VRAM and Face/Body Texture questions

[ebg2465]

I have discovered that i need to keep all texture mods I download at no more than 1024 if I want to keep my VRAM under 1 gb (I have 1280 of VRAM) and still play at high with AA at 2X. I have optimized and reduced the size of my texture mods to vanilla sizes. In general I am happy with this solution except for face and body mods like CBBE, Bella Natural and Better Males.

 

Does anyone else with a similar VRAM situation use HQ body and face mods without takin a major hit? My game became unplayable with the stuttering and VRAM quickly being trumped. I have a 570 in SLI and did not realize that my VRAM was not 2560.....sophomore newbie.

 

Will having every male and female npc with a 2048 body and a 4096 face cause major VRAM jump? I would appreciate any suggestions.

 

 

Thanks,

 

EBG2465

[LiteMrBubbles]

My rule of thumb is always stop at 1K. Some texture mods come already pre-optimized so you run the risk of breaking the textures, others texture mods overlap with one another, keep it simple. If you must have all the texture mods, open up Notepad and start listing the texture install order so the ones you like will always stick.

I have a GTX 260 C216 with 896mb VRAM and the three big texture overhaul mods I run are: Skyrim Serious HD Rexture (1024), Ruins Clutter Improved, Static Mesh Improvement (again a Lite version), and W.A.T.E.R. Redux. For body mods I use XCE - Xenius Character Enhancement, Realistic Teeth, and Super Lore Friendly Hair 1K edition.

 

I run High settings at 1920x1080p with FXAA, if I had to guess my framerate averages around 40FPS. Pretty snazzy for a GPU that isn't supposed to be doing this much work with that limited VRAM. If you want to save up some spare VRAM used by the OS, turn off visual themes and desktop composition on Skyrim's compatibility box -- http://www.windows7password.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Windows-7-Compatibility-Mode.jpg.