Super Mario Sunshine [hires texture pack]

[StripTheSoul]

I'm keen to see what difference the DDS files will do.
I just played SMG with my new PC and even at crazy resolutions and AA it's super-smooth (at least with Ishiiruka, i.e. no shader cache stuttering). However, with the texture pack and Texture Cache at SAFE the stuttering is unbearable (and in contrast to shader cache stutters, these don't ever get better). I don't know if this is more due to the texture cache at SAFE or because of the big texture files, but with DDS I guess we'll find out.

[FreeEmulator]

Alright, here are my findings so far (note that I'm using the NTSC / USA version of the game)...

Converting the PNG files to DSS files resulted in the file size going from 316 MB to 603 MB (I used the default Aorta program settings to do a batch conversion).  I tried both the latest official dev builds of Dolphin (they loaded the DSS files just fine) and the latest Ishiiruka build (using the Full Async Shader Compilation option), and they both behaved pretty much the same as before with the occasional stuttering issue.

I then did what Matti recommended a little while ago by reducing the resolution of all the PNG files by 50% (I used a freeware program called ImBatch) then I optimized all the PNG files with OptiPNG.  This resulted in in a total file size of 86 MB.  When playing at 1080p, I cannot tell the difference in texture quality from the original pack.  Using the latest Ishiiruka build, it's almost working perfectly.  Instead of pausing/stuttering every now and then and having a big dip in FPS, it now only occasionally dips from 30FPS to 29FPS without any pausing/major stuttering.  So we're close!  I'm going to tweak around with reducing the resolution a bit more to see if I can get something that both looks really good and performs at full speed on my machine.  I plan on sharing everything here if that's OK.  Here are some download links with what I've done so far for anyone interested.

EDIT: 33% and 40% resolution + optimizing run at a nice constant 30 FPS (except when opening/closing the map--it gets choppy everytime for a second or so).  I'm testing out 45% resolution now and will post whichever one runs the best (40% or 45%).

EDIT 2: Alright, 45% resolution + optimizing runs great as well at a constant 30 FPS (except for the map as stated above), so I have posted the link for this along with some screenshot comparisons of the different resolutions.

GMSE01 (DSS).rar (603.6 MB)
GMSE01 (Half Resolution + Optimized).rar (86.1 MB)
GMSE01 (45% Resolution + Optimized).rar (72.1 MB)
Screenshot Comparisons (33%, 40%, 45%, 50%, and without the custom textures)

[StripTheSoul]

Nice, thanks!
Yeah, most texture packs have overkill textures in them. You can mostly not even see a difference when you cut them in half.
I'll have to try that with the SMG pack. I hope all three of those tools are free ^^

[StripTheSoul]

Ok, I got them to DDS files using Aorta (damn, the SMG pack gets five times as big... maybe the default settings weren't quite right?). But how did you resize them using ImBatch? I could only even select DDS files when I looked for 'all files' and then it only seemed to load a few... and those it says have dimensions of 0 x 0 ...

[Bighead]

Although DDS does sometimes increase the size, that seems a bit on the large side. If you generated the DDS with mipmaps then every single DDS texture will have mips built into them. There is no harm in this, they will just be bigger. This is only necessary for textures with the "m" flag.

[StripTheSoul]

Ah, ok. I got it wrong. So you (FreeEmulator) are sticking with PNG now, just making those smaller and optimizing them.
Anyway, what the hell do I do with OptiPNG? Do I just put the exe in a folder with PNGs and execute? Doesn't seem to do anything...

[FreeEmulator]

Alright, I tried out 33%, 40%, and 45% resolution and they all work great (see my post a few posts up for the links and more info--I've also included screenshot comparisons).

StripTheSoul: Yes, all the programs I mentioned are freeware. I didn't try resizing the DSS files--I resized the PNG files. You should be able to resize/optimize the PNG files then convert them to DSS files though.
As for using OptiPNG, stick the .exe inside of the folder with your PNG files, open up command prompt, navigate to the directory with the PNG files and the .exe file, then type "optipng *.png" (without the quotes) and it should batch optimize all the PNGs in the directory.

[StripTheSoul]

Ah, yeah, that works, thanks
Heh, I actually like the textures better at lower res, at 100% they're a tad TOO crisp for my taste.

[StripTheSoul]

Any of you guys good with that cmd stuff? >_<
So I want to use that OptiPNG.exe on all texture packs I have. It's not a big deal if it's just one folder with all PNG files in there. But some packs have a directory structure in them. So doing that for every single subfolder would be a pain. Does anyone know what command would include all subfolders?

I found lots of different stuff online, e.g. this:
FOR /F "tokens=*" %%G IN ('dir /s /b *.png') DO optipng -nc -nb -o7 -full %%G
But I don't even know where to put it. In this cmd after "optipng *.png" doesn't work...

EDIT: BTW, FreeEmulator, when I first saved the PNGs at 50% and later the same files again at 90% (to lower the res just a bit more) the textures looked a little strange. I don't know why because both dimensions were reduced by the same amount...
Anyway, I now got the SMG pack down to just 25% (at 50% there was still a tiny stutter sometimes) and it's all smooth now AND for my taste it looks great (and the pack is now just 10% the size O_O). Like I said, the 100% res was just too crisp and were kinda 'sticking' out of the game. Of course, it's still razius' great-looking textures ^^

[FreeEmulator]

Good question StripTheSoul. I'm not sure how to include subdirectories myself. If it's possible, perhaps temporarily move all the files to one folder, run the optimizer, and then put them back in the correct folder structure. It would still be a bit of a pain, but probably not as big as running the program in each subdirectory.

Good to hear about SMG. I haven't tried the HD Texture Pack out for that game yet, so I might have to give it a try one of these days.