I'm trying to use the vertex optimization on my whole meshes folder using vertex cache strips.

Will report results.

Thanks everyone - just to post my first results here (8800 GTX): each of the vertex cache algorithms give the same average FPS - no relevant differences observed (what I reported earlier seems to have been a coincidence, I cannot reproduce the difference reliably in different test setups). The old longest strips implementation is consistently about 5% slower, at least in my tests (scenes with many NPCs).

More results can be seen here:

https://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=2994654&group_id=199269&atid=968813

If someone with older hardware (for instance, Geforce FX 5700, or similar) could test this to see if there's a noticable difference between the three vertex cache approaches, then that would be really great!

Well, I got to ask. Are there any good ways to find faulty meshes when in game. I am eyeing the creature folder suspiciously right now. There is a fort right outside the Imperial City at Weye that sprouts gfx shafts typical of a mesh losing some of it's needed properties. Problem is I can't get close enough to make out what it could be, it fries my GFX-card and then the game crash.

Mmm, I have no real conclusions after using the smallest vertex size - I haven't gone through my BSA files yet (my Oblivion - meshes is extracted to the meshes folder) and the market district and water front in BetterCities is the two places I have knowledge about the FPS in my general game. Might see a difference when the NPC gets the new optimization you where talking about. I did run "characters" through the 2.1.6v.

EDIT - Never figured it out. Replaced Creatures, fortruins and clutter - re-pyffi:ing now. END EDIT

Cheers!

i have a slight problem, i've dled pyffi and the automation utility, and ran the utility and picked my meshes folder to pyffi. every time after a while sometime it'll give an error about one of the .nif files and then when i say ok the process closes and terminates...how do i fix this problem?

I recommend instead using the in and out folder method.

mm ok, but how do i edit what to skip when using that? or does the latest version automatically skips those files which may cause problems (i've read about those egm files whatever they are).

tbh i'm just a lil anxious that this process is going to break my game..

egm files are like face related (helmets and such) and anyway yes there is like an oblivion related ini like thing that has all the files it needs to skip. Most, if not all the kinks have been worked out and you don't have to worry about it.

But follow the recommended method - first place the meshes you want to optimize in the in folder run the PyFFI with the right click on the ini file thingy then in the resulting out folder will be the optimized meshes MINUS what was not supposed to be optimized - so you then copy the meshes either back into the in folder and rezip the BSA from there or if you have the backed up meshes elsewhere then copy the optimized ones back in over those. This way you will overwrite the non-optimized meshes and keep the ones that were skipped anyway.

Regarding Game breakeage-

Well I would not have ever just torn into running the PyFFI on the loose meshes - anything I do is backed up.

If you back everything up and then install everything with an installer - http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1084204-bain-mod-installation-projects/ - then you should be fine because if you make a mistake then it is just a matter of replacing the files again.

is it possible to pause/resume the pyffi process? the command window is just running atm..what if i closed it..i'll have to start everything again?

It will stop it and only the meshes processed will be done - why I recommended doing it while you sleep.

Does PyFFI run faster on python3 or 64 bit versions?

PyFFI won't work with the 64bit versions of Python.
with Python 3x it should run faster but I haven't actually done any proper scale speed tests.
Pacific Morrowind

Then why is there an option in the installer to install it to 64 bit pythons?

er maybe Amorilia fixed it recently (ie in the last 6 or so months that I've been less active than I should) and I didn't notice :facepalm:
Pacific Morrowind

I have just pyffied my Oblivion meshes bsa and SI meshes bsa I have question...

Would it be better to make an omod from these folders or repack them using obmm bsa utility?

Als, if using obmm is the way to go what compression rate should be used to repack them?

Uncompressed BSA's seem to be the best option.

By doing that my pyffied are much larger than the originals, is that normal?

ex. oblivion mesh bsa-640 MB (671,405,897 bytes), pyffied-1.18 GB (1,275,275,174 bytes)
si mesh bsa-116 MB (122,339,871 bytes), pyffied-210 MB (220,465,320 bytes)

Yes, as they are "un-compressed".
I say run with it

The size of the BSAs isn't relevant, nor is the size of the meshes within. The optimizations performed by pyffi are what's important.

I'm experiencing a problem with PyFFI 2.1.5. The meshes from the "in" folder are not getting copied to the "out" folder. PyFFI runs fine, but I don't know if the nifs are getting optimized in the "in" folder and being overwritten or what. How do I get the process to copy optimizd nifs to the "out" folder?

bump

Right-click the "oblivion_optimize.ini" and choose "Run PyFFI", that should do it.

No. I know that. My problem is the optimized files are not getting copied to the "out" folder. I put a meshes folder in the "in" folder, run PyFFI, and the optimized meshes do not get copied to the "out" folder. The "out" folder remains empty.

So you run pyffi via the ini and not via the folder?

If you run it via the ini, check the default.ini, it has settings for the in- and output folders.

Yes, I'm trying to run it via the ini. And yes, the default.ini has the correct in and out entries.

try running it via the commandline then.

C:\Python26\python.exe C:\Python26\Scripts\niftoaster.py --ini-file=default.ini --ini-file=oblivion_optimize.ini

Change the Python install dirs to where you have yours installed.
Must be run in the PyFFI\utilities\toaster folder (where the ini's are)