Skyrim SE Resolution Limit?

[nt5raham]

Question: What is the maximum resolution that Skyrim SE will process regarding textures?

I heard from a normally reliable source that Skyrim SE cannot/will not process anything above standard HD (2K), and that downloading 4K-8K textures is a waste of system resources. I'm trying to get the facts here!

Thanks for the help!

Edit: Removed background info to narrow and simplify the topic.

[anjenthedog]

I edited mine in response to your modifying your initial query.

[nt5raham]

@anjenthedog, thanks again for the feedback! Any answer for the actual question? What is the resolution limit?

[saurusmaximus]

As far as the max screen resolution goes, I know there are guys that play in 4K - you can see it in some of those hyper-realistic screenshots that get posted. I know on my system, Nvidia renders the game in 3840x2160 and downscales it to my monitor's resolution. Skyrim SE is capable of running natively at 4k.

 

As far as loading 8k textures into your game, yes you can load textures like that into the game, but obviously they won't display at that resolution (because nobody has an 8k monitor), and they will look better than textures of a lower quality. But, it will eat up resources for a minimal benefit (unless you are a screen archer), which is why I usually suggest people go for 2K or lower for most things; unless you enjoy playing at 20fps with lots of lag.

[anjenthedog]

nvm

[nt5raham]

@saurusmaximus, thanks for the response! Please forgive me if I have muddied the waters with too much info in my OP, but I'm only looking for one hard answer: Max screen resolution supported. Somehow the focus in the thread is getting shifted away from the question itself.

 

I know many people run 4k, including myself, and it looks great, and NVidia is doing the same thing on my system with rendering and then downscaling. I've been doing tech support since the late '80s and I understand the fundamentals of how to balance performance, and the concept of diminishing returns. What I can't seem to find out is if there is a hard ceiling, and if so, what it is. The claim has been made that Skyrim SE will not support beyond 2K, regardless of hardware installed, and I'm simply trying to verify that as true/false.

 

I have edited my OP to narrow the scope.

[saurusmaximus]

What I know is SSE was released so that people on a PS4 could run it at 4k. Thats 3840x2160, so I would go with that. If you really want to find out, you can try setting it higher than that in your skyrimprefs.ini and see what happens.

 

Edit: So, after I posted this, I tried setting my game to 8k resolution (go big or go home, right?), that's 7680x4320. The game started, and the Intro screen was so large that I only could see about a third of it on my screen. Then the game crashed. So I'm going to say that, theoretically, there is no ceiling.

[nt5raham]

OK, saurusmaximus and anjenthedog, what you have been saying jives with what I just got from a mod author & screen archer that pays attention to minute details in his pictures. And keep in mind that I have been asking in the context of 4K-8K textures. That 2K-4K-8K designation found in the description on the mod pages isn't about what screen resolution can be rendered.

 

As I understand the screen archer's explanation, dds files contain minimaps. Take an eye as an example. If the textures for that NPC are a simple 1K file, and you get real close, there is not much data (detail) included so the image can become "pixelated" and blurry and not very smooth. By backing away, the jagged edges smooth out and it looks normal. By creating a higher resolution dds, additional minimaps are created that include more data (filling in the jagged edges) for closer camera shots.

 

Looking at the eye of an NPC, you don't need much detail at bowshot range. Conversation range is a little different. But when romancing your spouse-to-be, a face-to-face encounter can put the eye really close. It is possible to be so close that an eye can fill up almost the entire screen, and thus needs a minimap available with more data to maintain a beautiful appearance. I was told that one 4K dress has 12 minimaps to accommodate the various camera distances. Even 8K files can be a benefit in this scenario (though of course with the aforementioned diminishing return). It seems to be about how close the camera is going to be, and which minimap it is using as a result.

 

Of course, galloping by on a horse, 4K or 8K textures on those beautiful blue eyes aren't going to be much of a benefit.

 

So the statement that SSE cannot benefit from texture resolutions higher than 2K is false.

[wfandrews]

This was a very educational thread for me, one which I enjoyed reading. I would like to thank nt5raham for that last post.

 

It also gave me a better understanding of what was happening when I would run Ordenador and it would add minimaps to many of the dds files it was optimizing.