENBoost you can run with almost all 2k these days with no stutter even on a 2Gb card... I can attest to that!

 

The main reason why some people with a good graphics card still get some is most likely because other parts of their machine... most likely their motherboard cannot deal with the bandwidth required hence they get stuttering no matter what.

 

There are quite a few decent guides around this month that helps you setup skyrim properly, however there is no clear "You must do this if you have that hardware"... only rough guidelines, since again it all depends on the system as a whole.. not just how big a GPU you have.

Experiment away... it is fairly quick to go over all the options, and it is very clear what the limit of your machine is... also using MO it is really quick to swap between 1k and 2k textures on a whim.

[menko2]

Thank you for the replies.

 

I have been tested for some hours and put almost all the textures in 2K and i was surprised that i didnt see much difference in quality but also in stutter. Its almost the same the stutter when loading new cells or things outside. Interiors is great.

 

I use Enboost that helped me a lot with stutter, but it looks nothing solves this problem. I even reduced all textures to 1K (weapons,...everything) and i move the texture folder in a ramdisk and the stutter was the same as with my SSD.

 

I guess i will use 2K if i have the same stutter with 1K. I have 4Gb of Vram and Vram doesn't pass the 2500mb mark with 2K.

Loading times i did notice difference, but not much.

 

My FPS went down 2-3 outdoors with 2K textures. Is it normal?? I thought the texture size doesn't change the FPS if i have enough Vram.

[torminater]

Bigger textures are more heavy on performance because of all the processing now involving 2x the amount of data (AA, AF, AO, etc)

 

 

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[blitzen]

There isn't much visual difference between 1k and 2k for most textures, unless you are looking at it from very close up. I have no idea why people even bother with 4k, except for the screen archers, who also tend to use performance-killing ENBs. 1k should be fine for normal play. I see a bigger difference in-game with different levels of anisotropic filtering than I do with 1k vs. 2k.

[Aiyen]

Depends largely on the model size as well.

 

Essentially it is model size and hence distance from object that matters. You can clearly see a difference in terrain textures between 1k and 2k, and on large walls etc. For weapons and armor there is a huge noticeable difference since they are always up and in your face.

Also for certain textures pixelation become an issue with lower resolutions. Really noticeable for clouds, but also skin textures.

[blitzen]

There is very little perceived difference in the 1k and 2k textures for terrain unless staring straight down and studying the ground. The overall impression of the visual quality is essentially the same as the character is walking through the world. Other factors have a greater impact on the visual quality. If you have a lot of VRAM to spare, then 2k may not be a concern, so it may be worth using. I generally use 1k if it's available. Even SFO uses primarily 1k textures, and even 512. Only very specific textures are 2k.

[Aiyen]

The general difference on landscape is that higher res textures normally have more clear details, hence more "black outlines" around small rocks etc. and these are in general more defined. At lower resolutions then these details get washed away since the outlines of the details is not very pronounced.

 

Also worth mentioning then if you use any sharpening in your post processing (Most ENB´s and or SweetFX stuff do that) the details of higher res will also become much more apparent, and the visual difference between 1k and 2k is even larger... which is mainly why screen archer shots look really really good and why going at least 2k is a must really.

 

But overall you only ever notice the difference is you have been playing around with 2k for a while and then go down to 1k.. it will stand out like night and day... so just make sure you make up your mind on what resolution you want to use before playing.

 

The whole VRAM argument is to be taken with a grain of salt.. you are only forced to 1k if you have less then 2Gb really. Once you have that much and a semi decent rig then current memory management and properly setup mod lists will allow you to run stable with 2k without much fuss. Granted you wont be able to run at really high ugrids values if that is a must for you, for that you still do require 3Gb or more... or go down to 1k. Since even more textures are loaded into memory at once.

[phazer11]

What model laptop do you have? I have an ASUS G75VX (1920x1080, LED Monitor, GTX 670MX 3GB VRAM), Corsair Neutron GTX SSD and running Aiyen's ENB I got around 35 FPS at 1920x1080 and if I reduce down to 1600x900 I get about 42-45 but I enjoy the higher resolution more so I'll take the fps hit along with a bit more than half 2k textures. But I've never gotten any stutter, so just curious what model you're using. You might try reducing your display resolution see if that helps some.

[menko2]

My fps are good with 2K as they drop only around 2-3fps.

 

My concern is about stutter but also with 1K the stutter is there when loading cells. I use a fast SSD so i tought it wont be that bad. I dont have many scrips mods.

 

I put the 1K textures in a Ramdisk and it goes a bit better, but still stutters. So i guess i will be using the 2K ones as i have enough Vram and the game stutter anyways.

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My laptop is a Clevo P170EM.

 

HM77 Express Chipset.

3740QM.

16GB Ram CCorsair Vengeance.

256GB Samsung 840 Pro

GTX 680M 4GB.

1920X1080 screen.

 

I play at 1080p and i use Realvision Nova Enb.

[TechAngel85]

The 2.2.8 guide has some direction on fixing this stuttering with ENBoost. I can't recall it at the moment but the guide with be released soon.

 

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[menko2]

Thank you Techangel.

 

Hopefully we will have the guide soon!!

[kayte]

I found this conversation really helpful. Thanks guys :)