Exporting DDS files for Fallout 4

[xrayy]

it is fully supported for fallout 4 since i testsed it all kind of textures with this format and it is officially part of dx11 interface! true is that bethesda irgnored this superior texture format in 2015, also for skyrim se in 2017. nothing new on this front... also the official hd pack was mediocre but not groundbreaking in raising image quality using inferior texture format and resolution. many if not most up to date quality skin replacers use bc7 format.

if you like to stick with inferior image quality just do so... the risk that someone uses incompatible hardware is close to zero. and i doubt it would be dx11 compatible. the same applies to sse. you need 64bit capable OS and hardware!

all my posted fallout 4 images are taken with bc7 containing texture packs here on nexus including most of my mods and terrain.

 

[xrayy]

you can do all what you want. if bc7 correctly applied crashes a game my fallout 4 and sse setup and most of my 500 images on nexus would not exist at all. so something must be wrong in your assumptions.

[RoNin1971]

32 minutes ago, xrayy said:

it is fully supported for fallout 4 since i testsed it all kind of textures with this format and it is officially part of dx11 interface! true is that bethesda irgnored this superior texture format in 2015, also for skyrim se in 2017. nothing new on this front... also the official hd pack was mediocre but not groundbreaking in raising image quality using inferior texture format and resolution. many if not most up to date quality skin replacers use bc7 format.

if you like to stick with inferior image quality just do so... the risk that someone uses incompatible hardware is close to zero. and i doubt it would be dx11 compatible. the same applies to sse. you need 64bit capable OS and hardware!

all my posted fallout 4 images are taken with bc7 containing texture packs here on nexus including most of my mods and terrain.

 

They did not ignore it in 2015. They started on the game back in 2012. That's when the 'minimal requirements' etc. are set (in stone).

Afaik (but, yeah, my info is old & second hand) That was before the release of BC7 or around the same time. (if existing way earlier then, besides my info being wrong, I would agree they should probably have used it. )

 

Formats being superior/inferior is a bit irrelevant in this case. As it supports a higher number of colors, the "support" being present doesn't mean it is used. (99/100 images from beth don't use that many colors. Just 8bit RGB, not even RGBs)

...all that for a bigger file size ... So if you don't actually need it, it will only add on the memory usage. But that's a bit like using BC3 without (using) an Alpha channel. (which I do too )

[xrayy]

this discussion is getting nonsensical. it is all said and obvious. thanks!

[dldrzz000]

If i recall correctly, ousnius mentioned , maybe years ago, that the best format for diffuse is BC1, and FO4 engine naturally prefers it, albeit BC7 diffuse generally proves to be the good choice between quality and performance. 

Note that FO4 engine only support BC1 diffuse for character faces, and the resolution is limited to exact 1k, if without Lookmenu setting. 

Additionally, some of my modding peers complained that BC7 normal map is really taxing. 

So I personally recommend sticking to what the game uses as RoNin1971 mentioned, even if the only choice left to keep fidelity is to increase texture resolution. 

[South8028]

3 hours ago, dldrzz000 said:

If i recall correctly, ousnius mentioned , maybe years ago, that the best format for diffuse is BC1, and FO4 engine naturally prefers it, albeit BC7 diffuse generally proves to be the good choice between quality and performance. 

Note that FO4 engine only support BC1 diffuse for character faces, and the resolution is limited to exact 1k, if without Lookmenu setting. 

Additionally, some of my modding peers complained that BC7 normal map is really taxing. 

So I personally recommend sticking to what the game uses as RoNin1971 mentioned, even if the only choice left to keep fidelity is to increase texture resolution. 

For faces, dxt5 (bs3) format without alpha channel. Otherwise, brown face errors may occur periodically.

[DiodeLadder]

The fact that Elric app has "BC7 Threshold" setting tells me that Bethesda was planning to use BC7 on some assets, and opted not to in the released game for whatever reason.  What that means is up to our interpretations, I guess.  My guess is that it didn't quite work out for the console versions, and on older GPUs in PCs.

Personally, I have been using Bethesda formats for environment assets and less important props, and BC7 for things that need to stand out.  Sometimes you'd want uniformity with the vanilla assets, and other times you want your assets to stand out.  Testing both ways and deciding what's best for your project is the best way, I think.

If you are starting TODAY, though, you need to remember that the next-gen update is coming soon.  Considering that Starfield has much shorter loading time and better performance than Fallout 4 does on my machine, I suspect all the BC7 performance considerations may no longer be necessary in the coming update.

Edited January 25 by DiodeLadder

[xrayy]

as i explained bc7  is even used for generating  lods (xlodgen) in the meantime. sure its optional but if you own a 2080 or better bc7 it is performancewise a no brainer for sse and fo4 and color handling and bandwidth is far superior to the older dds formats - including normal maps. i recommend to use bc7 for any new mods using new image texture material just not to waste image quality for no reason. if image quality for any reason does not matter or you need to address dx9 (le or fo3 /FNV)  you can just stay with the older formats.

the only reason not to use bc7 was that the compression method was mainly unknown or not available in the beginning. since paint.net included a great working bc7 compressor for free there is no reason not to use this format for dx11 games. full dx11 support for this format is guaranteed !

[niston]

Texture block compression is only tangentially related to BGS Creation Engine:
In case of BC7*, it is supported by Direct3D 11, which is a subsystem of DirectX 11 and relies on implementation in Direct3D Feature Level 11.0 compatible GPU hardware**.
 

Creation Engine then "merely" uses Direct3D for rendering.

 

*BC1-3 otoh were supported already by D3D 9. Later, D3D 10 added BC4/BC5.

**Yes, there is -and must be, for performance reasons- hardware support for texture block compression:  Texture block compression works by clustering Texels into 4x4 blocks (hence block compression) and compressing these blocks individually, reducing the effective bit count needed to (approximately) represent every Texel block while still allowing random access to individual blocks. It was initially designed by S3 company as S3TC,  to reduce VRAM needs of "large" (by 1999ish standards) textures. As a consequence of this requirement, block compressed texture is loaded into VRAM with block compression still applied. It is only decompressed by GPU itself, at the block level and on the fly, as needed. This is in stark contrast to BA2 compression, which is always decompressed entirely by the CPU when loading texture or other file from compressed archive on disk.

[RoNin1971]

Quote

Creation Engine then "merely" uses Direct3D for rendering.

 

Afaik, this is not true when used with a [effect]shader. In which case the decompression is done by the software/shader, not D3D.

Edited February 15 by RoNin1971
missing shader type