Best HD textures?

[auntarie]

Hi guys, I'm just wondering which HD texture pack I should download to make my game look as good as possible. There are a lot of them on the internet and I just don't know which one to go for. The best one seems to be 2K Textures? I don't know. Also, I've heard that installing HD textures may increase the game's requirements so should I be worried about my rig not being able to run it at my current settings? Settings are all maxed out, except for Anisotropic Filtering, which is at 8. I'm running that on a Q9300(stock speed)+gtx560 dc2 top by Asus(15% overclock).

 

Thanks in advance :)

[ProjectVRD]

Step One: Download and install Bethesda's own HD texture pack

Step Two: Download and install HD 2K Textures

Step Three: Download and install Serious HD Landscape

Step Four: Download and install Vurts Flora Overhaul

Step Five: Download and install Lush Trees

Step Six: Download and install Lush Grass

Step Seven: Download and install Lush Trees Vurts Flora Overhaul Patch (from where you got Lush Trees)

Step Eight: Download and install Glorious Grass

Step Nine: Download and install Improved NPC Clothing - High Res

Step Ten: Download and install Enhanced Night Sky - Stars

Step Eleven: Download and install HD Milkyway Galaxy 4K

Step Twelve: Produce amazing screenshots :D

[auntarie]

Cool! :D But isn't all that going to kill my frames though? :confused: Edited October 25, 2012 by auntarie

[Caladyiel]

Having compared all the 3 major texture overhauls (HD2K, Serious and SRO), I prefer Skyrim Realistic Overhaul http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/5400 as they are most close to the vanillastyle and also match perfectly with the different textures.

 

But its really up to your personal taste, so i recommend to compare different texture mods and don't listen to anyone who says "xy is the best" ;)

[auntarie]

Nice. SRO looks very good. I'll try that, thanks! One last thing, is there any way that I can enable 2048k mountains instead of 4096k? I didn't find info on that in the description...

 

EDIT: Nevermind, I found the extra file.

Edited October 25, 2012 by auntarie

[Caladyiel]

I think the 2048er mountains are in the 2048er packages by default. The modauthor just created optional highres 4069er mountaintextures.

 

In addition i wanted to say that i can recommend projectvrd's steps 4-11 as well and addionally http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/13268 for basic textures.

 

If you also serch for weapon/armor retextures take a look at:

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/3261

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/1754

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/7045

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/24909

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/22557

 

Some of those mods will override each other, so again, compare according to your personal taste ;)

Edited October 25, 2012 by Caladyiel

[Georgiegril]

Even people with good computers have had problems with lagging/stuttering while using the Bethesda High Res patches. Personally I don't use them.

I do use Static Mesh Improvement Mod, and WATER, which IMO are essential. Both have various levels of textures, depending on your computer's resources.

[auntarie]

So I installed the overhaul and everything looks great. The game's loading times became longer though. I checked and my RAM was at 3.1/4 gigs. Maybe I should go without SRO... I'll install the rest of the mods and see how it goes.

[ProjectVRD]

I have a single MSI 7970 OC Edition installed with all the above mods I listed, and then some which I didn't list like W.A.T.E.R and Dynamic Snow etc. My uGrids setting is set nine and I have a lot of the .ini lines set to one, such as self shadows on trees etc.

 

My rig will average about 50fps, dropping to 40fps under certain circumstances but because I limit the upper fps to 60fps I don't notice the slowdown. It is all down to how the human eye and brain works, basically anything less an immediate 25% reducution in framerate is ignored by your brain because it can fill in the gaps by guessing what should be happening.

 

If you find your PC is well capable of above 100fps, restrict it to 120fps, we work on a 100fps biology and it is impossible to see a higher frequency. If you are using a HDTV which is 60Hz max, then restrict you game to that.

 

My HDTV is native to 60Hz so I configured AMD's Cataylst to make 60fps the highest possible framerate. I can reach that if not moving about fast. When moving fast like I said it goes to 50fps which is not noticable, and then heavy scenes of fighting drops it to 40fps which is not noticable.

 

So, slowdown of fps is not an issue provided you understand the rules of your biology. You can even restrict the game to 30fps and you experience less stutter than leaving it unleahed. In fact, 30fps is fine, the other 60 frames are made up by that grey matter in your head provided you performance is fairly stable.

 

This is why I laugh at people who they see a difference between 100fps and 150fps, or 200fps. That is a biological impossibility, we don't see the universe in those higher values and it proven by the blurring effect when you look sideways out of a moving vehicle. Even looking out of the sidewindow at a fixed position of view at a slow 20mph overloads the brains ability to register all the detail.

 

If your FPS decides to average 30-40fps with these mods, limit the fps accordingly and enjoy gloriously smooth gaming! Game away mate!

[auntarie]

That's what I'm hoping for- 30-40 fps. With no texture mods I was getting 52-60 fps in the open world and 60-62 indoors or in caves, and I find anything above 25 fps fluid enough for me to be able to enjoy fully. I'm playing on a 60Hz 1080p monitor, so I won't be changing any of my restrictions. I believe they're already set anyway. I was worried I'd be getting 10-20 fps :D Now, if you are getting a minimum of 40 fps with the fastest single GPU that money can buy, then I think I'll be getting around 30 no problem. I'll see tomorrow, right now I'm dealing with some viruses. bleh