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The Skyrim Distance Overhaul (by Grieche)


MadWizard25

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Have some troubles when installing this modwith the STEP extended setup. LOOT gives me some dirty references and recommends cleaning with TES5Edit.

 

SDO Full-LOD - Giant Campfires.esp

warrning: contains 12 ITM records. Clean with TES5Edit

 

SDO Full-LOD - Waterfall Effect.esp

warrning: contains 36 ITM records. Clean with TES5Edit

 

SDO Full-LOD - The Morthal Swamp Complete.esp

warrning: contains 129 ITM records. Clean with TES5Edit

 

SDO Full-LOD - Whiterun Trundra Creeks.esp

warrning: contains 39 ITM records. Clean with TES5Edit

 

Should I clean the mod? Could not find information on this in the guide.

 

Thank You for help.

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This is an interesting issue. Look here: https://forum.step-project.com/topic/5011-beta-dynamic-distant-objects-lod/?p=80996

 

With none of the ESPs active in that area framerate returns to normal; however, there was no quality loss. I'll have to take a look to see what exactly those ESPs are doing because they're not affecting that area visually, but yet tanking the framerate.

There is something about moving a child reference in a plugin to the Tamriel worldspace from it's original Block/Sub-Block that eats performance. I think some others have noticed this 'bug' I guess is what it is.

 

Yes, clean it. Clean any mod that it reports needs cleaning unless otherwise instructed. GDO is the only mod I can think of that shouldn't be cleaned.

Convenient Horses.  :;):

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Convenient Horses.  :;):

Oh...well, this is one of the first times I've had Convenient Horses installed with actual playtime. I don't use horses in the game so the mod is basically installed for nothing in my gameplay. I only install it to maintain a pure STEP.

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The FPS drop plaGGy is describing is an actual bug in the engine itself.

 

What bug?

If I disable the mod, the FPS drop is gone and I get a chunk of 10or more FPS back (cant see cause of Vsync). So if its a bug in the engine or not, the mod acutally has some issues at least.

Its not the only place, there are a lot of locations, where I just drop for 10 FPS with the mod enabled when looking into certain directions and stay at 60 FPS with SDO disabled.

Not saying the mod doenst not work, but dips over 10 FPS just when looking into a certain direction makes the game play like using a rubber band.

 

The FPS drop is not an actual issue. It's just a result of using the mod because it's very heavy on performance. It's nothing that can be "fixed" as a bug would be. I do want to do some more testing with this mod though. Several posts back I posted a few shots. one had the ESPs disabled while still using the assets. This brought performance back to normal without changing anything within the scene itself...so I would really like to know what exactly the ESPs are doing if they're not loading things in the scenes at all times.

 

Afaik depending on what you install you get an ESP or not. If you f.e. go for the optional Swamp im Morthal you will get an esp (including HUGE drops even if you are just looking at it from the other side of the world.)

It may even be the case that you get no .esp at all if you don't use any additional option. Only texture/meshes whatever.

It seems that the files it self contain some information needed for Skyrim to decide if its loaded everytime or only when needed.

Edited by plaGGy
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I have to agree.  I got a drop of probably close to 30 FPS just by looking towards Bleak Falls Barrow (as an example, with the mod).  Normally (without the mod), I don't remember it dropping just by looking in that direction.  Though, I have to say that the last time I messed with the mod was months ago, so I don't clearly remember the details.

 

Whether it's a bug in the engine or not, with the mod you get this MASSIVE FPS drop in certain spots, and without it you don't.  I felt the odd sudden drop in FPS in certain locations to be downright unacceptable, personally, which is why I don't use the mod.

Edited by oqhansoloqo
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Basically, all the ESPs are doing are adding NeverFade flags to a lot of objects in the world space. Meaning these objects are loaded, no matter what, when you're looking in the direction of these objects (even if they're on the other side of the world map). This might be a workaround for this mod to do its thing with the game engine; however, it's a rather inefficient way of doing it. Adding in occlusion planes would be a very good thing with this mod! Mountain blocking your view? Enter occlusion plane to prevent objects from loading that are located behind the mountain! ...doubt that is even know if that's possible with the game engine.

 

I think I'll do some compares with and without the ESPs in the locations each ESP affects to see the mesh vs the NeverFade objects.

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3 words - "Skyrim Project Optimization".  Occlusion Culling, for interiors.  Are the exteriors handled in such a different way that it can't be used for them as well?

Basically, most interiors are loaded all at once. Occlusion planes prevent the loading of things that aren't within the frame the camera. Since this works within loaded areas both inside of buildings and cities could benefit from occlusion planes. Exteriors, on the other hand, aren't all loaded at once but rather by cell distance (5 cells is default). Objects with the NeverFade flag break this cell barrier by loading regardless of distance. The only way to use occlusion planes in exteriors would be within the cells that are currently loaded, if I understand it correctly. Meaning they wouldn't fix this mod's performance drops since it uses NeverFades flags to accomplish its task. A more performance friendly version could be created by removing some of the NeverFade objects from the mod's ESPs; however, it would also come with a quality loss as those objects wouldn't be loaded with the others. Someone with the time and patience could probably create a performance version properly which would have a happy median between performance and quality.

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Don't use the plugins from this mod and see how much different everything looks. The plugins take stuff from certain worldspace Blocks and put them in the Tamriel worldspace which eats up performance.

Planning on doing this tomorrow and grabbing a few shots.

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