I've used Quarl's before, and now that I have a new video card, I want to use it again - but I'm really overwhelmed with all the places to download it. Not just that, there are redimized versions, reduced versions, etc. Can anyone help me figure out which one to download and use? I remember using an OMOD version before, but I'm not sure if that is still around. I've got a video card with 1.5 gigs of VRAM on it, if that matters. I'm running a bunch of other mods and misc retextures as well, so whatever version has the best performance/appearance would be best.

Go for QTP3 Redimized. It's basically an optimized version of the original - hard to even see the difference but less performance hungry. BTW, wondering why so many writes Quarl for Qarl and Wyre for Wrye? Guess it's just one of life's mysteries. :turned:

Also, I'd recommend using BAIN (Wrye Bash's installer) for, well, almost everything really - but it's perfect for texture replacers as well as you can install/uninstall and mix and match easily.

Dyslexia - http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=oblivionmods.detail&id=3813

Thanks for your help.

Exactly. Yes, but then it should be Qaurl, Qaurl, Whyre etc. But it's always Quarl and Wyre.

I should comment that I noticed some minor differences between the default QTP3 textures and the Redimized versions (https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/_77B7B8HgEWM/TSPprS-R6CI/AAAAAAAAAEk/8Ob5H8Ts8GM/s1152/%231019%23%20Screenshot%20with%20Base%20QTP3%20Textures.jpg and https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/_77B7B8HgEWM/TSPpz0h3N-I/AAAAAAAAAEk/jUEviSeWCho/s1152/%231020%23%20Screenshot%20with%20QTP3%20Redimized%20Textures.jpg). If you've got 1.5 gigs of VRAM you might not need to get the Redimized version, I only switched to it because with QTP3 in outdoor areas up to 1200mb of textures were being loaded on my 1gb card - not good. Honestly the only major differences with the Redimized textures are the normal maps giving things added depth you might not like, and up close some textures might look worse than they did with the base QTP3.

Anyway, just wanted to give advice based on my experiences with QTP3.

Rather noticeable difference. Especially on the wood, which looks quite different. I remember comparing outdoors between QTP3 and QTP3 Redimized and I saw no difference at all. But I can't run either of them in full anyway - just using some particular sets from QTP3 Redimized.

1200 MB. Wow. But even so - don't you want some additional MB for mikal's textures, hi-res body textures, armors etc.?

Yes for the Redimized. Although you can try the full version also, as there is some quality loss with the redimized. Depends how anol you are about such things.

Anyway, here is what you need:
Qarl QTP3 (regular http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=oblivionmods.detail&id=2363 or redimized http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=oblivionmods.detail&id=3813)
Qarl QTP3 1.3 patch http://elderscrolls.filefront.com/file/Qarls_Texture_Pack_3_Patch1;85429
Qarl QTP3 UOP patch http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=11261 only needed if you install UOP AFTER QTP3
Qarl QTP3 optimized meshes - fixed http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=26756

Install order I have seen, and someone can verify, is:
QTP3 (full or redimized)
QTP3 1.3 Patch
UOP
QTP3 UOP Patch
Optimized QTP3 meshes

Now, the QTP3 reduced light, regular, and max are just lowered versions for machines that can't handle the full pack. These are texture sonly I believe. You would install these after QTP3 1.3 patch and before UOP.

Personally I installed this order:
UOP
QTP3 Full
QTP3 1.3 Patch
Optimized QTP3 meshes

Worked for me.

Consider an alternative with Vibrant Textures by Corepc. If you still want QTP3 I recommend you install Vibrant Textures (with Bomret normal maps for vanilla - required) then QTP3 on top of that, as Vibrant has some textures Qarl does not.

EDIT: You can start qith QTP3 full and if it is too much you can install Redimized on top of those (this is where BAIN is great). Easy to switch back and forth to get the look you want.

That is why I used Vibrant textures and overwrote with QTP3. The signs and doors looked great with Vibrant and everything else looked great with Qarl. Now I just use Vibrant, grown to love them, and focus on other aspects of the game for memory hogging.

I also had 1200MB of textures loading at times with QTP3 and Bravil Barrowfields, but game seemed OK for performance. All subjective, of course

The Redimized version is less VRAM hungry. But if you have a card with 1.5GB's of VRAM, you could try the original, unmodified version of QTPIII. I suggest Redimized; it's almost the same quality as the original, and increases performance.

And it's Qarl (as in Carl).

LOL. I quess best bet is to just call it QTP3

The biggest difference I notice is the grass on ground and rocks. Depends on how obsessive someone is about these things

See - my name is Karl, everyone always spells it Carl. So you just hit the point home for me - I will no longer refer to Qarl as Quarl!

Thanks for all the posts and help, guys.

Because in English a "U" almost always comes after a "Q". But Qarl just likes to break all the rules <_<

As for Wrye I'm not sure, I've never typed that wrong myself.

That's probably it. Quarter, Qualify, Quarl. Just one mystery left then.

And lets not start on the differences between US English and GB English !! :banghead:

That's partially why I switched to Redimized. It can still get up above 1gb outdoors, but that's including the textures on all of the road travellers, which I imagine can take up a good deal of memory. The other issue with it getting above 1gb was I would experience frequent crashes while outdoors and occasionally see things covered in black where a texture had failed to load. With Redimized now I rarely run into problems, though I do keep an eye on texture memory outdoors and purge cell buffers as needed. Ideally I'd use the base QTP3, there's no performance hit really, but Redimized is fine.

I was running into the high video memory usage on my old card, a 1gb card... but I think that was because I wasn't running the Redimized version. When you have a bunch of actors on screen and a bunch of other small retextures, I think that tends to add up - and increase stuttering significantly. Basically, I'd like to improve the textures of the game and still leave room for hi res replacements for all the other objects.

Hi Rez armor and clothing can sneak up on you, as well as Hi Rez body textures. It all adds up.

Yar. I have been adding textures rather slowly to my new install - Qarl's will be first tonight, and thanks to BAIN it is a pretty painless process.

I can't see you hitting 1.5gb even with non-Redimized QTP3 and all the other textures. I mean, it's possible there are some things I'm not taking into account, but I tend to be uncompromising when it comes to hi-res textures. The only things I cut down on were the "improved sky" which seemed to be no different than the original, and hi-res tree billboards, which are noticeably better but not a big deal for me. It's possible you could have more travellers on the roads though, I have like three different mods, and use the lowest spawn rates for Crowded Roads Revisited so the roads aren't flooded with people which seems as unrealistic as the bare vanilla roads are. Not trying to suggest you use everything as hi-res as possible just for the hell of it, but if there's no performance hit there's really no reason not to. I imagine if I had 1.5gb I'd switch back to regular QTP3, heh.

Yar, that is what I'm trying to avoid - my usual practice in the past has been "throw everything hi-res at it!"

I do use Tamriel Travelers and only TT, which I'm sure causes stuttering. Also full FCOM, which I know can make a difference.

What's funny is I've come across some textures, probably armor retextures or something because I've downloaded a hell of a lot of them indiscriminately, where I'd just go with whatever was the highest file size. Eventually I realized, after encountering some that were just huge files, that some people release these retextures in uncompressed form, so I end up installing textures with filesizes of like 10mb that could more reasonably be 2mb or something, thinking they're so big because they're much higher res when they're really not. I don't want to have to go through all of my textures and manually re-save them with compression in GIMP though, it'd be such a hassle. And I'm not sure how texture memory works exactly--if you're loading a compressed texture that's 2mb on disk but uncompressed is 10mb or something, does it end up loaded into VRAM as a 10mb texture? I should read up maybe, heh.

I'd be interested in seeing if there was a way to batch compress DDS files or not. I have no idea how that works, though, or if that is even good to do.

I also run into the problem with meshes that have ridiculous and impractical polycounts, but I guess that comes with the territory of adding mods.

With BAIN you could rather easily install the original QTP3 and then, if you notice performance issues in some instances, switch to QTP3 Redimized for those "sets".

I started using BAIN when I realized how sweet it was for Morrowind installations - also used it a bit with Fallout 3/New Vegas. It's sweet.

I personally prefer Vibrant over Qarl's because it sticks to the original game's feel. While Qarl definitely did some gorgeous work, I'm sad that nobody else has really attempted a high res replacer for Oblivion (a COMPLETE replacer) that sticks more to the original feel/theme, Qarl's textures are just too different.One of the areas where Morrowind modding excels over Oblivion modding as there are TONS of texture overhauls to choose from. I wish there was something for Oblivion like the Morrowind Overhaul that was just released that sticks close to the lore.

Morrowind = tons of graphics overhauls to choose from

Oblivion = tons of gameplay overhauls to choose from