Why, with this system, can I not max out Fallout 3?

[wcstorm11]

Now granted, I'm running a good chunk of mods, but even so, I feel I should easily power through them (underperforming) Could someone enlighten me as to any serious bottlenecks. Main concern here is :

1) Is my processor dominant for Fallout

1a) Recommended processor upgrades?

2) Can my mobo make a difference/bottleneck?

2a) Mobo upgrades?

3) Could my RAM be bottlenecking

3a) Ram upgrades?

4) Anything else

 

I think my load order is well sorted. I have many settings lowered, like no HDR or Bloom, 2x AA, 8x AF, Water low, View distances sub ultra, 1920x1080(native res. anything else looks crappy)

 

Specs:

1) AMD Athlon II X2 Regor oc'd to 3.5 ghz processor (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103687)

2) MSI 785GTM-E45 AM3/AM2+/AM2 AMD 785G mobo (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130237)

3) CORSAIR 2x2GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 667 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145180)

4) 2x(RAID 0) Western Digital Caviar Blue (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136075)

5) Sapphire 5850 1GB

 

Fallout3.esm
Anchorage.esm
ThePitt.esm
BrokenSteel.esm
PointLookout.esm
Zeta.esm
CRAFT.esm
CALIBR.esm
COMM.esm
StreetLights.esm
FOOK2 - Main.esm
FOOK2 - [[censored]] World And Neighbourhood Kit.esm
FOOK2 - [DIK] DLC Improvement Kit.esm
FO3 Wanderers Edition - Main File.esm
Mart's Mutant Mod.esm
Enhanced Weather - Rain and Snow.esm
EnclaveCommander-OA-Pitt-Steel.esm
DCInteriors_ComboEdition.esm
RoadWardens.esm
Zombie Apocalypse.esp
DarNifiedUIF3.esp
StreetLights - Wasteland.esp
CASM.esp
CRAFT - Activation Perk.esp
MegatonContracts.esp
Stealth Kills Enabled.esp
Stealth Kills Enabled - Pitt Compatibility.esp
BlackWolf Backpack.esp
1Animated Nightvision goggles.esp
SniperZooming.esp
WastelandMastery.esp
Treasure Maps_A Fist Full of Caps.esp
MTC Wasteland Travellers.esp
MTC Wasteland Travellers (Optional)- Crowded Cities.esp
SShop.esp
FOOK2 - Main.esp
FOOK2 - [EVE] Energy Visuals Enhanced.esp
FOOK2 - Mothership Zeta.esp
FO3 Wanderers Edition - Main File.esp
FO3 Wanderers Edition - DLC Anchorage.esp
FO3 Wanderers Edition - DLC The Pitt.esp
FO3 Wanderers Edition - DLC Broken Steel.esp
FO3 Wanderers Edition - DLC Point Lookout.esp
FO3 Wanderers Edition - DLC Mothership Zeta.esp
FO3 Wanderers Edition - Lvl 30 High Skills.esp
FO3 Wanderers Edition - FOOK Support.esp
WeaponModKits.esp
WeaponModKits - OperationAnchorage.esp
WeaponModKits - ThePitt.esp
WeaponModKits - BrokenSteel.esp
WeaponModKits - PointLookout.esp
WeaponModKits - Zeta.esp
WeaponModKits - FOOK.esp
Dragonskin Tactical Outfit.esp
DragonskinBonusPack.esp
sunglassescollection.esp
Mart's Mutant Mod.esp
Mart's Mutant Mod - DLC Anchorage.esp
Mart's Mutant Mod - DLC The Pitt.esp
Mart's Mutant Mod - DLC Broken Steel.esp
Mart's Mutant Mod - DLC Point Lookout.esp
Mart's Mutant Mod - DLC Zeta.esp
Mart's Mutant Mod - No Corpse Flies.esp
Mart's Mutant Mod - No Floaters.esp
Mart's Mutant Mod - No Geckos.esp
Mart's Mutant Mod - No Ghoul Raise.esp
Mart's Mutant Mod - No Wanamingos.esp
Mart's Mutant Mod - Increased Increased Spawns.esp
Mart's Mutant Mod - Reduced Wasteland Spawns.esp
Mart's Mutant Mod - FOOK2.esp
Mart's Mutant Mod - FOOK2 - DIK.esp
Mart's Mutant Mod - FWE Master Release.esp
1PipboyPDA.esp
SkillCheck.esp
Enhanced Weather - Rain and Snow in Fallout.esp
Enhanced Weather - Weather Sounds in Interiors.esp
Enhanced Weather - Sneak Bonus during Storms.esp
Fellout-Full.esp
lessviewdistance.esp
FWE - FOOK DLC Support.esp
FWE - Reduced Radiation.esp
KillableKidsNoExtras.esp
Riverside Apartments.esp
FF_DestructibleRadios.esp
KH_FWE Fixes.esp
KH_FWE Tweaks.esp
KH_NoAmmoWeight.esp
1stPersonKnockDowns VATS Working!.esp
DUIF3Extras.esp
RoadWardens.esp
Remote Bottlecap Mines.esp
MaxLevelWorkaround-BS.esp
royphilipsveryevilwmask.esp
suitcase_nuke.esp
MTC MoreGuardsInBigTown.esp
CrowdedCities_v2.esp
KH_MMM override.esp
BetterAccuracyPerk.esp
CitadelArmory.esp
iop.esp

Total active plugins: 100
Total plugins: 105

 

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated. Playing above 30 FPS would be quite nice, but I often find myself, even after killing everyone in Evergreen Mills, to be ~20 FPS. Indoors are the only good places, granted they are small and I'm looking away from "busy" areas

[HOWSE]

FO3Edit, it will show you whether or not your mods are conflicting and you'll be able to make a merged patch (very highly recommended.) I was going crazy trying to get FO3 to run with my mods, now it's very seldom I get CTD. I think that it's stated to load MMM as near to, if not last in your load order then the last thing is the merged patch.

 

Fallout3.esm

Anchorage.esm

ThePitt.esm

BrokenSteel.esm

PointLookout.esm

Zeta.esm

Mothership Crew.esm

Unofficial Fallout 3 Patch.esm

CRAFT.esm

CALIBR.esm

Sharing and Caring Companions.esm

FOOK2 - Main.esm

FOOK2 - [*censored*] World And Neighbourhood Kit.esm

FOOK2 - [DIK] DLC Improvement Kit.esm

CubeExperimental (EN).esm

Mart's Mutant Mod.esm

ShadySands.esp

Unofficial Fallout 3 Patch - Operation Anchorage.esp

Unofficial Fallout 3 Patch - The Pitt.esp

Unofficial Fallout 3 Patch - Broken Steel.esp

Unofficial Fallout 3 Patch - Point Lookout.esp

Unofficial Fallout 3 Patch - Mothership Zeta.esp

FOOK2 - Main.esp

FOOK2 - [DIK] DLC Improvement Kit.esp

FOOK2 - [EVE] Energy Visuals Enhanced.esp

WeaponModKits.esp

WeaponModKits - OperationAnchorage.esp

WeaponModKits - ThePitt.esp

WeaponModKits - BrokenSteel.esp

WeaponModKits - PointLookout.esp

WeaponModKits - FOOK.esp

FOOK2 - Snipers Edition.esp

MyFOOK2 - Black & White Tranquility Lane.esp

MyFOOK2 - No Rape Victims.esp

DarNifiedUIF3.esp

DUIF3Extras.esp

1alexscorpionsnipergear.esp

Slower Levelling - very slow.esp

Mighty Mouse Alternative 4.esp

Death Canyon v3.esp

Faces_Of_Fallout.esp

Tailor Maid Anchorage.esp

Tailor Maid PITT.esp

Tailor Maid Brokensteel.esp

Tailor Maid Black Retex.esp

Tailor Maid.esp

P94-95.esp

Auto Aim Fix v1.1.esp

VatsLongerDistance.esp

Stealthboy Recon Armor - CRAFT.esp

WastelandMastery.esp

ClassicEnclaveAPA-Better-APA-english.esp

CRAFT - Activation Perk.esp

CASM.esp

Combat Enhanced Tactics v02.esp

ACE2-0.esp

Mart's Mutant Mod.esp

Mart's Mutant Mod - DLC Anchorage.esp

Mart's Mutant Mod - DLC The Pitt.esp

Mart's Mutant Mod - DLC Broken Steel.esp

Mart's Mutant Mod - DLC Point Lookout.esp

Mart's Mutant Mod - FOOK2.esp

Mart's Mutant Mod - FOOK2 - DIK.esp

Mart's Mutant Mod - Hunting & Looting.esp

Mart's Mutant Mod - Tougher Traders.esp

Mart's Mutant Mod - Natural Selection.esp

Mart's Mutant Mod - No Geckos.esp

Mart's Mutant Mod - No Wanamingos.esp

Mart's Mutant Mod - No Floaters.esp

Mart's Mutant Mod - Increased Spawns.esp

Mart's Mutant Mod - Zones Respawn.esp

Merged Patch.esp

 

Total active plugins: 72

Total plugins: 74

[mechine]

heh, lies...

 

 

FOOK2 is a vast an huge mod which also has very huge textures.

 

UFP is vast an huge, which also touches on just about everything inside the Fallout.esm (an therefore 90% of the mods out there) Conflicts...

 

WMK is a great mod, but when it first came out it conflicted with about 99% of other mods, which is because of what it needs in order to work an how it was made, it has been updated recently, but a few months ago I saw a person which had 7 FOIP (fallout interoperability patch)'s just to get WMK to work. Which generic FOIP as a override/patch to get two or mods to work together is a stretch, because we all have different load orders.

 

Tailor made is pretty complex

 

Stealthboy Recon Armor - CRAFT.esp is in the wrong spot, goes after the other craft .esp

 

 

MMM is a vast an huge mod with huge textures on very fast moving creatures

 

 

FWE, don't even get me started, I've heard so many problems caused from FWE I never even tried it, can't say I didn't want to though, but it's almost as bad as WMK was back in the day.

 

Enclave commander doesn't work well with FOOK2, but the EC read me tells you how to set it up for your load order, so it will work right.

 

 

 

 

TWO load orders are messing me up...

 

 

 

Anyway, the old rules were put MMM last, so that it's better/tougher an smarter AI wouldn't ever be overwriten, then put Enhanced weather an fellout before that so that weather wouldn't as well, because MMM doesn't mess with weather. Nowdays a person can learn FO3edit so easy from the web-ensized FO3edit guide by CSB (search web on nexus-downloads) Used to be a 200 page tutorial, which I didn't even read it, I just figured it all out the hard way. Anyhow with the web-ensized version it's interactive, so that just about anybody could create merge patches, master updates, overrides, and fix anything to work well together, so the new rules mean you don't need FOIP an can load any mod in any order you like, because you'll end up fixing it anyway.

 

The trick is that you don't take on all that workload at the same time. You have a plan an space out the fixing work over many weeks or months, slowly adding mods in. Either one big huge mod like FOOK2, FWE, UFP, MMM, or even one small really complex mod like FWE, yeah do those one at a time because they will take the same amount of time to fix as 60-80 tiny mods. But once you get one done you go in game an test it so that you get your workload seperated with many many happy hours of putting heads on posts out in the wasteland after you cut them off.

 

The other trick is your build is only going to be as good as the set up you put into it, Get a good running system, nice a fresh, clean, all the stuff you need, all the updates, then install fallout, the patch, tweek it, change settings, test that, then add DLC, tweek an test it again, until it's a known good an smooth vanilla fallout game. Then you add in the mods following your work play work play plan for a few months.

[mechine]

1) Is my processor dominant for Fallout

1a) Recommended processor upgrades?

2) Can my mobo make a difference/bottleneck?

2a) Mobo upgrades?

3) Could my RAM be bottlenecking

3a) Ram upgrades?

4) Anything else

 

 

 

1) if it has two cores, 4 cores or will HT (hyper thread)(which is simulated duel core) Then the tweek guide has a bit of performance dealing with running certian aspects of the game in Threads, or many threads across the CPU. Heh I use a Pentium 4 550 HT, which is like 5-6 years old, LMAO

 

1a)Yeah right if we could aford that we would already have it

 

2) heh, Get updated chipset drivers, mother board drivers, update your BIOS (which isn't easy) You can tweek the BIOS but most people would say that most applications don't like overclocking, fallout hates overclocking, So besides the reason of not wanting added wear an tear on the CPU an motherboard, it's a no-brainer to pick standard or auto clock speeds, there's still other things you can tweek though. I ended up finding someone on a forum which had the same set up as I did, then took the settings they used like voltages an speeds an such.

 

2a) Ah there's a bunch of arguments over if onboard audio is better than PCI sound cards, heck most of the onboard audio is on the PCI bus anyway, it's the same thing, it boils down to traffic. Rumor has it though that some creative cards fallout won't have so much trouble playing MP3's in-game well (avoiding stutter) PCI-E is a must have, because of the super high bandwidth which is communicates on it's like 100Mhz to 133Mhz or something, but the rumor is 120Mhz is safer, or just pick auto. You could always find out what your mobo's FSB speed is, mine is 1333Mhz, but the P4 550 will only do 800Mhz, an the RAM too, so I just run 800Mhz, but it would make a heck of an upgrade. There's a bunch of other stuff, get the PC gamer mag about how to build a PC.

 

3) DDR2 is about as cheap as dirt, heck I got factory overclocked RAM for about the cost of a tank of gas, lmao. Anyhow, the auto or factory latency settings for RAM is always set high so that it will work on any system, you would have to learn what it means, but my RAM was tested at 4 4 3 8 @ 2.2V, the factory settings are probably 5 5 5 12 or higher, who cares though. Video card memory is more of a Game makers than the system RAM, Fallout hovers around 900Mb to 1.2Gb depending, which for system ram you can somewhat tweek how much the engine will use via the tweekguide @ http://www.tweakguides.com/Fallout3_1.html Besides that you also have virtual RAM which is called the "page file" which is set up in the control panel/system/performance somewhere in there, rule of thumb is twice the amount of RAM you have so if you have 2Gb then set a 4Gb page file, but it's better to just use whatever windows says it should be, then increase it to see if it makes a difference.

 

3a) Idk maybe if you got your RAM out of a pile of computers that some hospital was about to throw away.

 

4) finally

[mechine]

Okay so set it on ultra settings, you'll want to turn on HDR, only a fool would turn it off, an yeah it's exagerated light, but it's totally awesome. Vsync it too (if you really wana ditch Vsync you'll have to read how in the tweekguide) Then turn Depth of Field of, because it's stupid it only really applies the effect when you are talking to someone. Turn off Multisampling, it's just twigs an fences. Radial blur quality low, Don't turn the water down from what picking ultra did to it. Shadows are only on charicters, not the game world, so disable that, you can turn it back on later if you want to see some for a little while (it's not good for combat)

 

Now the sliders, the dev's came out an said that FO3 was rendering about 4 times as much as the games before it. Which is why you can turn them down to 1/4 an not even notice. I'll use 1/4 to 1/2 If I'm going all Sniper really it's only 80-100 meters as the most, which is right around that 1/4 to 1/2 mark, but I mean you could go down further if you wanted. Actually sometimes putting the sliders on max has worked better. I still turn it down though.

 

Now for the real problem, texture sizes, you want to pick large size, high quality. However player made content is retarded duffus sized. Texture maps at 4096X4096 or 2048X2048 with raw data sizes of up to 16Mb or more, some even uncompressed. Someone out there came up with a compression language just for video card memory (performance) an these fools just toss that out the window, heck let's toss mip-maps out the window too, why not. heh heh heh. It's not their fault, they just sort of went the wrong way. While true a 4096X4096 map is probably the clearest thing you'll ever see, the 16Mb raw size (which is eating up video card memory isn't worth it)

 

So After you have fixed everything else, You'll still have to Shrink an encode those textures making sure what should have mip-maps does have them an some slack jawed yokel didn't forget to encode them while they were making a mod while eatting a burrito at the same time *burp* See we though that by makeing an using a 4096X4096 map or a 2048X2048 map that it would make the game items look better. Which it did, however it far crossed the line of performance back at 1024X1024 with a max raw size of 600k to 1.2Mb depending on encoding.

 

I wrote an article on it, so it's a good time to mention the articles which represent the advanced work of many folks an what they found out, when it comes to advanced things, really cool stuff, like how to make chrome or gold items. CHAOS PERFORMANCE @ http://fallout3nexus.com/articles/article.php?id=208 But I've toned things down a bit. Which just means this next time I do it I'll be even more careful backing up things an checking things to make sure they look just as good as before I messed with them.

 

Pretty much after you get done with fixing all the other things with a modded fallout 3 build, you would use a program like Paintnet, which is great by the way. In order to open the Data/textures folder then check all the textures in there from top to bottom. Paint net will open the textures quickly because it loads fast. Then you would Ctrl R to resize, have keep aspect ratio checked, then the pixels per inch at 96 or more (whatever your monitor displays native) 96 works really good. Anyhowz, you base how much you shrink the texture based off how large it is in Game, something like a pistol is hand sized an you could get away with using a 512X512 size map, but since weapons are important it's on a case by case basis. Like since I know it's a weapon an Bethesda uses 1024X1024 maps for high res versions, I'll only shrink it down to 1024X1024 at the most. And done in steps like from 4096X4096 down to 2048X2048 then saved, an openned again an shrunk again.

 

It's a large high res map, and we need those huge HD maps in order to create the high performance ones. Because of the 96 pixels per inch, and it being resized in Supersampling best quality. The 1024X1024 looks just like the 4096X4096, just like the DXT-1 looks just like the uncompressed version. One of them is 600Kb of video card memory an the other is 16Mb of video card memory. But you wouldn't be able to create such a good looking 1024X1024 map unless someone had done the hard work of creating a huge HD one. So we still need them.

 

Then like if it's hand sized like a box of ammo, helmet, glove, grenade, tin can, scrap metal, basket ball or if it's not a photo realistic texture, then you can use 512X512 256X256 or even smaller. The mesh is going to wrap it no mater what size. If it's fuzzy though it really doesn't matter what size it's still going to look like crap, so shrink those more.

 

The only time I would use something over 1024X1024 would be if it's building sized. Then DXT-1 is for base textures without any alpha in them (transparency, see thru parts) DXT-1 is 8:1 compression, which turns 1.2Mb into about half sized 500kb to 600kb. Mipmaps add about 35% to the size of a texture, but they give a great boost to performance. So on the base textures (also called defuse maps) You DXT-1 them with mip-maps. DXT is the compression language for video cards/video games. It's the same image with or without it, the only thing that changes is how the video card can access it. If the defuse has transparent parts which are colors, not missing empty pixels, then it will erase any alpha, but thankfully most defuse maps have zero alpha in them anyway.

 

Normal maps are very large sized, but Paint-net will shrink them a bit anyway either in DXT-3 or DXT-5, but most of the time DXT-5 looks better. Then most people say that it's better to have the system refresh the mipmaps for normal maps on the fly, because it can lead to werid textures being rendered. So uncheck create mipmaps, which will shink the normal maps a little more. Because Normal maps are pretty huge as far as file size. But I've checked an viewed mip-maps in normals an they looked fine, so you can go either way. It's better if the size of the normal map matches the defuse map, so if the defuse base texture is 1024X1024 an I shrunk it down from 2048X2048, then I'll shrink the normal map too. Normal maps are like blue weird looking colors, because it's the actual detail of the mesh/3Dshape for the item. Say we are talking about a persons face, the defuse would only be the skin colors an any blemishes, the normal would be bumps an scars which give the lighting effects on the face mesh, also the gloss is hidden inside the normal, so you could create glossy or flat looking skins.

 

Wouldn't be much of a Chaos performance without a control group, to test it against. South of megaton, I kept having this wild stutter, an laggy poop play. Which was caused from the Brotherhood outcast base nearby, then the 150 raiders spread out in that area. Once I shrunk the Data/texture folder, where I found stuff that was being used, I went back an had zero stutter or lag. After that I shrunk the whole data/texture folder, everything that had a texture too big for the size it was in-game. I'm making another build now, an the plan is to do it again. Only creating backups of more items an then doing in-game tests to confirm the quality was the same. A key point is the raider clothing textures, then any fast moving creature I.E. blowflys, dogs, feral ghouls These look like crap or should anyway, so since they move so fast, I sort of shrunk them a whole lot more than the others. heh can't really tell anyway in most cases. All I really could tell was that DXT-5 does in-deed work better for normal maps.

[mechine]

Then something else in closing. The AA an AF settings in the default launcher suck. There's no setting which yeilds performance and quality at the same time. However, if you turn these off (performance), then you can force whatever AA an AF you want via the grapics card control panel. Which should have settings for "Override any application setting" In the AA part, then just pick whatever you want for AA an AF. Tripple buffer it though.

 

Most games it's better to let the 3D application decide, but not for fallout, it's totally opposite of every other game out there. I was running SLI 8800GT's, which in the default launcher anything over 2X for AA an AF would cause lag an stutter, by forcing them I could pick SLI 32XQ AA an 16Af without any stutter or lag. Realisticly though the quality is so much higher that really you only need 2X when you force it, because it looks great.

 

Say you are going to go underground in the metro for a while an you know you'll be down there for a long time. Turn off AA an AF, because of the 5X feral ghouls down there, which look like crap anyway. Heh, then save an exit, turn it back on an do your thing after you kill them all. Also if you want to play music in the background from a secondary program like WMP or pandora, load your save game twice, an have AA an AF turned off, an it will work fine without setting your mother board on fire.

 

 

Then either use a door or Groovatron to purge the cell buffer. Go in the door, open the console ~ type "PCB" (purge cell buffer) then turn around an exit the door, to force a reload on the cell, only with a clean cell buffer ready for max performance. Out in the wasteland there are no doors, all you do is press X place a teleport marker where you are standing, press X again teleport to the all black room ~ PCB, watch the poopy data go by, press X teleport to the all white room, spin the charicter around in 3rd person (looking to see that normal is applied, shiny gloss) press X an teleport back to your marker where you were standing, only ready for max performance.

 

If you just run around typing PCB anywhere it's going to crash. Hence the door or groovatron to force a reload, which doesn't crash. Also helps to avoid corupt saves an system caches. heh nothing can help the Mall though, that place is just Crash city... You teleport into the white room, because if you didn't then the normal maps are not going to load on rocks an roads an things until you run about 20 yards ahead, which sort of breaks the immersion a bit. I guess you could just use the white room to PCB an see if it works good.

 

 

Stop looking at me with that funny look... You're the one that asked... There's tons of other stuff too. Have fun...

[wcstorm11]

WOW, thats a lot of info!

Thank you. I think when the new FOOK comes out, I'll start from scratch and merge all my mods together into one or two mega esps/esms.

[mechine]

Even if you could it would be a bad idea. When working with the raw fallout data, sometimes you can step on a landmine, which will cause a vast amount of conflictz an couption across the load order and system. Like Overrides, if you create just one override an have stuff from more than a few mods in it, it's going to cause a landmine, causing conflicts in content which isn't even related to what you changed. You get a landmine if you delete vanilla content form ID's. For example let's say I hate the 10mmpistol, so I go in there an delete it from the game. Now items which use the 10mm pistol as a reference along with other random things will go corupt, bringing the whole system down. Hence the landmine term. Overrides are .esp you created in order to do something that wasn't meant to be done or fix something which couldn't be fixed by normal means. Which it's pretty easy to break them up, into what it is that they do. OverrideScripts.esp OverrideFood.esp OverrideWeapons.esp OverrideCreatures.esp, and so on depending on how many you would need.

 

If two mods had zero duplicate Form ID's. Say ModA changes the 10mm pistol, then later in the load order ModB changes the 10mm pistol again. That's a duplicate form ID. If ModA changed only the 10mm pistol, and ModB changed only the combat shotgun. There would be no duplicate form id. Which would make it safe to merge ModA an ModB into one mod. Which would be done with a nice Java based application called , "FO3 plug-in utillity" Which is easy to use and works great, but you have to read into it so that you can avoid things like duplicate form id's for example.

 

Mods with optional .esp plug-in's like take MMM for example. It has the main .esp, then the optional ones like increasedincreasedspawns.esp the optional .esp's only change things inside the main .esp, so you can merge those pretty easy from just setting the main .esp to match the optional ones.

 

Then simple mods which just change a few things, you could merge into other mods which you knew didn't have anything like that. Like NoAutoAim.esp, you could copy as override into on the entries there you wanted to use, an put it in any of the mods which didn't have those form ID's in them. Then get rid of NoAutoAim.esp because it's now in your bullettime.esp or whatever.

[wcstorm11]

I want to add, thank you for the texture info! I'm resizing all these textures. I never knew such waste!!! I don't even know if I'm halfway yet, but I have a very good feeling about this. Hypothetically, if I downloaded a bunch of texture/terrain packs and did the same thing, would that boost performance over vanilla? Or are they most likely already compressed. Regardless thank you very much

[mechine]

Well the texture packs look great, they have poopy performance. However if you shrunk them an encoded them they would work just as good as vanilla but look 40 times better. The very large size of the texture packs is why they work so poorly. But since they are made really really big, just get the biggest one an shrink that. You lose sharpness if you make a image bigger, but taking a really large image an shrinking it down, most times you gain sharpness. The thing is that players either use AA an AF on the vanilla textures or use the texture packs, but because of their size the packs make it so you pretty much have to turn off AA an AF just to get mildly playable performance.

 

I haven't done it yet, but say that the vanilla textures for the ground are a 1024X1024 size, and the player made version in the packs is 4096X4096, you could resize those in best quality supersampling at around 96 pixels per inch, in 1/2 steps saving an loading each time, encoding an mip maping the very last resize of 1024X1024. So now the player made texture packs were of the same actual raw data size as the vanilla ones. Near it anyway. Then use something like 2X AA an AF, but not the default launcher AA an AF, turn those AA an AF settings to off (performance) then force 2X AA an AF via the grapics card control panel "override any application setting" for AA Because these grapics card settings are much higher quality and performance than what fallout would use in it's application.

 

I've already tested shrinking MMM's awesome textures for creatures, then going into those areas where the 5X spawns where. It runs a lot faster, an looks the same. It's a lot of work though. Heh. But yeah After installing mods, merge patch, master update, and starting a game. From now on I'll be optimizing the Data/textures folder. I think it took maybe a day to shrink everything inside my old textures folder. But it took two days just to fix FOOK2 when I added it into a load order of 60 small simple mods which were already fixed in FO3edit. What brought it on is important too, I just ran into a trouble area where there were a lot of raiders an I got lag, so I shrunk their textures so that they looked the same but the lag wasn't there anymore. When back in an played an did the happy dance it worked so well. It felt good to get it running so smooth.