No the point is (FXAA + HD Textures) will still look better than (4xMSAA+4xTSAA + low-res textures) with both using a similar VRAM footprint. Its simply a trade-off, by reducing deferred AA you free up VRAM for HD textures, which have a bigger impact on overall image quality, imo. There is still a point in using the high-res textures with FXAA because the blurring effect does not invalidate the use of the HD textures over the low-res ones. The difference in texture quality from the HD pack over the low-res pack is still clearly evident even if you use FXAA.

Some of this is subjective of course, but it works off the assumption most people would not reduce texture quality before reducing AA sampling/modes.

No, FXAA reduces all types of shimmering because it applies to everything in the scene (that's why it blurs everything), unlike MSAA or TAA which only apply to certain elements within the scene like edges of geometry or transparencies. MSAA and TAA do nothing to reduce shimmering on textures or shaders, which are more likely to be a problem with the HD texture pack due to finer, sharper details that aren't touched at all by traditional AA modes like MSAA or TAA.

This is quite obviously false. You forgot to tell us which demo it was, what technology and which game engine was used, how the game or graphics demo was coded.
Look...ME2 uses large textures, but the areas are confined in small corridors and loads a new set during loading, while Skyrim is an open world with cells and tries to create a seamless "Load-less" fluid transition between grid cells.
You need a video card at least with 1 GB of Video RAM for 1024 or 2048 or larger textures. It's not a myth. Look. Try playing Skyrim with a video card with 256MB of Video RAM and then try it with a 1GB or 2GB. Even if the card features the same GPU, there will be a VERY noticable difference in performance.
The textures loaded into a physical RAM on the video card through PCIe (or before AGP) from the system RAM, (Previously loaded from the Hard Drive). The more textures your video card can store, the smoother and faster the loading and less choppy during travel for example.

@chizow

At very close distance (right in front of the player) FXAA + high res textures is better, but at anything past a few feet away you're better off with the old textures and no FXAA. That's my 2p and I'm sticking to it, unless you can be bothered to prove me wrong with screenshots.


I agree.

Install new texture pack -> game stutters. Reducing AA reduces the stutter, but doesn't fix it completely.
Untick new texture packs -> stutter is gone, and I can crank AA up no problem.

Solution - Upgrade.

All you need to do is look for yourself. S3 is gone now but S3 created this demo (it was an Egyptian environment) to show their S3TC technology which can compress textures at the high ratio on the GPU in real time.

Better solution - uninstall high res texture pack!

I have a GTX 560 with 1Gb. I'm not going to upgrade that just for Skyrim.

AA is the real killer however the HD texture pack is running my VRAM on the ragged edge causing slight hiccups, Even though i'm running Skyrim through an Agility 3 SSD it can in no way compete with the speed of DDR5 memory.
Without using the texture pack while using 4xAA i can hit between 800-950Mb of VRAM usage, Disabling AA it hovers at between 600-700 & a bit more if using FXAA, If i activate the texture pack even without AA i still hit the VRAM ceiling & if AA is used with the texture pack i get a second or two of stuttering before it settles down into system ram or page file, The texture pack really does cause issues on a 1Gb GPU & the minimum you should have is the 1228Mb of the 570 or even better the 2Gb of the 6900 series.

As always with Bethesda games my aero is disabled on launch(marginal difference, Cannot be reliably confirmed), Any gamer worth his salt will not leave web pages open either.

It's a VRAM issue nothing else, It may well be playable with the occasional hiccup like it is for me by that leaves my GPU absolutely no room to breath & limits me as far as using any other visual aid, The only option is an upgrade to a 2Gb card or lose the texture pack, A streamlined version of it would be ideal & the happy medium.

SLI'd 570's here and I get pretty persistent stuttering with the new texture pack running at 1080p, ugrids 7, and no AA. I even unpacked the BSAs and removed a bunch of the environment and architecture textures that I felt I could do without. Not sure how to accurately check my VRAM usage, tho. I tried the monitor in inspector, but it reports both cards as being pegged at max usage (1.2 gigs a piece), which can't be right...

Note that VRAM grows and shrinks depending on where you are in the game. I've been using SSAA x 4 with the texture pack and it's running fine, no pausing.

I thought the purpose of using "disabling desktop composition" (Aero) was because there will always be a 3 frame buffer, on top of what your graphics card has set. In XP, it's only optional, with your graphics card settings

HD texture pack looks great! I might have lost a frame or 3 on average but no biggie.
FYI, for those using the FXAA tool, some slight changes in there can easily mitigate the drop in frame rate from using the pack. Hitting 954MB's VRAM usage from a quick 15 min test.

Q6700@3.03Ghz
8GB's Ram
GTX 460 Hawk @ 885/2000

So do I and my game is not stuttering at all. Perhaps some other part of your system is causing a bottleneck?

Yeah, probably, but I'm not upgrading anything else, either. My system runs all my other games maxed out (and then some) at 60fps. Skyrim chugs along at 30 (capped by me for smoothness) without the new textures installed! I'm not upgrading my system for the sake of one texture pack for one horribly coded buggy game. I'd much rather just disable the texture pack! Don't get me wrong though, those textures a nice extra for those who can run them.

I run everything at Ultra except Shadows which I have on High and I'm getting constant 50 - 60 FPS. Something is definitely not right presuming you are not running any injector mods. I hope you are able to figure it out because I can't imagine going back to the vanilla textures. Good luck.

Anti-aliasing certainly does not use 200MB on every increment. Where the heck did the OP get that information from?

IMO people should refrain from posting "guides" if they have no clue what they're talking about.

Of course the benefit of the HD pack is going to be more noticeable on close objects, but those are the same instances where the low-res packs look horribly defiicient. The LOD difference is clear though well beyond just the character and given you spend much of your time talking to NPCs or in combat the HD pack makes a significant difference over the low-res textures even with FXAA. Anyone can verify for themselves with a few seconds of their time to determine if its worth it or not.

You must not use Transparency AA or you just have no clue what you're talking about.

MSAA 1x to 4x = ~100MB
TSAA 1x to 4x = ~100MB
Total = ~200MB

MSAA 4x to 8x = ~100MB
TSAA 4x to 8x = ~100MB
Total = ~200MB

If you watch VRAM increases for the same scene you will see the base game with no AA increases from ~500-600MB to close to 1GB once you enable 8xMSAA+8xTSAA. This also varies by resolution so if you run lower or higher resolutions this amount will vary, my examples are based on results at 1080p.

Inspector is accurate as its just reading the VRAM usage directly from NVAPI. You can also use a program like MSI AfterBurner and enable the in-game OSD/overlay, which will allow you to look at the readings in-game. You'll be able to quickly see changes and fluctuations in VRAM usage. Its not surprising at all that you are hitting 1280MB though, I'm at 1500MB usually, which is again, more proof that 1GB is not enough as the game will use more VRAM if you provide it.

Depends on your resolution and settings. For most uses 1GB is enough, but if you add on more IQ stuff or run at high res it can go higher, same as you'd expect.

I'm running an evga oc'd 570 w/1280MB ram. I have everything maxxed in the game settings. In Nvidia control panel I also have AA transparency enabled at 2x supersample, 16x AF, ambient occlusion set to quality, and texture filtering set to high quality. I have the HD texture pack, ugrids set to 7 and tree/foliage self-shadowing turned on in ini, and some mods that add more data to the game; like more grass, more trees and shrubs to towns, etc. I monitor vram and fps using evga precision. The most I've seen is in whiterun (probably because of the extra trees etc.), standing at the inn looking toward the gate or from the stairs at dragonreach, and that was a little over 1200MB. My fps always stays at or near 60 (58-61). I've checked in many places and towns, but that's the highest I can get my vram to go and it usually sits around 1-1.1k. If I turn ugrids down to 5 it drops even more. I don't experience any hiccups or any other issues. I'm also running a i7-950 oc'd to 3.8, 1600 gskill ram, asus rampage mb and an ocz ssd. I run my pc lean and turn off all programs and processes I don't absolutely have to have running.