Reducing .dds files size/resolution

[MaximumThrust]

There are great mods that I use that have tons of parts, with good textures, and have only 30 mb.

Some other mods needs much more space (500 mb each), due to huge textures in the .dds format. I could simple reduce the resolution of them to save RAM/Load time? Is there a way to do this automatic? Like cut by half the resolution of a list of .dds archives?

If not, I think I could search ".dds" in the Gamedata folder, sort by size and work in the biggest archives with photoshop.  I also read about saving them in dxt1 (no alpha) if they don't have any transparency, to cut the size to 1/4. 

I searched and only found people talking about convert .png to .dds.

Thanks!

EDIT:

I've made some tests:

A file with 22 mb was using a resolution of 4096. Reduced it to 2048 and 1024. The new sizes where 5 and 1,3 mb. I almost can't tell the difference between the 4096 and 2048, and used only 1/4 of the space! The 1024 lost too much quality.

I found Ordenador to do the job: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/12801/

In the first test, selecting the more obvious mods and cutting resolutions by half, I just saved 1.5 gb of the textures, and greatly improved the load time.

My question is solved, hope this can help someone.

Edited March 3, 2018 by MaximumThrust

[Gameslinx]

DDS textures are offloaded to the GPU (graphics card)'s VRAM which is where textures are usually stored. 

DDS files may be huge, but this is intentional. They have to be relatively uncompressed and hold a lot of information about the texture.

When offloaded to your GPU, it is NOT loaded to ram (a PNG image is, making it extremely ram costly). Theoretically, utilising your vram with DDS textures means you can have more memory in total to use for mods.

If you tried to convert from DDS to PNG, don't. This wastes ram and doesn't help you at all.

In game, DDS and png textures are decoded to the same file size regardless of what their original size was. Only DDS is more efficient by utilising vram.

Downsizing DDS textures may have gone wrong for you and crested more problems because they require very specific, different DDS formats which whatever you used to save them likely does not support.

In short, don't touch other people's textures because they're usually like that for a reason!

[MaximumThrust]

54 minutes ago, Gameslinx said:

If you tried to convert from DDS to PNG, don't. This wastes ram and doesn't help you at all.

No, everything I saw was the opposite, .png to .dds, and the different types of .dds.

55 minutes ago, Gameslinx said:

Downsizing DDS textures may have gone wrong for you and crested more problems because they require very specific, different DDS formats which whatever you used to save them likely does not support.

In short, don't touch other people's textures because they're usually like that for a reason!

No, it had gone extremely well. Don't know why you thought that. My load time greatly improved and the reduction in quality is barely noticeable for me when going from 4096 to 2048, which reduces the size by around 75%. The program handles perfectly which textures gets DXT5 and the ones that can get DXT1, and the mipmaps stuff.

Sorry, but I don't see any reason to not do this, I'm much happier with my KSP install now.

[Gameslinx]

6 hours ago, MaximumThrust said:

No, everything I saw was the opposite, .png to .dds, and the different types of .dds.

No, it had gone extremely well. Don't know why you thought that. My load time greatly improved and the reduction in quality is barely noticeable for me when going from 4096 to 2048, which reduces the size by around 75%. The program handles perfectly which textures gets DXT5 and the ones that can get DXT1, and the mipmaps stuff.

Sorry, but I don't see any reason to not do this, I'm much happier with my KSP install now.

Well I assumed that you were going from DDS to PNG, so nevermind.

[Galileo]

Ordenator is a great tool, isn’t it? I used to use it all the time to squeez performance out of many games.

[MaximumThrust]

1 hour ago, Galileo said:

Ordenator is a great tool, isn’t it? I used to use it all the time to squeez performance out of many games.

I was expecting something huge, complex and with a 30 day trial. Got a free .rar with less than 400 kb, that saves the archives faster than photoshop