Hey,

Found this great find on Nexus; Texture Optimizer (http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=12801).

I have a GTX 580 1.5gb but with texture mods I was always hitting the max and so it caused constant stuttering unless I used the Bethesda HD DLC textures. So I tried this optimizer out as the author and the comments from user report 0% image loss but substantial reduction in texture size and thus vram usage.

In case this means little to anybody, each graphics card has so much video memory to store textures so when this is exceeded, as in the cause with high-res texture mods, it causes a lot of stuttering as there is less space than what is coming in and from my understanding the traffic will be continually swapped between the video memory (vram) and the ram on the motherboard. Therefore reducing texture size will reduce stuttering if your close to maxing or maxed your vram.

I used the optimizer and I seen a 12% reduction in textures and it only took 15mins to do. Instruction on how to use it are on the page, however Win 7 64 bit users like myself need to download an extra nvidia tools file and install it but its easy and is also on the nexus page.

My game has never been smoother, its so smooth I can't believe it and I never max my vram usage now even with 3x3 supersampling set in Nvidia Inspector

Hope this helps!

Are you able to compress the standard files located in the .BSA file? I'm not running any mods, but I fall to 50-55fps in Riften so I'd like to see if I could compress the textures to improve frame-rate.

Also, could you send a direct link to that ncompress thing? I can't find it.

Only works with Nvidia GPU's ?

You have to extract the textures out of the .bsa first to compress them, however the textures in the HiRes DLC have already been compressed so you won't see any improvement but I cannot say about the vanilla textures but as long as you have a 1GB card then vanilla should be no problem.

The link to the Win 7 64 tools is on the first page under possible requirements, just install that, run the optimizer, go to 'Extra Option' and select 'Install in [Directory]' and then hit start. Instructions are on the first page and in the comments but if people still don't get it I might write up a step by step guide. Use the medium compression so you don't lose image quality.



Works with ATI as well... however look through the comments for the mod, there are only 12 short pages and people have mentioned that they use it for ATI as well.

It looks promising, but there's not much in the way of development/research notes or any mention of normal maps - compaired for example with the work that has gone into DDSOpt http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=5755

Have a read of the online documentation http://obge.paradice-insight.us/wiki/DDSopt

I use DDSOpt to get the game running on my laptop which is only restricted in the graphics memory department, 256mb VRAM. Rescaled all original textures ... Game running smooth here, also used it to rescale without losing any quality, textures like Navatseas UNP compatible female body and face textures for use on Prometheus female meshes or UNP meshes.

It may not have all the documentation but it works and isn't that what matters? Many users have found significat reductions in textures size with no quality loss so vram usage was improved. I know rarely hit my max vram and its like a dream lol