modding HUGE Problem with Modding RDR2 That No One is Talking About

[keatit71 1]

2 hours ago, jman9988 said:

Seems the file has been removed, any chance someone can upload it again? Thanks.

Still there for me.

[unseeingeye 1]

21 hours ago, Sweetwater said:

I have a hunch that trains does not spawn with passengers during rainy and stormy weathers. Someone test this.

I just wanted to call attention to this because for me, the second train that appeared for me happened either during a heavy rain storm or the storm started (or perhaps intensified) while chasing the train to check for passengers. I believe however that it was already at least raining, and as I caught up to it to check for passengers it was by then pouring rain. This was when I was using both the gameconfig mod and the altered WhyEm's textures, and I indirectly mentioned this instance in my initial post because after I slowed and allowed the train to pass I noticed my frame rate had dropped down to 30 FPS and would not pick back up unless I was looking directly at the ground or the sky.

 

Which ties into a follow up I intended to make after testing a bit further. I had severe frame rate issues happen a second time, again when chasing a train, but this time I went up north and into a snow storm. Both times I noticed my external SSD was hitting unusually high temperatures; nothing dangerous, but normally it barely even heats up at all. Well I've since tested my game (on my epilogue 2 save and as of last night on a brand new save file as Arthur) using only vincemeister's WhyEm's textures, having deleted the gameconfig mod, and so far I am still experiencing an abundance of varied road traffic with passengers and trains, but none of the heating up or halved frame rates.

 

Obviously I will need to get some more testing in and have yet to try it with a 100% WhyEm's outfit or with his gun textures, but with the hairstyles and a few pieces of clothing my game is back to running perfectly at a steady high frame rate and no more populated traffic issues. As I mentioned earlier I don't believe I was experiencing animal spawn issues, because for months using mods I've been able to reliably find Moose, cougars, panthers, the various rare birds needed for Algernon, etc. I played entirely vanilla for two playthroughs on PC and lost count of how many hours I played on Xbox when it was new, so I am fairly certain my idea of what ought to be expected out of wild life and traffic isn't over or underestimated. 

[werwolf969 32]

Another problem with texture mods is that some of them are just unreasonably bloated with textures that don't make sense. For example, the textures from WickedHorseMan's mods often have not only no compression, but also huge sizes that are not necessary. For instance, the 4096x4096-sized texture for animal teeth in his mammal packs. There's no way to tell the difference between a 512x512 and a 1024x1024 size texture for animal teeth in the game. Yet, we have one that's 16 times bigger than the vanilla archive. The same goes for his material upscales. There's no reason to upscale a material texture to 2048x2048. You can never see the difference in the game when it's applied. Even after repacking, his mods have a size of 10 GB, while the same original data has a size of 300 MB.

So, many mods could not only be optimized by reducing their size through texture compression and mod installation manipulation, but they could also be optimized overall with reasonable texture sizes for each type of texture in the dictionary.

I hope the authors will either update their mods or give permission for the community to optimize them and upload them with credit to the original work. Otherwise, we'll be stuck choosing between a single character overhaul mod or dozens of scripts and quality of life mods. That's a sad reality.

Edited October 16 by werwolf969

[HelloImCrimson 10]

On 10/12/2024 at 5:32 PM, vincemeister55 said:

Hey, I dont know about me solving the issue. But thanks for all your kind words. Anyway, here is my new and updated edit of WhyEm textures. The texture discoloration has been fixed, and I think its much more optimized than my previous edit.

 

https://www.mediafire.com/file/dc3w6bz5qrt1u01/WhyEm_DLC_edited_textures_by_vincemeister55.rar/file

 

Enjoy fellers!

 

Hey, thanks a bunch for this. This actually does not cause any spawn issues whatsoever. Im using multiple extra weapon mods and horse mods and evry train spawns with passengers around the correct time.

 

I just wanted to ask you, if you could maybe fix the cover textures, specifically the jorongos and ponchos. The red ones are kind of greenish tinted, idk why

Edited October 16 by HelloImCrimson

[vincemeister55 28]

3 hours ago, HelloImCrimson said:

 

Hey, thanks a bunch for this. This actually does not cause any spawn issues whatsoever. Im using multiple extra weapon mods and horse mods and evry train spawns with passengers around the correct time.

 

I just wanted to ask you, if you could maybe fix the cover textures, specifically the jorongos and ponchos. The red ones are kind of greenish tinted, idk why

Hi! I've already fixed that in the latest version of my edit. I also just checked it in my game; everything is normal. But if it still bugs in yours, we have already provided instructions on what tools to use and the method of editing. You could try to edit those textures.

[HelloImCrimson 10]

3 hours ago, vincemeister55 said:

Hi! I've already fixed that in the latest version of my edit. I also just checked it in my game; everything is normal. But if it still bugs in yours, we have already provided instructions on what tools to use and the method of editing. You could try to edit those textures.

 

Well, thanks for clarifying it's a problem with my game then. Ill definitely take a look. It's weird because that's the only mod I have editing any clothes.

 

I assume CodeX would work fine for this game and any photo editing software?

[vincemeister55 28]

Yes, CodeX is the main exporter and importer of textures and YTDs in RDR2. Edit the textures in any photo editing software.

[HelloImCrimson 10]

4 hours ago, vincemeister55 said:

Yes, CodeX is the main exporter and importer of textures and YTDs in RDR2. Edit the textures in any photo editing software.

 

Alright, cheers mate. Thank You for all your work man, this really made my day. Can't believe I can have WhyEms with no spawning issues now lol. Thank You so much.

 

EDIT: So, looking at almost all the 45 javier_wraps, they look way too dark

 

This is what the poncho mediafire link files look like for me. That's way too dark for that texture. Idk why

 

and this is what it looks like in the original.

Edited October 17 by HelloImCrimson

[vincemeister55 28]

5 hours ago, HelloImCrimson said:

 

Alright, cheers mate. Thank You for all your work man, this really made my day. Can't believe I can have WhyEms with no spawning issues now lol. Thank You so much.

 

EDIT: So, looking at almost all the 45 javier_wraps, they look way too dark

 

This is what the poncho mediafire link files look like for me. That's way too dark for that texture. Idk why

 

and this is what it looks like in the original.

This is probably because when I edited the textures on the updated files, I used the SRGB format, which made the textures darker, and at the same time fixed those greenish tints in some of the dark textures. Most files work in that format, but some may not, like in your ss. That is easy to fix. You need to edit and save that texture into BC1 DXT5 Linear format. Then check it in-game if its fixed.

[HelloImCrimson 10]

30 minutes ago, vincemeister55 said:

This is probably because when I edited the textures on the updated files, I used the SRGB format, which made the textures darker, and at the same time fixed those greenish tints in some of the dark textures. Most files work in that format, but some may not, like in your ss. That is easy to fix. You need to edit and save that texture into BC1 DXT5 Linear format. Then check it in-game if its fixed.

 

Gotcha. I will do that.

 

Have you tried or is it possible to save the textures in BC7 format for RDR 2? BC7 offers very nearly the same quality as uncompressed while still being the same size as DXT5 compressed textures. It works well for Skyrim for instance.

Edited October 17 by HelloImCrimson

[vincemeister55 28]

3 minutes ago, HelloImCrimson said:

 

Gotcha. I will do that.

 

Have you tried or is it possible to save the textures in BC7 format for RDR 2? BC7 offers very nearly the same quality as uncompressed while still being the same size as DXT5 compressed textures. It works well for Skyrim for instance.

BC7 is okay. I prefer BC1 as it is smaller in size without a noticeable difference in quality. But yeah, its okay to use BC7.

[HelloImCrimson 10]

8 minutes ago, vincemeister55 said:

BC7 is okay. I prefer BC1 as it is smaller in size without a noticeable difference in quality. But yeah, its okay to use BC7.

 

Ok then. Thank You for all the info. Since BC7 works, I'll be using that since I have a workspace setup for it from making Skyrim textures already and am most familiar with it.

[Lonewulv13 4]

Maybe someone can make a work around mod which just forces passengers to spawn on trollies/trains/carriages and forces train spawns?

[werwolf969 32]

2 hours ago, Lonewulv13 said:

Maybe someone can make a work around mod which just forces passengers to spawn on trollies/trains/carriages and forces train spawns?

This will not work because the problem is not in a broken script in the game that doesn't spawn entities, and you can't fix it by modifying some files. It's the game engine itself that limits the number of entities that can be shown. If you try to force the spawn of some entities, then the game engine will despatch some elsewhere and this part will break. If you overload the game engine, it can't apply some of its internal "save mechanisms", and the game will simply crash. You can even crash the game by installing too many upscaled and bloated texture mods and loading the game in a dense area, like Saint Denis, to trigger this behavior.

Edited October 18 by werwolf969

[Lonewulv13 4]

9 hours ago, werwolf969 said:

This will not work because the problem is not in a broken script in the game that doesn't spawn entities, and you can't fix it by modifying some files. It's the game engine itself that limits the number of entities that can be shown. If you try to force the spawn of some entities, then the game engine will despatch some elsewhere and this part will break. If you overload the game engine, it can't apply some of its internal "save mechanisms", and the game will simply crash. You can even crash the game by installing too many upscaled and bloated texture mods and loading the game in a dense area, like Saint Denis, to trigger this behavior.

 

It makes no sense cause there's rarely more than like 4-8 peds on a trolly and little more on a train. Regular pedestrian peds don't seem to be affected. There must be a way to increase the texture pool...

[werwolf969 32]

2 hours ago, Lonewulv13 said:

 

It makes no sense cause there's rarely more than like 4-8 peds on a trolly and little more on a train. Regular pedestrian peds don't seem to be affected. There must be a way to increase the texture pool...

It makes perfect sense, since many tests were conducted with gameconfig.xml and systemsettings.ymt. If you increase limits for different resource pools in gameconfig too much, the game will crash. The maximum limits for stable game operation in these files do not solve the problem, because there are still not enough resources in game engine for all the desired streamed assets from mods not broke game logic partially.

Also, trains spawns only within the specific player's radius, as do trolleys. In a perfectly working game, your train will have at least 10 people in each cart, and trolleys too. The issue is not in the peds spawning , but in the overall spawning of entities, since when the game engine is overloaded, it will not spawn any trains for you, not just people in them. This is also true for birds and other animals at different spawning points, and for peds on trolleys since trolleys always spawn.

 

What I am trying to investigate is whether splitting texture dictionaries into smaller sizes and editing metadata files for texture references would help with streaming issues and overall engine overload. In GTA V, you could do this trick due to problems with textures not rendering correctly on models when you exceed the limit of 16MB per texture dictionary. If this is true, then we could avoid the steps of compressing textures and simply split them, which is way faster than other manipulations with textures.

Edited October 18 by werwolf969

[sleazo 1]

On 10/17/2024 at 12:57 PM, vincemeister55 said:

This is probably because when I edited the textures on the updated files, I used the SRGB format, which made the textures darker, and at the same time fixed those greenish tints in some of the dark textures. Most files work in that format, but some may not, like in your ss. That is easy to fix. You need to edit and save that texture into BC1 DXT5 Linear format. Then check it in-game if its fixed.

Your edited WhyEm files solve the no trains/ped spawning issue for me, which is great, but there's another problem.

 

Clothing textures seem broken, with clothes having no colour or details. Everything is way darker and muted, and pinstripes are gone or so faint as to be virtually invisible. The green tinge is still present in certain lighting, too.

 

So unfortunately this fix isn't viable unless the textures are saved/compressed in a way that retains their original color.

[vincemeister55 28]

50 minutes ago, sleazo said:

Your edited WhyEm files solve the no trains/ped spawning issue for me, which is great, but there's another problem.

 

Clothing textures seem broken, with clothes having no colour or details. Everything is way darker and muted, and pinstripes are gone or so faint as to be virtually invisible. The green tinge is still present in certain lighting, too.

 

So unfortunately this fix isn't viable unless the textures are saved/compressed in a way that retains their original color.

Hi! Yeah, this issue has already been discussed. Just read a couple of comments above. I've already fixed this issue on my end, but I won't upload it anymore. I've already provided a workaround on how to solve it, DIY. I've also provided instructions on what tools to use and how to do it. With werwolf969's help, it will also make the process quicker. 

 

This edit took a lot of my time and effort. Editing 2000+ textures one by one was a pain. That was before werwolf provided the scripts to make it quicker. So, use my edit as base. Then you'll have to fix any bugged textures by yourself.

 

I'm taking down the link to my edit. As you have said, its not viable.

Edited October 19 by vincemeister55

[sleazo 1]

1 hour ago, vincemeister55 said:

Hi! Yeah, this issue has already been discussed. Just read a couple of comments above. I've already fixed this issue on my end, but I won't upload it anymore. I've already provided a workaround on how to solve it, DIY. I've also provided instructions on what tools to use and how to do it. With werwolf969's help, it will also make the process quicker. 

 

This edit took a lot of my time and effort. Editing 2000+ textures one by one was a pain. That was before werwolf provided the scripts to make it quicker. So, use my edit as base. Then you'll have to fix any bugged textures by yourself.

 

I'm taking down the link to my edit. As you have said, its not viable.

Thank you for your efforts, regardless!

 

I'm going to use werwolf969's script to automate the conversion process, using his methods shouldn't break the textures, right? Using the BC1_UNORM type?

 

My question is, is there a quick way to extract the DDS files using OpenIV or do you have to do each YTD separately?

 

EDIT: Figured it out. So far I've extracted the original DDS textures from WhyEms mod, used werwolf969 script to convert them, and now about to try to convert them back from DDS to YTD to use in the game. Wish me luck.

Edited October 20 by sleazo

[werwolf969 32]

2 hours ago, sleazo said:

Thank you for your efforts, regardless!

 

I'm going to use werwolf969's script to automate the conversion process, using his methods shouldn't break the textures, right? Using the BC1_UNORM type?

 

My question is, is there a quick way to extract the DDS files using OpenIV or do you have to do each YTD separately?

 

EDIT: Figured it out. So far I've extracted the original DDS textures from WhyEms mod, used werwolf969 script to convert them, and now about to try to convert them back from DDS to YTD to use in the game. Wish me luck.

 

Hi. I'm still experimenting with different BC formats for different texture mods. I concluded that BC7 is best for ab textures, BC1 is best for nm, and BC3 works well for other materials (m, ma, mb, etc.) or two-colour textures. If you use BC1 for detailed textures with a source format of B8G8R8A8_UNORM (an uncompressed A8R8G8B8 format), some colors or details, like near-white or black seams on clothes, might be lost during conversion. Also, I've downscaled some mods, like WickedHorseMan's animals packs and weapon packs, so that they don't have textures larger than 2048 x 2028 pixels. I wrote a more complex PS script so the process of downscaling and conversion can be fully automated. Here's the link if you or anyone else wants to use it or tweak it for their own purposes:
https://pastebin.com/Zufj5xeP

Ensure that the texconv.exe and nvtt_export.exe folders are added to the system path before launching.

 

Edited October 20 by werwolf969

[sleazo 1]

19 minutes ago, werwolf969 said:

 

Hi. I'm still experimenting with different BC formats for different texture mods. I concluded that BC7 is best for ab textures, BC1 is best for nm, and BC3 works well for other materials (m, ma, mb, etc.) or two-colour textures. If you use BC1 for detailed textures with a source format of B8G8R8A8_UNORM (an uncompressed A8R8G8B8 format), some colors or details, like near-white or black seams on clothes, might be lost during conversion. Also, I've downscaled some mods, like WickedHorseMan's animals packs and weapon packs, so that they don't have textures larger than 2048 x 2028 pixels. I wrote a more complex PS script so the process of downscaling and conversion can be fully automated. Here's the link if you or anyone else wants to use it or tweak it for their own purposes:
https://pastebin.com/Zufj5xeP

Ensure that the texconv.exe and nvtt_export.exe folders are added to the system path before launching.

 

 

I successfully used your first script, but now I'm stuck painstakingly converting all the DDS files back into YTD with RDR2 Texture Toolkit. One at a time. For 2,000 files. This just isn't feasible.

 

Can you think of a way to automate this, too?

 

My process is this: open RDR2 Texture Toolkit > New File > Import DDS file(s) > Save as YTD

 

Even that isn't the whole thing, because you also have to edit the filename when you save it so it matches the original YTD in the mod. It'll take days to do this for every file, and it's not possible to just pick what I need because the names aren't obvious to what item is in game. So close, yet so far.

[werwolf969 32]

9 hours ago, sleazo said:

Can you think of a way to automate this, too?

I reviewed potential possibilities to do so. Unfortunately, neither RedM nor CodeX provide any CLI or API for interacting with them. I tried to create an AutoHotKey script, but there are too many variables that can change during the process, so it is just faster to do everything by hand at this point.

It's a very tedious process. I agree, but if you can process 200 files in one day, you will finish in 10 days. Just be patient and perseverant. Good luck!

Also, if you use my previous script for conversion, please check the colours and details of the textures. They will be worse than the original. You can correct the colours in Paint.NET or use my other script, at the moment I haven't found any differences between the original and compressed textures if conversion done with it.

Edited October 20 by werwolf969

[litinz 0]

On 10/12/2024 at 6:32 PM, vincemeister55 said:

Hey, I dont know about me solving the issue. But thanks for all your kind words. Anyway, here is my new and updated edit of WhyEm textures. The texture discoloration has been fixed, and I think its much more optimized than my previous edit.

 

https://www.mediafire.com/file/dc3w6bz5qrt1u01/WhyEm_DLC_edited_textures_by_vincemeister55.rar/file

 

Enjoy fellers!

Can someone reupload this since the link is down? Pretty please?

[sleazo 1]

On 10/22/2024 at 3:36 AM, litinz said:

Can someone reupload this since the link is down? Pretty please?

Some of the textures were still broken, so he took it down. The compression methods used to reduce filesize often introduce problems of their own if the wrong type is used.

 

Edited October 23 by sleazo

[werwolf969 32]

Okay, here's my take on compressing WhyEm DLC textures. Also, I re-made install.xml with few files that could be replaced instead of streaming them.

UPDATE:

Since I got explicit prohibition to share my edit from WhyEm, I removed download link. It is what it is, I guess.

I attaching to this message two install.xml files with names for obvious variant you use. But other than that I could not help, sorry.

install.xml_rdo install.xml_standard

Edited October 24 by werwolf969