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DDSopt Guide: Broken


Nokcihc

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I'm currently trying to go through the process of doing a clean install of STEP for the second time after having to completely wipe the previous. I hadn't really done any of the DDSopt optimizations last time, and while I have a beefy computer and only had a slight performance loss with everything installed, I figured I'd go all out this time and try and maximize my performance by doing the DDSopt optimizations. However, it seems like the DDSopt guide is completely broken and since I haven't done a clean install in a long time, I can't recall how to do it myself.

 

The guide is just... not a guide. To put it simply. It looks like someone rewrote the main guide recently and didn't actually updated the other sections. The guide simply tells you how to set up DDSopt and explains what it's doing and what all the features mean, which is great. That's a great thing to have in a guide and I really like it, but that's all it does. It doesn't explain how to use DDSopt. That also wouldn't be a problem if it was just meant to be a reference for people who are trying to learn how to do this themselves, but it clearing isn't. It was clearly meant to be a full guide for DDSopt and just isn't that.

 

After the explanation of the settings and everything, it simply gives you links to other parts of the DDSopt guide. Which you would think would include information on how to use it, but they don't(mostly). The only info on how to actually use DDSopt in the guide is the Quick Guide link at the bottom, but that is almost completely useless as all it does is tell you how to use some(really awesome by the way) batch files to optimize the vanilla textures. That's fine, but then it doesn't get into the optimization of mods other than to tell you that the main DDSopt guide(which as I mentioned previously was just an explanation of DDSopt) gives instructions on how to do that and that it's just going to get into some specifics about optimization. There's no actual info on how to manually optimize mods(or even the vanilla textures) anywhere in the guide that I can find.

 

Maybe I'm just not seeing it. Maybe I'm dumb. But I don't see any actual info in how to use DDSopt in these guides. I'm hoping you all can either help me out with using DDSopt or at least explain why that guide seems to not have any actual info in it. For now I suppose I'll leave the DDSopt optimization out of my STEP install(since it can be done basically any time that shouldn't be an issue anyways) until I can figure it out.

 

TL;DR: DDSopt guide doesn't have any info on how to actually use DDSopt(with the exception of how to use some batch files to do some very basic, non-manual, optimization). Is this intended or did something get messed up somewhere?

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The guide is not 'broken'. It is greatly simplified and perfectly 'correct'. There are many options, and there is no "one way" to use it.

 

Much of the other stuff linked at bottom needs to be rewritten (that's why it was moved out of the main guide), as it is very hard to follow and extremely complicated, describing specific examples of how some of us have used DDSopt. Much of the information in those ancillary sections is really only relevant to optimizing the vanilla textures.

 

All you need to know about using DDSopt is in the main guide. It is a largely DIY program with some extensive use-case examples. It is beta and will always remain so, since Ethatron stopped working on it a couple of years ago. The links at bottom point to lots of use cases and FAQs. Everything you need to know to get started using it is in the main guide. If you want more technical detail, read the linked guides. There are many aspects of DDSopt that just don't work, and if you really want to use it, you will need to contribute information about the unknowns marked with yellow text in the main guide. It needs testers. It needs development. It works very well for certain mods, but is not applicable to all textures either.

 

Learn how to use it and then come back and help to add the content you want. No hand holding with regard to DDSopt. Textures vary too greatly, and DDSopt is not going to batch process any mod with complete perfection (nor will any other batch texture optimizer).

 

I personally only use it for certain things (like Soul Gems Differ and Terrain Bump for example), and all of the vanilla textures are already optimized and available for download. It is mainly a tool for texture artists who are patient enough to review and process each and every texture.

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Haha, and I thought it was just me.  I was installing Neo's SR LE a couple days ago, and luckily there was an already optimized HD textures you could download on the Nexus, so I skipped dealing with DDSopt for a bit.  

 

Then I got to the first Quest mod (Falskaar) that he wanted me to optimize.  So, I installed DDSopt, put in the latest .ini, and got to the Interface section of the guide and thought ok, so I just set my interface with these options checked.  No problem.  UNTIL I got to Constraints, then it had 3 different pictures, and I was lost.  Which setting am I supposed to use now?  I have no clue....decided it was just frustrating me, and making me feel stupid, and decided texture optimizing mods was not my thing.

 

Maybe it was too late and I was too tired and sleepy, but it did nothing but frustrate me.....and make me go to bed.  Maybe that's a good thing, it was really late.  :cool:   I'm gonna go back and look at Neo's instructions again, and maybe he tells me which settings to use.  The Guide surely didn't.  It left me so lost that I took two days off from setting my game up.  It shook my confidence that badly, haha.  I may not always know what to do, but I like to think I'm at least smart enough to follow instructions.  Then again, maybe I'm not.  :confused:

 

Edit.....ahhhhh, thankfully Neo does tell me what settings to use.  I saw his link to (Guide), and assumed it was to the DDSopt guide, but it's to his own personal sub-guide.  Whew.....dodged a bullet there.  I can follow instructions!  I am no longer a loser that should play on a console.  I may not be good at finding the instructions, but when I do, I can follow them. haha.  Life is good again.

Edited by Bundy714
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Which part of the DDSopt guide were you reading and using? There is discussion and guidance on the constraints menu, and other menus, including when to use different settings in the guide. The main portions of the DDSopt guide are a reference guide. Those sections provide detailed information on the possible values for the configuration options and what these affect. The Interface section provides screenshots on the menu settings including three different sets of recommended values for the constraints settings; the choice among these 3 depends on the types of textures being optimized. The Setup DDSopt section of the Quick Start guide (part of the DDSopt guide) does mention when each of the three constraints choices is appropriate. The default settings are in the "Constraints" screenshot. The only use I have seen for the DXTx constraint settings example are for some terrain textures in the vanilla Skyrim textures, as can be seen in line 21 of "Optimize the Vanilla Textures". The alternate constraints reduce the size of uncompressed normal maps by 50% with very little quality loss and decrease VRAM use. In rare cases this doesn't work well, and it isn't compatible with texture editing within the Creation Kit. STEP and SR:LE do have some mods with uncompressed normal maps, and these have become more common as mod authors provide versions with higher quality textures (which of course raises VRAM use).

 

If there are specific questions let us know. 

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