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DDSopt and overwriting Vanilla


CacklingIdiot

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Hello,

 

I have optimised and archived the textures as described in the ddsopt guide and also used bsaopt to optimise the other resources mentioned in that guide - Animation, Interface, Meshes, Misc, Shader, VoicesExtra. I have replaced these bsas in the Data Folder but am not quite sure about the Texture only archives. I have tried deactivating the content in MO and installing my optimised archives, but do not see any change in the Data folder (no loose files only vanilla esm files)

 

Posted Image

 

 

 

Can I remove the Bethesda high res dlc and replace them with my optimised ones (and get rid of the esps)*

What do I do with the STD, Dawnguard, Hearthfires, and Dragonborn vanilla esms? Do I move these vanilla files out of the Data folder and replace them with the new ddsopt ones?

 

Thank you for any help,

Ned

 

*I already removed the esps for these hrdlc files hence them not appearing in the image, but the original bsas are still present in Data

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1) Sound archives should not be optimized with BSAopt. It causes some funky issues. So you should restore your VoicesExtra to vanilla.

 

2) Texture archives can be optimized using DDSopt.

 

3) MO uses virtualization; therefore, you will not see any changes in the actual Data directory. If they're activated in MO, they'll be active in your game.

 

4) You can remove and replace the HRDLC files and ESPs.

 

5) If you unpacked and repacked the addon DLCs using DDSopt, then you can replace the BSAs with your optimized ones; however, leave the ESMs alone. Those are needed for the DLCs to work.

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Thanks! That cleared things up. Do you guys recommend optimising mods? Do you have to reoptimise a mod every time there is an update released for it?

 

edit: Even though it is unnecessary to do so, would extracting the archives in the Data folder and deleting the unoptimized bsas work i.e the files are not archived - just folders

 

Also does BOSS integrate with the MO Virtual directory - will it check the data folder for mods?

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Hello,

 

Restarted the dds-optimisation guide. There is a section that says "Before optimizing the High Res DLC files several additional steps are required to remove duplicates and textures that are not needed. If these optional steps are used then proceed with the repair processing below, otherwise skip these additional steps."

 

Could anyone explain what the additional steps referred to are? Is it cleaning with TES5edit?

 

Also,

https://wiki.step-project.com/Guide:DDSopt_%26_Texture_Overhauls#tab=DDSopt_Optimization

 

There is a part in that link that is titled "DDSopt Browser Menu Settings for Optimizing each of the three temporary folders"

After running Pre-Optimization.bat, I should have these two temporary folders in addition to the Vanilla Textures directory: "Vanilla Uncompressed Textures", and "Vanilla Normal Maps".

The bulk of the guide deals with optimsing the Vanilla Textures contents. Is it required that I do something with the other two mentioned above? Are these two folders created for the optional step where you do the half resolution maps thing for extra performance?

 

Thanks for the help,

Ned

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Hello,

 

Restarted the dds-optimisation guide. There is a section that says "Before optimizing the High Res DLC files several additional steps are required to remove duplicates and textures that are not needed. If these optional steps are used then proceed with the repair processing below, otherwise skip these additional steps."

 

Could anyone explain what the additional steps referred to are? Is it cleaning with TES5edit?

 

The optional steps are those in "Repair the Vanilla HRDLC Textures"; if you don't want to do this repair then skip to "Organizing the Vanilla Textures for Simpler Optimization". The wording in the guide was changed to make this clearer.

 

Also,

https://wiki.step-project.com/Guide:DDSopt_%26_Texture_Overhauls#tab=DDSopt_Optimization

 

There is a part in that link that is titled "DDSopt Browser Menu Settings for Optimizing each of the three temporary folders"

After running Pre-Optimization.bat, I should have these two temporary folders in addition to the Vanilla Textures directory: "Vanilla Uncompressed Textures", and "Vanilla Normal Maps".

Correct

 

The bulk of the guide deals with optimsing the Vanilla Textures contents. Is it required that I do something with the other two mentioned above? Are these two folders created for the optional step where you do the half resolution maps thing for extra performance?

 

There is some confusion because the term "Vanilla Textures" is used to describe the full set of textures provided in Skyrim and it is also the name of a folder that contains only ordinary textures. The "Vanilla Textures" temporary folder (which contains ordinary textures) is processed in steps 1-3 in "Optimize the Vanilla Textures", "Vanilla Normal Maps" are processed in steps 4-5, and the "Uncompressed Vanilla textures" in steps 6-7. In the next release of the batch files this week the name of the "Vanilla Textures" folder will be changed to "Vanilla Ordinary Textures" to reduce this confusion, and when that happens the guide text will also be updated.

 

Thanks for the help,

Ned

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Thanks for the update, will get back into it

 

Its all straightforward now :)

 

I was hoping to complete the "Using Reduced Resolution Normal Maps for Game Performance Improvement" section also but a glance at that looks like it could be challenging (for me).

Am I correct in thinking that I should do the normal optimisation as detailed in the "Optimize the Vanilla Textures" section for the HRDLC and archive as usual; and once this is done the optional Reduced resolutions step can be attempted for the HRDLC

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The existing batch files move any large normal maps in the DLC and HRDLC to the vanilla normal maps folder, so when you run the optimization of this folder just select a smaller max resolution to get size reduction. The Constraints tab figures already include this in their recommended settings; you shouldn't have to do any additional optimization.

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You should be fine for the vanilla textures. Mod wise I would say, tentatively you should do 1024x1024 for just about everything as a maximum (at the very least for exteriors like your landscape textures). Depending on the readings you get from say Skyrim Performance Monitor in game you may want to go back and optimize anything that ends with _n to half the resolution you used for the rest of the textures in the mod. So if you had 1k (1024x1024) for the mod set the _n to 512x512 by using the filter (if you have questions as to where that is ask)  You're probably ok leaving Book of Silence unoptimized as it's optimized 2k textures and it's mainly just the armors except for the creatures pack I'd say put those down to 1k (if they aren't already I haven't checked)

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When using DDSopt for Step mods - do I filter the *_n.dds and *_msn.dds parts(for normal maps?) and apply figure S2 constraints to them? What about the ordinary textures and uncompressed textures? Can you filter them the same way and use specific settings for each type in the same run?

 

 

edit: After optimising the Vanilla Textures, my Dawnguard folder in "Vanilla Optimised" has 3,121 files and 106 folders - missing one file according to the Guide. Is this okay?

 

I appreciate the comments,

Ned

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If you are manually optimizing STEP mods with DDSopt, you can do as you suggest using S2 constraints for normal maps (then hit process). When that finishes, you can select everything (use *.* in filter) and use S1 constraints. DDSopt won't write over textures it has already optimized.

 

Few STEP mods have any uncompressed textures. If you want to separately optimize the uncompressed textures (for mods that have them) you will need to deselect all textures, find the uncompressed ones and check them, then process with the uncompressed settings. It is preferable to do this before the step using S1 constraints above.

 

Post the number of files/folders in the Dawnguard directory in the temporary folders if you still have them.

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