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Optimized vanilla textures


godescalcus

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Do you think it's beneficial to install a set of optimized vanilla textures at the top of your installer list? I found these. They were processed with 'Ordenador' according to the description.

Is there a better alternative? I found references to two, both of which are unavailable at the moment:  

SSE - Optimized Textures 1.7 gb

Project Optimized Textures Skyrim Special Edition 650 mb

Is there a problem with people and nexus or something? I'm getting A LOT of recent mods being remove/hidden... By no means do I imply that mod authors don't have the right to share or not share as they please, I'm just curious as I've been finding so many unavailable mods that had been released only a few months ago.

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Oh gods

Well first The best way of converting textures is to use the tools which were made for the job, or used by the game manufacturers.

For Skyrim LE, Photoshop plus DDS / Normals plugin

For Skyrim LE Ethatron made the best home brew texture optimizer in the form of DDSOpt, which was very good in particular at regenerating mipmaps for normals

Ordinator by apipino did a good job of simplifying batch processing of textures, but was not quite as accomplished technically as DDSOpt

 

So for Skyrim LE : Textures processed individually, by people who understand all the intricacies of every texture type, using Photoshop, would give best results. Which was also a slow and monumental task given circa 33000 textures to work on. DDSOpt needed a bit of study to get the best out of it for all textures, and necessitated splitting textures up into batches and / or getting to grips with the DDSOpt filters .. but the results were really good (The STEP project has there own bunch of optimised textures done that way). Ordinator was for people who couldnt be arsed, just wanted a quick way to reduce VRAM usage, and were not so fussy about preserving detail from the original textures in the resulting textures. imho.

 

Fallout 4 came along next. New BSA format (BA2), and the way textures were stored in those archives was new. The largest mipmap texture layer is stored separately, because it is rarely used in game, and only needs to be loaded and applied to the model in game if the model is up close. Otherwise most of the time the game engine may aswell just cache the much smaller mipmap layers for immediate use and optimise how textures are used in game.

Carry that idea over to Skyrim SE, and you will also realise another reason for not having mod replacers files as loose files (mentioned elsewhere), because when the game loads the textures as loose files it has to load the large texture mipmap aswell, making the newer games less optimal in this aspect.

So hopefully the mods you are looking at for the newer Skyrim SE gives its textures in BA2's, and not loose files.

Also hopefully they are using the newer plugins for textures (and the newer texture types which are compatible with the newer games) Intel Texture Works.

 

Both DDSOpt, and Ordinator Ordinador .. HAVE NOT BEEN UPDATED TO WORK WITH THE NEWER GAMES TEXTURE FORMATS

So maybe there are newer textures and formats with layers that were not present in older games that these tools and there filters have not been adapted to.

In a lot of cases they will work fine (because both games do still utilise the older texture formats a lot like DXT1) ..

.. But really the people making these mods ought to put in a bit more effort to understand what they are doing with peoples game setups, instead of just thinking "worked for skyrim, lets see if it works on FO4 and SSE .. seems fine to me after ten minutes, lets upload it and get a bit of fame and not answer the technical stuff cause I havent got a clue anyway"

 

Your choice. I would imagine they cut down on your VRAM use, probably do no harm, but will look glitchy, and are certainly no better optimised despite the processing if they are uploaded as loose replacers. The BA2 loading as explained elsewhere is not only faster, but also due to not needing the large base image layer the game will just ignore loading that from the BA2 completely when it is not needed .. If the replacers are loose files, the whole texture is loaded. So any VRAM saving from optimising process is lost due to loading the whole texture anyway in the case of the newer games since Skyrim LE.

 

Reference mods being removed - Maybe they did not get permission from the original authors which were for Skyrim LE, when converting someone elses work for SSE (its been happening quite a lot, cheeky copy pastas wanting a quick fix of being an author with very little effort).

 

Someone will probably correct any inaccuracies above (typing this quick because I need to get back on shift soon), but I think that just about sums it up.

For further (but getting old now) reading, see the following topic .. 

 

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23 minutes ago, alt3rn1ty said:

Oh gods

LOL I always learn by reading your long posts, thank you! I've come to having read most if not all of your guides at different points in time. 

I've read all of the articles you mentioned while learning to implement mods in skyrim. I hope I have learned something... because I'm not extracting bsa's now. But sure as hell I still don't know how the game engine loads them.

As an example case, the optimized textures mentioned above are indeed in bsa format. And its assets will probably be overridden in the most part by higher quality texture replacers that I'll be installing (noble skyrim, flourishing floras and whatnot). Will I overload the game in any way by having replacers replacing replacers in succession? Should I try to repack them in one big texture replacer customized for my build and add just that to wrye bash? If that's the case, how do I repack a folder with all my selected assets into a bsa?

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Dont quote me but I think (having not actually used the new CK's and their associated archivers for Fallout 4 and Skyrim SE myself) that the official archiver packs your textures and automatically optimises how they are stored in the BA2 itself, so will separate out the big layer from the mipmaps for each texture without you having to do anything, and store them how they should be.

So if the mods have used the official archiver for creating their BA2's, at least they got that bit right. And if all of the textures contained are originally just the usual DXT1 for example, then the optimisation of the textures with Ordinador is probably good enough too if you are not looking too closely at the resulting textures.

Best thing to check them out with is MNelson's <Gamename> Performance Monitor, he now has one for FO4 and SSE

Do a strict measured run for before and after, screenshot and compare both sets of graphs and results.

Have a look at the images for how I tested my progress with VRT for Skyrim LE using Skyrim Performance Monitor.

 

I ought to have mentioned a disclaimer in my first reply, that my opinion there is just a generalisation and not reflective of the quality of any particular mod - Its just what I have collectively been seeing across nexus since FO4 and SSE have been released. Some mods using old tools may well be okay in use and in quality, only way to know for sure is check em out and see if you get any reduction in quality of texture or fps .. Or DIY.

Right, gotta go I shouldn't be here right now :)

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3 hours ago, godescalcus said:

Will I overload the game in any way by having replacers replacing replacers in succession? Should I try to repack them in one big texture replacer customized for my build and add just that to wrye bash? If that's the case, how do I repack a folder with all my selected assets into a bsa?

I think you will be fine there. The game handles replacers replacing replacers without issues.

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  • 2 years later...

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