HI all

I am interested in the possibility of using even higher res textures and LOD in Oblivion. (Eventually)
Are there engine limitations from using detail levels higher than 4096x4096 in game?

WOW is all I can say. If you make these I will try these. Good luck. Don't know if technically possible but didn't someone make some textured higher quality than Qarl's some time back? If I find these I'll post back.

As far as I know, there are no engine limitations in terms of texture resolutions. You could always test this yourself easily by creating a very simple .dds at the resolution in question, saving it in a way that 'replaces' something easy to find, and seeing if it gets applied correctly in game.

Well, I wasn't necessarily saying I would be creating them :whistling:
Just more curious if it was possible is all...
I got jealous reading that people were using 8192x8192 texture replacers for Fallout
Was just wondering why it hasn't been looked into or done yet for Oblivion?

Why bother with 8192x8192? I say go straight to 16384x or 32768x
Seriously though, I agree that there probably are no engine limitations, up to a point (I'm betting that 262k textures, or the vanilla texture resolutions SQUARED, would grind the engine to a halt); it's more likely the biggest restriction is on GPU memory.

The biggest limiting factor is VRAM. 8192x8192 textures would be 64MB each. Pile on too many of those in one spot, kiss your performance good bye and likely invite CTDs.

Even trying to use 4096x4096 sized textures stretches things to the limit now.

Yeah, just thinking ahead for the future of textures. The next generation of video cards will be packing some serious VRAM. 3rd party companies such as Palit and Gainward are currently offering 580 GTX models with 3072mb!! This is just an insane amount of VRAM to play with in Oblivion!

EDIT: Yeah, that would be a HUGE performance drainer though now that I think about those numbers a bit more. WOW 64mb per texture?
That's insane!

It's probably maxed at 4096.

If it loads a 8192 then it probably will be resized to 4096.

The reason I think this is because I have happened across this sort of thing several times- http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/printpage/DirectX-Versions/95

that and "Unreal Engine 3 supports texture resolutions from 1x1 to 4096x4096" So thinking an old gamebryo version will do more than that is pushing it out there imo http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/TextureSupportAndSettings.html

I'm not sure why you would need to, but it's easily tested by up-sizing a common lod texture. You could even scribble on it to make sure it's loading everything right.

Qarl's textures are 4096x4096 right? They look crystal clear to me. I can walk right up to his walls and doors and not see any blurring most of the time. The floors are awesome too. Why would you need to double the detail, when you rarely ever see them stretched to the point of blurring as they are?

I'd be much more interested in seeing advanced normal mapping techniques in Oblivion than higher texture sizes. Qarl's textures seem perfect for their size.

Wouldn't be doubling !! -- it would be quadrupling !! each size increase quadruples the texture size (ie. 4 -1024x1024 textures would fit inside a 2048x2048 area ) also haven't done the math but does that 64MB size include using a full alpha channel on the map or would textures with Alpha present require 128MB per texture ??

If done artistically, I say go for it. Like if you have a 2gb high end video card, a [censored]load of ram + 4gb patch + a expanded heap via stutter remover. You might as well push oblivion further.

If you combined the 8192 + a full raevwd, now that would be screenshot worthy!!

However, if you don't have a five thousand dollar pc. Maybe consider cutting back in other areas to allow for the textures. And yes, oblivion would crash a lot more. Nomatter how much ram you have. The fact is, oblivion hates going over it's maximum ram useage. So maybe if you reduced the near textures (qtp3 reduced packs over the top) and a bunch of other lower resolution packs, it would make up for the loss of the lod.

I would love to see it however. Just for kicks.

It would be a crime to use compressed 8192 normal maps, no matter the resolution, dxt compression artefacts would still be apparent even in that, imo the whole point of using 4096 textures would be to have a crisp and clean at high screen resolutions and even really zoomed in. Which is partially why I just see vast amounts of noise all over Qarls texture upgrade.
Even if they did load.. which I doubt because it's Dx9 anyway. I reckon it'll just sample the 4096 mip at best case.

And really what resolution are you running the game at? even at 1080, a 8192, you would need to be filling the entire screen with just a nipble or something before it would even ever render at the highest mip at a 1:1 pixel ratio on screen.

And DAAYYYUM, has anyone ever rendered a 8196 texture? Man it would take like 10hrs just for an AO map to pop out..

Really? Think about it. What details would a beautiful scenic vista with 8192 textures convey that one with 4096 would not? If you doubled (or rather quadrupled, as JDFan pointed out) the texture size in http://tesalliance.org/forums/uploads/1298236270/gallery_470_10_28803.jpg, what would be improved? Not even the textures on that close-by post are blurring, and I'll bet they still won't blur if you walk right up to them. Quadrupling the texture size will only quadruple your VRAM usage, considerably lowering performance unless your GPU is insanely powerful, and all for practically zero visual benefit. The only improvement you'll see is if you push your nose right up to a wall and look closely.

I love graphical improvements. I love OBGE and the amazing work the guys there are doing. The new water looks phenomenal, the shadows are incredibly tantalizing, and I couldn't play without Godrays anymore. Qarl's high-rez textures are also essential for their detail. But why would you want to increase the textures further when it wouldn't really change anything...? That's confusing. A new visual style would be interesting, and fresh textures would make a nice change and provide some competition for QTP3, but I wouldn't understand why they would be made higher than 4096x4096 if they were ever created.

Maybe I'm missing something?

I agree that general architectual textures for the game don't really require an increase to 8192. However, I think there could be some benefit for LOD and tiling...

• Distant texture tiling effect would be reduced

• LOD would appear sharper and more detailed.

I would venture to guess that the game engine wouldn't l like LOD at 8192.

Once you see textures in games like Metro 2033 and Crysis, you actually feel as though the textures in Oblivion are a bit dated, regardless of it's beauty. More could be done to improve it. Since Qarl made QTP3, major improvements have been made in digital photography and the equipment used to create textures. There are better resources available now. It just requires some balance and taste so not to overwhelm the feel of the game. For instance, a texture can't be to clean. All outdoor architecture textures should have a weathered look and feel. Nothing should look new and shining outdoors.

EDIT: With those better resources in mind. Simply having a clearer, higher quality image to create a texture from would eliminate the need to increase a 4096 texture up to 8192. It really depends on the initial resource used for the texture.

Well the texture would tile exactly the same amount of times, Any sort of feature in the texture would still be just as apparent, because it would be repeated the same amount of times...for example a slightly lighter area or a stain or something, for example this texture you can see tiles 4x on that wall just by seeing the light and dark features in it
http://www.dieteralvarado.com/Personal/08%20-%20Tiling_Texture.jpg

However, with increased texture size, you could edit UVs and textures so as the texture doesn't tile so many times, To do so, you would actually make the bricks smaller(on the texture sheet, not scale wise as they appear on the mesh itself) and fit more of them onto the texture. Not exactly defeating the point of higher res textures, but pixel density would be closer to smaller texture that did tile, or the same if you went from tiling 4x to 0. So you don't actually gain detail in the texture, in terms of pixels/area of mesh coverage, but you have much more unique features that don't repeat as often.

So in that case you will not be increasing texel density of the texture on the UV space, but just eliminating or removing tiling.

But never would work on any landscape as the grid and UVs are precomputed and not changeable. It'll always tile x amount of times over x amount of terrain regardless of texture size. And any features or detail that repeats will always be apparent.


Anyway, I just thought of a really cool way to check if the game is always using a mip level of a large texture..All you need to do is create the texture with a full load of mip maps, but then go back and hand edit the mip maps, (or the inversely the highest res of the texture) just paint them red or something, If at some point the texture fully loads without the red, (or at really close up with the red) then you know for 100% certain that the full texture actually gets rendered. also a good idea might be to use a different color on the top 3-4 mip levels just so you get a rough idea how far away the mesh is when the different mip levels are shown on screen

I would make the texture for everyone to throw into Ob to test, but I won't even be able to compress a 8192 on the 2gigs I have on this machine. Windows just runs out of mem. <_<




Depending on the size of the texture I bet it's still using a mip level, You do have to be really close to the texture to get the highest one to render. I've messed with this sort of thing.
You're probably better off really studying filtering and sharpening the mip levels, either in the dds save dialogs, and or creating the first 2-3 by hand.

like I mentioned before you can't get more pixels on screen than your screen resolution allows, any more than that and you are just texture filtering those extra pixels out!
for example 1080p is like 2mil pixels right? well do the math on how many pixels are in a 8192x8192 texture.

If I remember correctly, QTP3 uses 1024x1024 (or smaller) textures for just about everything, if not in fact everything. I'll have a look when I get the chance.

Some of AmpolX's are 2048x2048 (with all/more seemingly going that way, at last update). That's the highest-res landscape texturing I've seen for Oblivion. As for LOD textures/normals, 4096x4096 is the highest I've seen (and tried).

Could be wrong though. :shrug:

QTP3 is 2048x2048. It's the Redimized version that reduced most things to 1024x1024, and those look pretty good for the things QTP3-R covers.

The problem with using ultra-hires LOD landscape is that you'll immediately notice an LOD quad that had to be updated to display big changes in the landscape. That sort of clash is really ugly to see when it happens. What fun is it to have two mountains rendered in stunning detail when the content between them is rendered in the CS's crap detail?

Actually, no. Most of them are 1024x1024. Just checked. A few things here and there (really, not very many at all) are either 2048x2048, or something weird like 1024x4096.* Depends on the shape, natch. But anyway, yeah, vast majority are 1024.

But I agree, re: QTP3R.

* Or even 512, or 512x256, etc., etc.


edit: Whereas, at a quick glance anyway, AmpolX's makeover (the latest one, if I'm not mistaken) is 100% 2048x2048. But then, there aren't many files in that, yet...

Not sure which version of QTP3 you've got then because the copy I have of the non-redimized version is almost entirely 2048x2048 with the square ones and in general 2048xSomething for the others.

QTP3-R effectively cut them all in half and then did whatever was done to them after that.

It's all moot though since QTP3 doesn't cover landscape LOD and that seems to be the primary focus of all this talk of 8192x8192 monster files

Aye, there's truth to this. The landscape-LOD mod I use is a combination of 4096x4096 and 2048x2048. It has its drawbacks, memory consumption aside. Background can appear more detailed than foreground. That's not a big minus and in many instances isn't even detrimental... just odd when you pause to think on it. Worse is the look of the "gray area" where landscape transitions from far to near. That can be pug ugly in spots, far more so than when lower-res landscape-LODs are used. Also, the contrast between hi-res LODs and the standard-res LODs provided by several of my individual mods can be jarring. Still, for me the visual pluses outweigh the minuses. When everything works as it should the results can be quite impressive, as seen in http://i307.photobucket.com/albums/nn303/Decrepit_Waste/ESIV%20Oblivion/ImpIslePanorama1.jpg.

-Decrepit-

Er. I'm talking about QTP3 (v1.3), the largest archive available (AFAIK). Is there another, that's bigger?

And, have you actually checked (like, recently) the texture sizes? Sorry if that sounds... well, whatever, but I did just check that very archive, myself. Only minutes ago, kinda thing. It could be we're talking about different packages, or... yeah. It's possible you don't remember correctly, or have the wrong idea from someone who perhaps should've known. :shrug:

They're sitting unpacked and loose and though it's been a few months since I last checked, I can assure you that most of them were 2048x2048 in size and I have occasionally gone back to those "originals" when something crops up that seems out of place with the QTP3-R ones so I can resize the untouched originals back down.

I don't remember what version the package I have said it was, but it was nearly 2GB zipped up and I got it from PES back in 2008.

I just extracted the QTP3 archive I downloaded from PES a few months ago to check, and looking at the architecture textures it appears they're mostly 1024x1024 (or 1024x(whatever)).

However! The normal maps are 2048x2048. Some of them.

Actually, this is really confusing.

It seems that for the most part the textures are 1024, but some of the non-tiling ones like doors or an archway I looked at are 2048. So you're both correct, depending on which texture you're looking at.