DROPPED Skyrim Flora Overhaul (by vurt)

[DoYouEvenModBro]

With GoS: https://piclair.com/data/lhtlm.jpg

Only SFO: https://piclair.com/data/7qsob.jpg

 

GoS: iMinGrassSize=75

SFO: iMinGrassSize=20

 

FPS is in the upper left (same for both, no FPS boost). I checked in a few other places too, no difference in FPS (+/-1).

 

Imo, it doesnt look very good. The grass was so large it was sometimes difficult to see anything in first person. Sure, the coverage is great because the plants are absolutely enormous, fern blades large as a whole person in third person.. Lupins large as trees almost: https://piclair.com/data/e8jf9.jpg

 

But whatever, people have different taste :) but that FPS boost some people claim, i think you should test it yourselves.. Placebo is a powerful thing ;) and when you test you obviously must test from the exact same spot (from a save).

Vurt, is there any way you can post a screenshot of the same location with IMinGrassSize=10 with the fps? I'm just wondering how much of a performance loss that would cause. Maybe IMinGrassSize=15 also.

[vurt]

Sure, here's one with =10:

https://piclair.com/data/l7ept.jpg

 

as you can see 10 is really dropping the performance in latest versions.. 20 is probably as low as i would go. Actually i would mind to see some more of ground heh, i was out in the forest walking 2 days ago and it struck me how little grass there actually is in most places, it's mostly just different small plants and lots of their green (and now yellowing) leaves a lot of visible ground too, it's not like a forest is usually thick with grass, at least not pine forests.

[DoYouEvenModBro]

Sure, here's one with =10:

https://piclair.com/data/47if1.jpg

Looks a lot better to me but unfortunately I'm not willing to give up 16 fps for it :-/. I'm already at 28 - 45 fps in some exterior locations. That's why I liked Grass on Steroids. Because you got much more dense grass for the same performance cost :-/. Hopefully the author will update it soon.

[Aiyen]

Vurt it makes no sense to try to say that there is no FPS boost....

 

Its a simple fact that the less grass you render, the more FPS you would logically get. Even more so if you have shadows in grass on as well.

 

We can discuss at what value you start to see an increase etc. But when you go up really high there is hardly any grass left at all, and the FPS increases by quite a bit.... kinda the same as if you lower the draw distance for grass to 0. Then you would also see an FPS boost.

[DoYouEvenModBro]

Vurt it makes no sense to try to say that there is no FPS boost....

 

Its a simple fact that the less grass you render, the more FPS you would logically get. Even more so if you have shadows in grass on as well.

 

We can discuss at what value you start to see an increase etc. But when you go up really high there is hardly any grass left at all, and the FPS increases by quite a bit.... kinda the same as if you lower the draw distance for grass to 0. Then you would also see an FPS boost.

Also, another way to look at it is that you get more grass for the SAME fps. For example, FPS-wise, a value of 75 with GoS is the same as a value of 20 with vanilla/SFO. GoS basically made the grass denser at higher grass values. 

[vurt]

Vurt it makes no sense to try to say that there is no FPS boost....

 

Its a simple fact that the less grass you render, the more FPS you would logically get. Even more so if you have shadows in grass on as well.

 

We can discuss at what value you start to see an increase etc. But when you go up really high there is hardly any grass left at all, and the FPS increases by quite a bit.... kinda the same as if you lower the draw distance for grass to 0. Then you would also see an FPS boost.

um, he has raised the grass density from as low as 30 (it's usually as high as i go, sometimes lower, sometimes slightly higher) to 255(!) in the editor. That's a whole lot of more grass, so it makes no sense that there would be any kind of FPS boost with this mod and that extreme amount of grass (and my test shows it too, there's no boost). But again, for visual preference, people obviously have different taste, if you're not interested in getting a natural look and you want tree-like plants then i absolutely won't stop you.. i guess it's kind of cool in a fantasy type of way... you're missing out on many of the smaller plants though, good luck seeing the rather flat groundcovers, for example. Basicly what you will see when using GoS is the upper part of the largest plants, so it gets a lot less varied.

[DoYouEvenModBro]

Vurt it makes no sense to try to say that there is no FPS boost....

 

Its a simple fact that the less grass you render, the more FPS you would logically get. Even more so if you have shadows in grass on as well.

 

We can discuss at what value you start to see an increase etc. But when you go up really high there is hardly any grass left at all, and the FPS increases by quite a bit.... kinda the same as if you lower the draw distance for grass to 0. Then you would also see an FPS boost.

um, he has raised the grass density from as low as 30 (it's usually as high as i go, sometimes lower, sometimes slightly higher) to 255(!) in the editor. That's a whole lot of more grass, so it makes no sense that there would be any kind of FPS boost with this mod and that extreme amount of grass (and my test shows it too, there's no boost). But again, for visual preference, people obviously have different taste, if you're not interested in getting a natural look and you want tree-like plants then i absolutely won't stop you.. i guess it's kind of cool in a fantasy type of way... you're missing out on many of the smaller plants though, good luck seeing the rather flat groundcovers, for example.

I don't remember his mod causing giant plants. Did that happen with older versions of your mod? Or is that what happens with the new ones? Which version of his mod are you looking at? He has different ones. I was using v2.0b natural edition for SFO.

[Aiyen]

Okay... pictures then :) 

 

This is not placebo... its quite logical. Less grass = more FPS. 

 

With iMinGrassSize=20

 

 

With iMinGrassSize=120

 

I could get more if I increase higher. This is what I mean with its not a placebo effect. It might be around 75 or so, but the higher you go the less grass... the more FPS! 

[vurt]

@DoYouEvenModBro I used the latest one, i havent made any changes to the lupins, they should be the same, same with ferns etc, the meshes are unchanged.

 

The mechanics of GoS is simple, if you make something larger it will obviously cover more of the ground. So yes, i can see how some people say it's a "FPS boost" because to add the same amount of coverage with SFO would require more normal sized plants.. but meh, i couldnt care less for that, i advice you to go out and look at an actual forest, you might be surprised to see that there's actually lots of actual ground to see, pine forests arent djungles..

 

Aiyen: it's not less grass... 255 is more than 30, no? Math isnt your thing.. big mesh = more coverage, it's simple.

[DoYouEvenModBro]

Well regardless, it doesn't really matter because you can't use it currently with Vurt's new versions of SFO. I personally never noticed the plants being that tall with Grass on Steroids natural version for SFO (grass value of 75) and SFO v181b so I'm very confused. 

[Nearox]

Make sure you use the GoS SFO short version, which does not increase the size at all afaik

[vurt]

I personally never noticed the plants being that tall with Grass on Steroids natural version for SFO (grass value of 75) and SFO v181b so I'm very confused.

 

Grass on steroids. It makes the grasses and plants bulkier, that's the whole idea, it's even in the mod name ;)

[DoYouEvenModBro]

I have a non-grass on steroids related question.

 

Both the recommended optional 181b Recolored Pines/Lods and the optional High-Res Pines (i'm using 4k) file have the texture "TreePineForrestBranchComp.dds"

 

Which one should overwrite which? Does it matter? 

[Aiyen]

Vurt: (I will let the crude remark slip for now!) The only thing I am objecting is that you say that the FPS boost is a placebo effect. Which I have just shown you is clearly not the case! Also showing you that whatever test you did is clearly wrong somehow.

 

The only difference between those two shots is the IminGrassSize. One has LOADS of grass one has less. Hence why I say Less grass = more FPS since that is what I see. (Has nothing what so ever to do with what the CK values are... only what is visible ingame! Along with the FPS!)

 

I am sure that this largely comes from having shadows on grass enabled! Since logically more shadow calculations will affect the FPS.

 

As for the artistic/realism part of it. Then I personally use the "goldilock" version of GoS. Yes some plants are larger then what they would/should be to look really nice... but mostly then I am happy with how the game looks vs. how much FPS I get from doing it.

 

Also again. I am not trying to start a fight! I am just showing you that there is an FPS gain from having less grass.

Just like if you reduce the draw distance of the grass... then you also get more FPS.

[vurt]

Aiyen: no one has said that iMinGrassSize doesnt have any kind of effect, that was not what the test was about. The test was SFO vs GoS and their respective suggested iMinGrassSize settings, and i showed that there was no FPS difference with almost the same coverage (his coverage is slightly better because of the enormous plants).