DROPPED The Skyrim Distance Overhaul (by Grieche)

[Necrokat]

hiya! so will any of these Distance type mods help with the pop-in that occurs with the default ugrids=5? added far away stuff is great but what bugs me the most is how details and objects suddenly appear out of nowhere about 150 feet in front of your view. BAM! very disconcerting. anything that can me done about this pop-in, other than raising ugrids? thanks!!

[frihyland]

This mod will hit your fps like a truck if you use it on the highest settings, however it is easily the best solution around to the pop in problem some people are noticing. You just need a very good videocard to be able to run it.

 

And to Judgment jays point of compatibility with TPC you could just use the SRO option for the highest out of box compatibility, but it would need to be repacked with TPC to get it perfect (and even then I rather doubt that you could do better than the pure SRO option anyway).

[redbananaz]

https://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/19446

 

This mod is by far the best LOD improvement mod out there, it adds THOUSANDS of new items, rocks and all that good stuff to the LOD in skyrim.

you might think, doesn't Distant Detail do the same thing? it does, but only to the tundra area in skyrim, SDO adds new LOD to all the places in skyrim, it also adds optional stuff as giant camp fires can be seen from anywhere, waterfall effects can be seen from anywhere, and the marshes trees to be seen from anywhere.

The author said that the performance hit is about 10% but depending on your system. I've been using this mod for a week now and i haven't encountered any problems at all, and i didn't notice a significant performance hit anywhere in skyrim. 

[torminater]

There's already a thread about this. Please use the search function before posting a new mod recommendation.

[Farlo]

There's already a thread about this. Please use the search function before posting a new mod recommendation.

Merged.

[TechAngel85]

OP updated

[Kelmych]

For the first comparison, are there any recommended locations in Skyrim to do the testing?

[TechAngel85]

None that are called out specifically. However, Neo has been using the mod for a while now so he'd be a good one to ask. I do know that the Whiterun tundra and Morthal swamp are two major areas.

[Neovalen]

Whiterun Tundra is a great place... White River Watch top floor lookout. You can see the difference there immediately in all directions.

 

Morthal Swamp is a great place as well, no more tree pop-ins. No specific location needed, just walk around it's pretty drastic especially the complete version.

 

Giants fires there are a few near whiterun. Same for waterfalls coming back from the ritual stone -> Whiterun. Another good spot to see the major difference in waterfalls is near Windhelm.

 

One of the biggest pluses you'll see are:

 

1. Waterfalls do not stop moving when they turn into LODs

2. Giants fires still flicker when turned into LODs.

3. In general rock formations don't "pop" anymore and neither do pretty much all trees.

 

One thing I will say is I have NOT tested with the full version of SFO and it's new trees but if I recall correctly those are all full-LOD as well.

[torminater]

They are.

[Wormheart]

This isn't going to be a detailed review of SDO, it turns out that the Morthal Swamps (even in Vanilla Skyrim) are going to be the death of my video card (probably in a great ball of fire and slag judging by how loud my fans got). I gave up after that.

 

Options tested:

Giant Campfires

The Morthal Swamp Light

Waterfall Effects

Whiterun Tundra Creeks

 

Overall no performance impact noticed vs. vanilla (vanilla includes the Unofficial patches and HRDLC)

Framerate stayed stable at 60 fps for 60s tests in somewhat random mountain perches. (including slow pans across the area just so it's not a static scene during the benchmark)

 

No issue with giant campfires that others reported on the Nexus forums. I did forget to approach a campfire to see how the transition is handled though. (or to see if the slowdown is caused at a certain range)

 

The textures needed to be optimized, the diffuse texture is a 2k 21MB uncompressed dds. In my Full Play Through install I could not leave the Temple of Stendarr on a fresh Vigilant of Stendarr start without optimizing the diffuse and normal map.

 

Morthal Swamps were stable at 60 for a couple of minutes until my card got so hot that I think it underclocked itself as the framerate suddenly became very unstable dropping as low as 14 or lower. Vanilla is not as extreme to the point where my card had to underclock itself and the framerate held at 60, but it still heats things up. I swore I'd never buy ATI again the last time, this time I mean it :P (Installed the latest 13.6 beta drivers and have not tried it again)

 

The waterfall near Valtheim Towers / Darkshade (road from Whiterun to Darkwater Crossing) doesn't have a fancy animated LOD, it is still static. Didn't get around to the other falls yet.

[TechAngel85]

This is with the ESP active or use running the textures/meshes?

 

PS: I'm still setting up my system. I forgot that it takes two days to optimize, archive, and install everything...

[Wormheart]

Opps, forgot that part. Using the esps + textures and meshes.

[ExplorerPuppy]

Is the hit to FPS the reason this mod is not recommended as part of STEP? Because the trees and rocks popping in just ruins the game for me... Much more than the poor textures or lighting that so many of the STEP mods address. I haven't actually tried this mod yet. I'll update when I have.

[TechAngel85]

Is the hit to FPS the reason this mod is not recommended as part of STEP? Because the trees and rocks popping in just ruins the game for me... Much more than the poor textures or lighting that so many of the STEP mods address. I haven't actually tried this mod yet. I'll update when I have.

This mod has not been fully tested and that is why remains here in the testing forum for now.