SkyBoost (topic 2) : V - Skyrim

» Sat May 19, 2012 10:38 pm

It would be pointless. Just about anyone with ether an ATI/AMD or Nvidia GPU can easily run Oblivion way beyond it's highest setting.

Unless you have RAEVWD running, then it chugs like a 1820 locomotive even on a *Tiny God?

» Sat May 19, 2012 11:32 pm

This whole optimizing code thing is by far the best mod concept in the history of all Bethesda's games, honestly. A smooth framerate is so important, at least to me.

I'm actually "saving myself" for later versions. Right now I'm modding my game atm and studying so I don't have time to play the actual game. I can't wait for the "WOW" feeling when installing this mod later on

Keep up the good work Alexander.

» Sun May 20, 2012 3:10 am

Currently i have all dot code rewritten to high level because sse realization from Arisu on amd runs 5x times slower than pure x87 or sse1 generated by compiler

That realization was not good in any way, to multiply 3 floats by 3 floats and to add sums it was doing lots of unaligned loads and used haddps twice on same register (bad) - it is strightforward, but not efficient. Ofc the fact that AMD had weak SSE3 is not helping performance. On modern intel processors that code was still faster than vanilla

I am fine with having SSE2 only, AMD specific version - but i feel that someone should be building intel specific versions - quite a few posters with recent Intel system have gained from SkyBoost and they have top of the line CPUs and GPUs.

» Sun May 20, 2012 6:09 am

DariusD
The point of sse3 and sse4 using is ambiguous , because :
- Timing is like on every other bottleneck , those people who has very fast cpus with sse4 support just don't need such code improvements
- SSSE3 is like 5% speedup from SSE2 on huge calculations , we don't have such here , 1% impact will do nothing
- In order to generate SSE3+ from high level code icc must be running on intel cpu of 6th series like c2d etc ( many cpuid checks inside of the compiler) and anyway because I'm using amd I wont be able to test something more than SSE3 (it has zero improvement comparing to SSE2) even if I'll find the way to force icc use SSE3+ :biggrin:

Currently i have all dot code rewritten to high level because sse realization from Arisu on amd runs 5x times slower than pure x87 or sse1 generated by compiler

Xetrill, newt111
As i wrote before SSE3 has zero improvement comparing to SSE2 , SSSE3 has 5% gain top with huge calculations . Comparing intel to msvc compilation intel has 1 more fps on SSE2 SkyBoost version on my amd cpu . Currently the code path is one , size is huge cuz i need to check every byte to be from original game

Squall Leonhart
Not only dispatcher , compiler capabilities are limited while using it on amd

vejn
How much fps in skyrim do u have on vanilla game ?

Could you possibly make a version that works better with slower CPUs? SkyBoost is pretty much useless to me due to only having 1800 MHz...

There's only 1 spot where it actually helps. In Dragonreach(map room), I get almost 40 FPS in a very specific spot. If I'm only a centimeter off that spot...back to 20 FPS. Looking completely up at the sky boosts my FPS to 30, but that doesn't really help.

» Sun May 20, 2012 4:20 am

Are you planning on linking some builds using the higher end SSE instructions Alexander?

Us 'higher end pc' sector are large in numbers as well.

Anyway, great work. I kind of wish skyboost kicked in a little quicker between loading new areas vs tesval, but other than that. This is quite possibly the best mod for skyrim. Certainly my no.1

Skyui coming in second place.

You expanding on this very exciting.

» Sun May 20, 2012 4:31 am

As soon as I will have +5 fps comparing to r3 that build will be named r4 :wink:

hey thanks again for doing this stuff, as you raise the efficiency it lets me pile on even more and more savage levels of detail

» Sun May 20, 2012 8:46 am

edit: nvm loool

» Sat May 19, 2012 9:45 pm

So, I cannot get this to work at all. Every time I try to load a game it either freezes on the load screen or does the "endless loop but never loads" thing. I use SKSE with TESVAL with zero problems and so I thought I would try this out. I moved all of the SKSE stuff out of my folder, put the Skyboost files into my Skyrim folder, fired it up using the regular launcher and no save games nor new game will load. Tried R3 and R2. Moved the Skyboost files out, and it loads fine. Move the SKSE stuff back and it loads fine. Only the Skyboost files keep it from loading.

Running 1.3.10
VERY few mods, none that need SKSE except the TESVAL.
All drivers are up to date.
Rig is below:

» Sat May 19, 2012 7:51 pm

I haven't had much time lately to play Skyrim but I'm keeping an eye on TESVal and Skyboost to try out as they sound so promising. The modding community always amazes me with their ingenuity.

The only thing that worries me is something I read earlier in these threads on both mods that every time Bethesda releases a new patch, both mods will break and have to be rewritten to work with the new .exe. Is that true? Patch 1.4 is due to come out some time in January and I'd hate to get addicted to incredible framerates only to see the improvements canceled after patching. I wonder if the authors will have the time or inclination to keep recoding these things after every patch.

Of course, the best solution would be for Beth to implement these optimizations into the vanilla game so everyone can benefit even if they don't mod their game. Fat chance of that happening!

» Sun May 20, 2012 2:17 am

Unless you have RAEVWD running, then it chugs like a 1820 locomotive even on a *Tiny God?

Never had a problem running RAEVWD, since it was so optimized.

» Sun May 20, 2012 5:34 am

Its not so much that they need to be rewritten, but yes, both mods will break when a new patch comes out. The modders will have to track down all of the new addresses that need to be changed. How long that will take is anyone's guess. The SKSE guys can do it pretty fast because they have been doing it for years. We'll just have to wait and see how long it takes Alexander and Arisu (if he decides to keep updating his).

» Sun May 20, 2012 6:03 am

It would be pointless. Just about anyone with ether an ATI/AMD or Nvidia GPU can easily run Oblivion way beyond it's highest setting.

But not in towns or areas with more than a few NPCs. Walk through the Market District during the day when there are more than a few people around and your FPS drops dramatically (down to 30-40 for me, on an i7 2600).

» Sun May 20, 2012 10:46 am

Just upgraded from r2 to r3, and am getting at least an 8% FPS improvement over r2. I also got a strange crash (not the normal silent crash-to-desktop). I don't know if it had anything to do with skyboost or not, but here's the error message I got (it wouldn't let me printscreen it):

Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime Library

Runtime Error!

Program: TESV.exe

R6025
- pure virtual function call

Has anyone else seen this one pop up in Skyrim before?

» Sun May 20, 2012 7:23 am

well with r3 vs vanilla, i have gone to 50fps average in markath vs 35

» Sun May 20, 2012 8:26 am

vejn
How much fps in skyrim do u have on vanilla game ?

10 in outdoor areas, but it varies, It jumps: 10 -> 12 ->9->11.
Indoor areas are smooth.
HAPPY NEW YEAR

» Sun May 20, 2012 1:32 am

Alexander, I'm posting again just to say that you've done an amazing job. You and the TESVAL team have done wonders for this game, and helped people of all rig shapes and sizes.

I can't wait to see what else you can achieve with Skyboost, and any other projects you have for this game.

Cheers mate!

» Sat May 19, 2012 10:29 pm

Thx guyz

Controlled Chaos
No idea :ermm:

mesa
Got like this one while playing on vanilla back in november

Silverglade
Comparing skse and skyboost it's not really correct , because skyboost changes tons of addresses , almost all of 'em are autogenerated but anyway

DariusD
No sense of making intel optimized build til last patch outs :biggrin:

» Sat May 19, 2012 11:44 pm

Silverglade
Comparing skse and skyboost it's not really correct , because skyboost changes tons of addresses , almost all of 'em are autogenerated but anyway

If they are auto generated, can you include that code too then, even if it is in IDA script. There are lots of us using it. Thanks.

» Sun May 20, 2012 2:33 am

Thx guyz
Silverglade
Comparing skse and skyboost it's not really correct , because skyboost changes tons of addresses , almost all of 'em are autogenerated but anyway

indeed, someone on steam forums had the ignorance to state skyboost was faster because it was C++ xD

i explained to them that that wasn't directly the case, and you don't get much faster then machine code.

but skyboostr does alot more case optimisations than tesval and thats where the large gains come from.

» Sun May 20, 2012 6:36 am

I've just started using SkyBoost and I have to say the results are pretty impressive. It's not going to make a below min-spec PC max out the game at Ultra, but it's smoothed out my FPS in hairy locations (Riften market, Dragonsreach stairs, Dragonsreach entry) to a constant 28-40 (with the usual 60+ looking at the sky, walls, indoors, dungeons, etc.). All this with a laptop (2.2. Ghz quad, ATI 6750M OC'ed to 751 / 950, at the modest native resolution of 1440 x 900). I've yet to try it outdoors with maxed Ultra + max draw distances, tree and land shadows on, but so far the results are very good, even with Ultra shadows. Will also test in Markarth soon.

UPDATE: Just tested in Markarth - low twenties looking down on the town from the guardtower during the day. Outdoors is pretty stable, though as usual, the extra horsepower required for Ultra shadows seems to introduce some mouse lag. Still quite impressed - dropping shadows to high and upping resolution to native 1080p will probably run smooth as silk. Kudos to Arisu and Alex!

» Sun May 20, 2012 7:05 am

Thx guyz

Controlled Chaos
No idea :ermm:

That makes me sad. I tried a complete reinstall of the game and all my drivers, etc. just to be sure and redownloaded SkyBoost to make sure it wasn't corrupt. Still the exact same thing, Vanilla and TESVAL load fine, Skyboost locks the game at the loading screen.

» Sun May 20, 2012 6:12 am

@Controlled Chaos Well prodobly some thing with windows but you figured that out on your own.Looking at your rig it's kind hard to belive you need skyboost 3.7ghz and i got only 2.2ghz still everyone got need for more speed...

Hm maybe try to clean requistery or rollback windows to earlier state no idea reinstalling might be pointless.

» Sun May 20, 2012 12:54 am

@Controlled Chaos Well prodobly some thing with windows but you figured that out on your own.Looking at your rig it's kind hard to belive you need skyboost 3.7ghz and i got only 2.2ghz still everyone got need for more speed...

Hm maybe try to clean requistery or rollback windows to earlier state no idea reinstalling might be pointless.

Its not a need, its a want. Powerful rigs benefit just as much if not more so then slow ones. With mods like this in place I just get to ramp up the settings even higher (beyond what the options menu lets you put them at).

» Sat May 19, 2012 7:07 pm

Its not a need, its a want. Powerful rigs benefit just as much if not more so then slow ones. With mods like this in place I just get to ramp up the settings even higher (beyond what the options menu lets you put them at).

Nope, it does not work that way, pushing the settings higher places more load on the GPU, Skyboost only works optimizing the CPU throughput, while Alex is pushing for more optimization I don't think he will be getting much more, as I explained earlier in the thread, once he has reached max optimization for the CPU, the GPU then becomes the bottleneck, it's why the increase is more noteable in populated areas, AI uses CPU.

» Sat May 19, 2012 10:54 pm

Its not a need, its a want. Powerful rigs benefit just as much if not more so then slow ones. With mods like this in place I just get to ramp up the settings even higher (beyond what the options menu lets you put them at).

Your rig can into space... :smile:

Also i don't think it's wise to push more than ultra settings it can increase problems.

I read forums did notice people have problems that i never had and they got so much better rigs than me so there must be a reason...