DDSOpting Resources

[Zerocloud411]

So if I download a a package with "textures, meshes, scripts, interface,etc..." should I process the whole thing or just the textures/meshes? I am asking because it would save me a lot of time to just process the thing as a whole and I noticed that when optimizing the vanilla extractions, there are script folders and such that are processed (i assume nothing is done to them but I just want to know if it has any negative effect). Thanks for your time.

[justjr]

DDSOpt just optimizes textures... I am pretty sure the guide told you to select only *.dds files, isn't? It will only copy other type of files.

[Zerocloud411]

No the guide only said to exclude .png and then copy them over using the "ignore known file types" thus it must have processed the scripts, if only just copying them (which is what I'm wondering). Also isn't DDSopt also meant to process meshes along with textures or just textures?

[justjr]

Yeah, well, DDSOpt only process textures, don't touch meshes. You can choose only .dds without any problem. Only keep in mind that it will not copy other files if you don't select the appropriate option. If you select all files, it will only optimize dds anyway (and copy others according to options).

I personally only process dds files, and don't copy other types. With vanilla textures it does not matter much, but with mods that have a lot of files, I activate both in MO, the optimized one right above the original, so it can replace the textures from original mod.

[Zerocloud411]

If it doesn't do anything to the non-texture files then why not just process the whole thing when textures are involved?

[justjr]

I don't only to save HD space. I see no reason to have lots of meshes and other stuff duplicated. It's a personal choice. I use the other files from the original archive, without have to keep duplicates.

[Zerocloud411]

Oh ok, so just to clarify: there is no downside to processing non textures other than duplication? Also if that is true then why did the wiki say to untick .pngs?

[justjr]

There's no downside. It say to untick .png only because it doesn't need optimization, I think. I don't know if they are even used in game, and don't think will be any problem if you optimize them as well.

[Zerocloud411]

Ok thank you. Do you happen to know if there are any NIF optimizers stable enough for use atm? Or if it's even worth optimizing meshes?

[justjr]

All the NIF optimizers that I know end up causing CTDs.

[Zerocloud411]

Ok I'll just stick to textures then. Thanks :D

[Kelmych]

For BSAs like the addon DLC BSAs the DDSopt guide says to use DDSopt to "optimize" the entire BSA. DDSopt will optimize the textures using the DDSopt algorithms. Since it uses the same code as in BSAopt for handling BSAs, it will also fix redundancies in BSAs for all resource types (and the vanilla BSAs ofen have a lot of extra copies of resources) and, if the files are reassembled into a BSA as the guide recommends for the DLC BSAs, optimize the compression used for the BSA.

[Zerocloud411]

So these redundancies are only worth checking for in vanilla dlc i assume?

[Kelmych]

I have only seen these redundancies in the vanilla BSAs.