Optimised Distant Land MAX and TES4LODGen

[H8Cr1me]

I am wondering if running TES4LODGen after Optimised Distant Land MAX screw up ODLM? <-------THIS IS MY MAIN QUESTION!!!!!

 

I am also wondering if the Unique Landscape Patches for ODLM are NEEDED or can I just let the higher poly area that comes with UL take over and be fine? Will I visibly notice any graphical oddities due to a lower-poly landscape joining with the higher-poly landscape?

 

There are a lot more Unique Landscapes than there are patches for Optimised Distant Land MAX that was last updated in June 2008. Will I have issues surrounding other Unique Landscapes that don't have a patch?

[Smooth613]

No, TES4LodGen does something completely different the Optimized Distant Land. I suggest reading the documentation around those two mods, TES4LodGen is more of a utility actually, so you understand exactly what each do.

 

Next, there is no need to even use Optimized Distant Land. It modifies a mere 80 files. You should just optimize all, with few exceptions, of your meshes with PyFFI, which does an absolutely excellent job and has a very noticeable performance increase, with virtually zero negative effects.

 

The most noticeable performance gain you can do for Oblivion is optimizing the Vanilla Oblivion - Meshes.bsa and the Shivering Isles - Meshes.bsa. Those contain all of the meshes used in a vanilla game. Many mods also reference these meshes. You need to extract the files from the BSAs to loose folders, in an alternate location not your Oblivion directory, and the run them through PyFFI. Then you repack them uncompressed (for more performance gain) back into a BSA and redate the BSA's and you're good to go. Then follow that procedure for any Official DLC Meshes and any mod added meshes. ALWAYS keep backups of the originals until you have tested in-game for any visual anomalies. They do sometimes occur with certain meshes. However PyFFI has a "skip script" designed to automatically skip certain, potentially problematic, types of meshes therefor you usually won't have issues. This can be a time consuming process depending on the amount of meshes you optimize and your PC specs. PyFFI is a resource hog. It will use a large amount of memory and processing power. This is why I typically allow PyFFi to work its' magic overnight while I sleep and no other applications are running. This allows PyFFi to use 100% of the available resources.

 

I know this may seem a little complicated but really it's not at all. You can use Oblivion Mod Manager to extract the BSAs and then repack the optimized meshes back into the BSA uncompressed. OBMM also has a "Reset BSA Timestamps" button to do exactly that, reset the time stamp. So that aspect of the process is very simple. PyFFI itself is almost fully automated. You only need to place the files in the proper folders and start the process. Then you just let it do its' thing. Then all that's left is the repacking procedure and you're done. Simple enough.

 

TESIV:POSItive -- Contains loads of information on just about everything. Specific to this topic is the PyFFI section, which has detailed the procedure I've mentioned above.

 

Oblivion Mod Manager - OBMM -- Useful for extracting and repacking BSAs

 

Official PyFFI Thread @ BethSoft -- You'll find the most recent information about the project here and it's the best place to go for any issues or questions you may have. However I have a good amount of experience using PyFFI so I may also be able to assist with certain aspects and general guidelines. Amorilia is the developer and posts rather frequently and also links the the recent updates and BETAs before they go mainstream.

 

Good luck!

[H8Cr1me]

Dude,

 

I would like to thank you for your comprehensive and very useful reply. I'm increasingly losing faith in every forum community on the internet. Nobody ever actually answers my seemingly cut-and-dry questions, and forum posts quickly degrade into something COMPLETELY off the original topic. So while you might not have provided an answer to any of my questions, I appreciate the fact that you have provided a better solution.

 

I've modded Oblivion a few times before but never put this much thought into it. I haven't put too much thought into the PyFFI thing before but I think hitting up the BSAs like you mentioned sounds like a good idea. I have a pretty beefy rig and I can almost run a disgustingly high resolution Oblivion. I just need to cut those few little unnoticeable corners. I think a full BAIN install and this PyFFI thing should lead me to the promised land.

 

Thanks again