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DDSopt Optimization


Zerocloud411

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So I am optimizing all my texture/mesh mods as the DDSopt guide says. I extract all the contents, then process the textures and meshes into an "optimized" folder and re7zip the whole thing back with the esp and fomod folders and all that other stuff I can't DDSopt. However I noticed that every time (with a single exception) I process, my optimized folder is very slightly bigger than the originals. An example would be 83willows bugs mod, which got bigger after optimization. Does this mean that she had a file compressed too small that needed to be using a bigger compression? Thanks for your time.

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As far as I know it is. To be honest I don't really know anything about what DDSopt does, all I know is that it makes the textures smaller and makes my FPS go up :P If you want actual answers you'll have to wait for one of the others to chime in, but as far as I know that's normal behavior on some files.

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Ok thank you. Also another question. https://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/26706 I just downloaded this mod. Would the correct course of action be to: Download->Extract->use BSAOpt to unpack the .bsa->DDSopt process the textures & meshes but not the scripts -> Repack optimized textures/meshes with scripts back into .bsa of same name -> archive whole thing back with the .esp? I just want to make sure I'm not ruining these mods

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I leave all my mods as loose files (and this is what STEP recommends as well), but that's basically it. If a BSA is missing then Skyrim just uses the loose files, so as long as you installed everything in the correct order there should be no difference.

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According to the wiki it says to repack bsa's back into bsas if they involve more than just textures/meshes

 

"If you did not include any of the BSAs from the Dawnguard, Hearthfire, or Dragonborn DLCs, which contain multiple resource types in addition to textures, you can ignore these final steps. Now it is time to package the rest of the directories, if any, containing optimized versions of any of the these DLC BSAs you created. Unlike the directions for the optimized versions of the STD and HRDLC BSAs which contain only textures, we suggest that these be repackaged into BSAs since they contain a wide variety of resource types, not just textures. The notice above tells how to do this. Put these new BSAs into the Data directory, where the original BSAs that you moved in the previous step were originally located, as the output path. Use the name of the original BSA as the file name. The optimized BSAs will then replace the original ones. For example, the file name for the optimized Dawnguard.bsa would be "Dawnguard.bsa". Alternatively, you can use the same approach as we recommended above for the other BSAs and archive the folders as loose files."

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Also if you were to remove the .bsas that means you'd have to remove the .esps and then BOSS would have no use right?

 

EDIT: I just came across a mod that had loose files with an esp so I guess my past notion of esps being there just to activate bsas was wrong. So should I turn all my bsas into loose files then? Even the official dlc stuff and unofficial patches?

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So I am optimizing all my texture/mesh mods as the DDSopt guide says. I extract all the contents' date=' then process the textures and meshes into an "optimized" folder and re7zip the whole thing back with the esp and fomod folders and all that other stuff I can't DDSopt. However I noticed that every time (with a single exception) I process, my optimized folder is very slightly bigger than the originals. An example would be 83willows bugs mod, which got bigger after optimization. Does this mean that she had a file compressed too small that needed to be using a bigger compression? Thanks for your time.[/quote']

There are several situations in which DDSopt will increase the size of an individual texture file:

  • when it adds missing mip-map levels
  • when it repairs a truncated texture
DDSopt will reduce the size of an individual texture file if:

  • it eliminates some low level (small dimensions) mip-map levels
  • it changes the compression format
  • it eliminates an alpha channel from a texture
When you run DDSopt it creates a log file that contains details such as these for each texture. With the 83Willows Bugs mod, for example, the log shows that it eliminated low level mipmap levels for a few textures, which reduced the total mod size a few Kb, and added mipmap levels for one texture that was missing them, adding roughly 68 Kb. It didn't change the compression on any of the textures.
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Also if you were to remove the .bsas that means you'd have to remove the .esps and then BOSS would have no use right?

 

EDIT: I just came across a mod that had loose files with an esp so I guess my past notion of esps being there just to activate bsas was wrong. So should I turn all my bsas into loose files then? Even the official dlc stuff and unofficial patches?

The note you quoted above was only about the vanilla texture BSAs. The esp files with the 3 HRDLC files are there only to load the associated BSA. When you convert these 3 BSAs to loose files you can safely eliminate the esp files. This is not true for addon DLCs; those esps have a lot of information in the esp. With most mods there is important data in the esp file, if the mod has one. A few mods have esp files only for loading of an associated BSA file. You can't tell whether an esp file actually has important data without looking at it in TES5Edit. If it is removable the esp has only a file header and no other records.

 

You should extract the data from the Unofficial High Resolution Patch BSA and then eliminate the associated esp. For the other USKP mods you can extract the BSA into loose files if you want (it doesn't change loading times by much), but if you do the esps are still needed. We recommend extracting the BSAs into loose files for the mods in the STEP list; this helps make sure that the overwrites of textures, meshes, etc. happens correctly. Typically you still keep the esp files.

 

For the 3 addon DLCs we recommend that if you optimize the textures with DDSopt that you then repack the loose files from each BSA back into BSA format. It isn't critical to do this, but there isn't any real advantage of having the non-texture resources in loose files and these BSAs are mostly non-textures.

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Sorry to keep bothering you but for the official .bsas' date=' should I just make a complex Bain folder of STD HRDLC 1-3 and Dawnguard, Hearthfire, & Dragonborn loose files? If so how does Bain know which folders overwrite which? I couldn't grasp that from the wrye bash wiki.[/quote']

The data in the HRDLC BSAs is intended to overwrite the vanilla textures in Skyrim and the the 3 addon DLCs. As mentioned above, we suggest packing the addon DLC data back into BSA format after optimization. For my system I have one archive for the loose textures from Skyrim - textures and another archive (or 3 archives) for the loose textures from the HRDLC; the 3 HRDLC are independent at least once you eliminate the duplicated partial copy of the effects folder in HRDLC2 (the batch file for eliminating duplicates takes care of this along with other duplications).

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Ok I understand, apparently I didn't see your comment on the last page about this. Well if loose files increase loading time, then what is the point of using them over bsa files? Is it a tradeoff of "accurate overwrites" for "longer load times"?

 

Also you said "It isn't critical to do this, but there isn't any real advantage of having the non-texture resources in loose files and these BSAs are mostly non-textures." Does this mean that if I have a mod that has a .bsa with "Scripts" inside and no textures (ie: SkyUI's bsa is just Interface and Scripts), then I should repack it back into .bsa? Or is that just for the bethesda dlc?

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