I'm used to MW modding, I mod textures for MW all the time, and the question stems from the fact that there is already a "slider" of sorts of different settings for texture sizes in OB but not in MW.

In MW, when you replace a low res texture with a high res texture, it just changes, because there aren't presets. But what happens in Oblivion? Are there high res texture packs for armor and weapons in OB? If you install these, how does it work with the texture size options?

I'm just assuming that, since there is the option of change, modding textures in OB is different than in MW?

Similar, but different if that makes any kind of sense.
Possibly better explained here http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/Resources_for_3D_Modeling

I've never really looked into it, but I've always assumed that setting a low texture size simply adjusts the game to use a smaller mipmap from the same texture files. Having looked through a lot of game files, there definitely aren't multiple sets of textures for use depending on your texture setting. Only thing even close to that are the multiple menu folders which are resized versions to prevent GUI items from getting too tiny on-screen when using a high resolution.

That actually confuses me a great deal more than I already am.

So no one really has an answer to the question?

Alphanos probably did. There are no separate texture packs to go along with your settings, each one uses the same file. I'm not exactly sure how it works if you change the settings, but selecting different mipmaps sounds like a reasonable assumption. My guess is that dropping down in settings uses the next highest mipmap layer. So the highest setting will use the very top layer and it goes down from there.

The video options do offer different resolutions for textures, but anything other than Large makes the signs in the game difficult to read, and I always choose Large. Higher detail retextures of Stock Weapons and Armors have always been popular, but as for what kind of resolution a retexture should be (1024x1024, 2048x2048, or 4096x4096), I am not a modder and can not answer.

Ok, I'm not the ideal person to try and give an answer since my knowledge of this matter is entirely lacking in technical data to back it up and it's based entirely upon personal perception, but here goes:

Firstly, the texture size setting in game (i.e. Large, Medium and Small) will work whether you're using Vanilla res textures or a high res texture pack.

I have no idea HOW it specifically works, but I do know that if I'm using a 2048x2048 high res tiling grass texture instead of a 512x512 Vanilla one and I set the texture size setting in game to Medium, the 2048x2048 texture will look like it's about 1024x1024. If I have it set to large, it'll appear at its full resolution. If I set it to small, it'll appear to be about 512x512.

Basically, if you set the texture setting in game to Large, you should see the textures at their natural resolution - whatever that may be. At least that's how it appears to me. If you set it to Medium, textures seem to perform and look as though their resolution has been halved.

I could be totally wrong, I don't pretend to know about this sort of thing, but the general idea I get is that Large = Natural res (i.e. whatever size the texture actually is). Medium = 1024. Small = 512.

Because anything less than Large results in hard to read signs and poor looking armour and clothes, I always use the Large setting.

When creating my own landscape textures recently, I made the majority of them triple the res of most standard Vanilla textures. (i.e. 2048x2048.) But, in the interest of half-decent performance on my crappy old pc, I also made an alternate version which was largely 1024x1024.

If I run the High Res version (2048x2048) on Large, it appears exactly the resolution it was created at and performs accordingly.

If I run the High Res version on Medium, it appears and performs as though it's 1024x1024.

If I run the Medium Res version (1024x1024) on Large, it appears exactly the resolution it was created at and performs accordingly.

If I run the Medium Res version on Medium, it performs accordingly but it looks slightly worse quality-wise than 1024 should.

Sorry if the above is a mess of inaccuracy and confusion.

But that's a rough idea of how it SEEMS to work / behave.

As another non-expert , I believe Alphanos and Brittainy are correct in that mip-maps provide the smaller textures. In Fallout 3 especially, I have noticed some mod icons etc don't display correctly at lower settings and assume this is due to the author not selecting the mip-map option when saving as a .dds file.

Well could someone please point me towards some weapon/armor retexture packs please? I want JUST weapons and armor, I'm not really looking to retexture anything else other than weapons and armor. And I don't mean retexture as in completely change, I want to keep what the original was, just have an increased retexture at a higher resolution.

I was curious so I did a tag search on Nexus for replacer/new textures/armour/weapons and all I get are basically Glass color replacers lol.

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1179485-relz-insanitys-retexture-releases/