User:Kelmych/DDSopt STEP Vanilla

DDSopt Optimization

This section describes a process for optimizing all the vanilla Skyrim textures in as few steps as possible. It is suggested that the reader follow each step precisely or read through it prior to customizing the process in any way. Explanations are included for interested users; earlier versions of these instructions without explanations led to large numbers of questions in the STEP forums. The optimization processing described in this section requires that the user has completed the steps in the previous section.

Optimize the Vanilla Textures

Recommended DDSopt Constraint Menu Settings for Optimizing the Vanilla Textures

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  H1 (and V1) : High Quality, Ordinary textures


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  S1: Standard Quality, Ordinary Textures


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  V2: Very High Quality, Exterior Normal Maps


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  H2: High Quality, Exterior Normal Maps


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  S2: High Quality, Exterior Normal Maps


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  H3 and V3: High Quality, Exterior Textures


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  S3: Standard Quality, Exterior Textures

The constraint menu settings for optimizing the vanilla textures are

• Very High Quality (V1-V3) for high end systems recommends recommends 2K×2K resolution limit parameter for all vanilla textures; 2Kx2K is used for exterior color map textures (but these are optimized using the DirectX format settings). Note that the largest vanilla textures are 2K×2K, and that there are only 10 vanilla tangent space normal maps that are 2K×2K.
• High Quality (H1-H3) recommends 2K×2K resolution limit parameter for non-exterior and body-related textures, 2Kx2K for exterior color map textures (optimized using the DirectX format settings), and 1K×1K resolution limit for exterior tangent space normal map textures with the vanilla textures.
• Standard Quality (S1-S3) recommends 2Kx2K resolution limit parameter for non-exterior color map textures and body-related textures, 1Kx1K for non-exterior normal map textures, 1Kx1K for exterior color map textures (optimized using the DirectX format settings), and 1Kx1K (or 512×512 if more VRAM usage reduction is needed) resolution limit for exterior tangent space normal map textures. Many users of the standard quality parameters, depending on monitor resolution and system capability and mod's texture sizes, can use larger values of some of the recommended max resolution limit parameters.

With the availability of ENBoost and SKSE 1.7.1" (which includes Skyrim memory patch 3.0) that dramatically improves memory management in Skyrim, Skyrim has a significantly better capability to handle large textures. Many users should now be able to use higher quality profiles from the above list than were previously feasible.

For all options, the DDSopt constraints tab parameters shown for uncompressed textures use lossless uncompressed parameters option. This format is used for all texture categories except exterior textures, since this folder includes a large set of terrain textures for which the compressed DXTx format parameters provide additional texture size reduction (without any problems that have been reported).

1. Launch Launch DDSopt if it is not already running, and--unless experimenting--ensure that the application is configured according to the screenshots in the Using DDSopt tab.
2. Click [Ignore] from the main menu and untick [Copy unprocessed and ignored files (passthrough)] if it is ticked.
3. In the [Browser] tab, click [Browse] in the upper window.
4. If the file type box in the lower right doesn't "All Documents (*).(*)" change it so this shows.
5. As the initial source folder, select the Vanilla Ordinary Textures directory
6. Tick the [Show Recursive] checkbox below the center text box.
7. In the lower window click [Browse] and select the Vanilla Optimized directory as the current destination.
8. Examine the Constraints Tab in DDSopt (see the sidebar in the section above to decide between High or Standard Quality) for the Ordinary Textures and make sure the Constraints Tab settings match those in figure S1, or V1/H1, depending on the quality choice.
9. Click [Process] to begin optimizing the textures from Vanilla Ordinary Textures into corresponding locations under Vanilla Optimized.
10. When this processing is complete, using the same procedure choose Vanilla Normal Maps as the current source in the upper window of the Browser Tab and again Vanilla Optimized remains as the current destination (lower window).
11. Change the Constraints Tab settings to match Figure V1/H1, or S2 settings.
12. Click [Process] to begin optimizing the textures from Vanilla Normal Maps into corresponding locations under Vanilla Optimized.
13. When this processing is complete, using the same procedure choose Vanilla Body Textures as the current source in the upper window of the Browser Tab and again Vanilla Optimized remains as the current destination (lower window).
14. Change the Constraints Tab settings to match Figure V1/H1, or S1 settings.
15. Change the MSN format parameter in Constraints Tab to R5G6B5; this will change the format of the one large uncompressed MSN (femalebody_1_msn.dds) that remains after sorting the vanilla textures
16. Click [Process] to begin optimizing the textures from Vanilla Body Textures into corresponding locations under Vanilla Optimized.
17. When this processing is complete, using the same procedure choose Vanilla Exterior Normal Maps as the current source in the upper window of the Browser Tab and again Vanilla Optimized remains as the current destination (lower window).
18. Change the Constraints Tab settings to match Figure V1, H2, or S2 settings. For some systems using standard quality textures (S2) changing the max resolution limit to 512x512 may be preferred.
19. Click [Process] to begin optimizing the textures from Vanilla Exterior Normal Maps into corresponding locations under Vanilla Optimized.
20. When this processing is complete, using the same procedure choose Vanilla Exterior Textures as the current source in the upper window of the Browser Tab and again Vanilla Optimized remains as the current destination (lower window).
21. Change the Constraints Tab settings to match Figure V1/H1, or S2 settings.
22. Click [Process] to begin optimizing the textures from Vanilla Exterior Textures into corresponding locations under Vanilla Optimized.
23. When this processing is complete, using the same procedure choose Vanilla Compressed Terrain as the current source in the upper window of the Browser Tab and again Vanilla Optimized remains as the current destination (lower window).
24. Change the Constraints Tab settings to match Figure V3, H3, or S3 settings.
25. Click [Process] to complete the optimization.
26. Change the [Constraints] tab settings back to the default values.