Use max autogen with min fps hit in FSX beta

[cyvr]

I remember someone mentioning the size of the autogen texture files used in the beta so tonight I decided to check the files out myself. It turns out that the autogen textures alone were around 800mb, the biggest file been 4mb which is fairly large. So I decided to do a mini experiment with the textures. I converted all the .dds texture files to .bmp and then converted the .bmp files to .dss but this time using dxt1 instead of dxt5. After converting the .bmp files back to .dds using dxt1 the total size of files came out to 130mb’s compared to 800mb's.

So of course my next step was to go into FSX and actually see if the textures made a difference in fps. I started my flight from WSSS (Singapore) with max settings (min water though) and flew towards downtown and to my delight I was pulling a steady 20fps. Now before I converted the files I was only able to pull 10-15fps but now max atuogen was smooth at 20fps. Now of course converting from dxt5 to dxt1 you'll have a small downgrade in quality but honestly I didn't see it and I don't see a point of having 800mb's of texture files for autogen. I still have to look through all the texture file dir's to see if any other large files might be hurting fps. This is the beta so maybe the final version will have tweaked textures for better performance. I thought I would share this info with all the beta users on here looking to get more fps.

[sarge]

Interesting. I hadn't broken down the textures like that in my cursory examination; .dds DXT5 is what Combat Flight Simulator 3 uses. Keep this updated on what you find ... very interested in this.

This post has been edited by sarge: Sep 26 2006, 08:02 AM

[BigSpice1]

hmmm just like he said very interesting

[IndependenceFAN]

[Katahu]

You actually took the time to convert hundreds of DDS files to BMP and back one by one?

You have too much time in your hands.

[Type_R]

[Katahu]

[cyvr]

[RogierD]

Would it be an idea to make a short guide how to do this conversion and make that a sticky for a few weeks?
I'm not very profecient with these converting things, but surely would like to try this!

[Chris]

I tried it and noticed a huge difference in fps. Thanks for the tip cyvr .

[IndependenceFAN]

[PiP]

we could do with some cropped (not shrunk) comparative screenshots.

Save a flight paused to get the same shots with the 2 different image sets.

This post has been edited by PiP: Sep 27 2006, 06:23 AM

[Corky Buchek]

Wow thats a brilliant idea.

[sarge]

[sarge]

+1 on RogierD's suggestion:

[sarge]

Just some added info:

DXT1: smallest variation of the S3TC algorythm; 16 input pixels in 64 bits of output (two 16-bit RGB 5:6:5 color values and a 4x4 two-bit lookup table)

DXT2 & 3: same as DXT1, but in 128 bits of output (64 bits of alpha channel data @ four bits for each pixel, followed by 64 bits of color data)

DXT4 & 5: same as DXT2 & 3, but consisting of 64 bits of alpha channel data (two 8 bit alpha values and a 4x4 3 bit lookup table) followed by 64 bits of color data

There WILL be some loss going from DXT5 .dss to DXT1 .dss, both in the lookup table and the alpha values. I don't know that I'd do all of the textures, but DEFINITELY the 3D objects' textures. To me, the aircraft and terrain are of greater priority than the windows, doors, and rooflines on an FSS or gas station in the middle of town that can only be seen on approach.

(There's more to it than that; just consider it the Reader's Digest condensed version )

This post has been edited by sarge: Sep 27 2006, 11:16 AM

[IndependenceFAN]

the files we are soposed to change are in the texture folder i am assuming, but are we changing the .bmp files or the .dds files?

This post has been edited by IndependenceFAN: Sep 27 2006, 01:56 PM

[Chris]

[IndependenceFAN]