DDSopt process on regular mods

[Faylon]

Hello guys, I just made an account here for the sole purpose of asking this question. (And for thanking you guys for all the work you put into this)

 

I am using Neovalen's guide to mod my Skyrim and I am following it to every single detail. So far I've worked my way up 'til the start of the actual modding. I have done all the first steps exactly as they were told and I must say that everything is explained in very good understanding English and with much detail. So thanks a lot for that! I use a mixture of both the original Skyrim Revisisted guide and the Legendary Edition guide. Right at the first mod I encounter my first problem:

 

According to the Legendary Edition guide we have to install our first mod: Falskaar. I know how to install mods with Mod Organizer and even the DDSopt steps for the Bethesda Textures were very clear to me. However, according to the guide I have to perform a DDSopt process on the mod. Now I want to ask this question just to be sure because that has been the only thing that wasn't entirely clear to me:

 

Do I first install the mod normally and then do the DDSopt process. Which in return creates a "new" mod called Optimized for example? And then make sure that the Optimized version of the mod is installed right after the original mod?

 

I am guessing that that's the way to do it. But I just want to make sure before I do anything.

 

Big Thanks!

And besides this question I want to thank everyone who is working on putting all those guides together for us. They are very clear and I am sure that they help many people a lot! I really appreciate all the work that has been put into this and you guys sure deserve a lot of credit for doing this. Without you guys, I would be nowhere regarding modding my Skyrim, considering I am a little bit suffering from OCD. xD

[zodden]

First off careful using everything in the legendary guide. Make sure you also keep the revisited guide open alongside. Most of the TESVedit patch stuff has not migrated to legendary. Some of the mods have been updated and so the patch instructions are off. Most are fine I found or you can still get an old version of a mod on Nexus if needed.

 

 

 

As for Falskaar just install it normally. When you DDSopt the textures in Falskaar output it to a new folder named Falskaar Optimized. Then in the left pane of Mod Organizer put the Optimized folder right under the main Falskaar folder. You can check to make sure you have done it right. Right click the Optimized folder in MO and select the Conflicts Tab. If you did it right then you will see that the Optimized folder has over-written everything in the main Falskaar folder. Make sure you have the mods in the left pane of MO organized according to Priority and not name when you do this.

[Aiyen]

Always keep backups.... Just in case you start getting purple models running about the woods! It takes up a lot of space.. and if you do not have several TB of space then it might be an issue. But in general always keep backups.

 

The process can fail, and it will eventually when you try to alter a certain texture type into something it cannot show.

[Quahogs]

First off careful using everything in the legendary guide. Make sure you also keep the revisited guide open alongside. Most of the TESVedit patch stuff has not migrated to legendary. Some of the mods have been updated and so the patch instructions are off. Most are fine I found or you can still get an old version of a mod on Nexus if needed.

 

 

 

As for Falskaar just install it normally. When you DDSopt the textures in Falskaar output it to a new folder named Falskaar Optimized. Then in the left pane of Mod Organizer put the Optimized folder right under the main Falskaar folder. You can check to make sure you have done it right. Right click the Optimized folder in MO and select the Conflicts Tab. If you did it right then you will see that the Optimized folder has over-written everything in the main Falskaar folder. Make sure you have the mods in the left pane of MO organized according to Priority and not name when you do this.

what do the results in the conflict tab mean exactly ?  for example SMIM optimized show 8 conflicts provided by this mod, 21 conflicted files provided by other mods and 130 non conflicted files...  Does it mean SMIM optimized is overwriting 8 files from other mods and is being overwritten 21 x itself ?   

 

Also do you now NOT check the original SMIM mod under installed mods and ONLY check the optimized ?   

 

THanks

[Neovalen]

Keep both checked. Original and optimized.

[Faylon]

Ah, thanks. I was wondering if you had to check both of them. I felt that this information was a little bit short in the guide.

 

And of course I am using both the Legendary Edition and the Original edition right next to each other when Im doing this so I can use the normal one whenever in doubt.

[Quahogs]

I'm trying to fully understand what I'm doing to these mods.. ie ddsopt. It's becoming a little more clear but I just can't tell if I missed a step somewhere and botched it. Sorry for the most elementary of questions here.

 

I optimized Skyrim HD 2k texture towns and Misc (I'm following Legendary optimization instructions). THe optimzed dir is the same in regard to number of files but the size has decreased. Hence optimized or made to work more efficiently ?

 

However the SMIM optimized directory is smaller. I guess files in there were NOT optimized therefore not extracted ? The only way to tell if it didn't work correctly is some instances of weaker graphics, or purple people ? :-)

[Aiyen]

The reason for the smaller file sizes is because some textures had a smaller compression (Hence they take up more space), and after ddsopt has run they are now at a higher compression.

 

If you want to be absolutely sure it did something then you can normally just look at the time it takes... if you ask it to optimize HD2 textures then it should take at least a few minutes to go through every texture. If it only takes a few seconds then you most likely have an ignore setting wrong. Also there is a log created for every process that says what it has done if anything.

 

As for when it fails. Well sometimes then the alpha layer can get messed up which causes the entire texture to fail, and other times then the mip maps fails which causes some texture popping etc. Regardless of which program you use then there is always a risk of this happening. Most of the time it will not, since the textures are often good quality.

Some textures do not like to have their compression altered, and some will just look entirely wrong (not purple). This is in part due to the phenomenon called "compression artifacts" which is more noticeable on certain types of textures if they happen.

[Quahogs]

When skyrim runs it knows to looks at the texture files in the optimized dir specifically or since it is below the original mod dir it "overides" the previous loaded texture ?

[Aiyen]

Skyrim always looks for textures in

...\data\textures\...

 

If you are using MO then depending on how far down on your mod list a mod is, then it will overwrite anything above it with the same name.

What skyrim see is only what is at the very end of the list!

So if you have made an optimized folder and loaded it into MO and place it lower then the unoptimized folder then it will use the former.