Terrain detail texturing and frame rates

[Guest gasebah]

Whenever someone has a low spec system (no offense at all) I would suggest to turn terrain detail textures off before sacrificing anything else. It is a framerate eater on low spec systems and it also is a serious trigger for the blurries problem. Also if you have a "low end" system you will only get like four blocks of textures loaded with them on medium altitudes which really looks a little ridiculous. I started FS2002 with a PIII 1GIG and a GF3 (was not called Ti at that time), and that was my experience.With a high end system that is completely different. With my XP2100+ and my GF4Ti I can not see any difference in framerates or texture loading whether it is turned off or on. And at 1600x1200x32 it simply looks (sur)real.Alex

[Hornit 3]

Someone above posted about their frame rates being in the 50's....:) Yeah I can do that too actually and don't have to turn things down much really to do it. Just use a default aircraft and go fly around above 10,000' and I get great frame rates!! Easily into the mid 30's with nice eyecandy. The clincher is I like to fly lower and do lots of pattern work and sightseeing so im happy keeping the frame rate in the low twenties, allowing nice looking vfr scenery AND decent frame rates. Those who never had a V5 don't realize the power of this card. Yeah its getting long in the tooth, but it still runs EVERYTHING very nicely, IL_2, FS, CFS-2 etc. My only concerns are I will be upgrading the computer also in the near future to P4 2.4 or better and want to be able to take advantage of newer DX features when they come. Im one of those who doesn't upgrade on the bleeding edge, it saves me tons of money, and its always a nice benefit relative to my last hardware, even if Im 6 months to a year behind everyone else. Trust me the V5 is great card, its a testament to how long its been able to hold its own with these other cards. Personally I would stack up the V5 against anything but the GF4's and ATI's newest offerings.Just for the record Ive been simming for quite a while and the guys who need to thump their chest about this or that don't get to me any more :) I have my eye on a GF4 4400 and likely by next spring Ill wait to see what happens with ATI's latest powerhouse and how that all shakes out.Hornit

[Guest Sabadin]

I hear that hornit. Miss the old days of playing at 4xFSAA on my V5. But it did't get along so well with Fly!2 :( . Anyway, now I'm running on an ATI Radeon 8500LE. For $320 CDN I couldn't possibly pass it up. It's a good alternative for those who are looking to replace their V5, as it runs better than my GF3Ti200 did. Kinda nice to finally see a Canadian company doing well in the vid card industry. Especially since I fly over their HQ every school day :) .

[Guest Reddog]

now this the first reply I've seen that mentions the ATI cards, all has been the GF cards. how good is the ATI card and any particular ones that I should be looking at. I just called around locally and circuit city has the GF4 Ti4200 64meg agp card for 199.99 the brand name is IO Magic which I never heard of, has anyone else. They say it's a good one. http://www.enter.net/photoalbum/data/reddog/481497.jpgSceenshots and Pics athttp://comunity.webshots.com/user/reddog18951USMC Retired

[Guest]

hiyaIs it not true that Terrain detail texturing makes the nice watery wet water that we so love?I do not think i could live without that :)If i am wrong then it goes off tommorow !anniette xxxxxxx

[John_Cillis 2,406]

I don't have the link handy... If it's not in Avsim's library, just do a search under google using "DXTDMP" and "Martin Wright". You should find an active link almost right away. I used this great program to redo my Flight1 421 textures. I lost reflections, but now there's no fps hit, and the textures are sharp as can be.

[Hornit 3]

I dont think it does anything to the water, thats done by the water detail/reflection slider. It just adds a layer of what I call "graininess" to the terrain and runway/concrete that gives it a slightly better appearance when your down low. I don't run with the water effects maxed out either, I prefer it on detail only. Try it and see it has a decent impact on frame rate and personally i don't miss it at all. I probably won't run it even when I get a better Video card either!Hornit

[Guest Sabadin]

The 8500LE runs pretty nice. When I had it setup properly I could run the Falcon50 in VC mode at around 25 fps at 1280x1024 with most settings maxed. It's a card for its pricing. Although the new 9000 should be better for about the same price. Anyway ATI's are worth looking into. If you want to see a huge performance increase with your V5 disable multitexturing. On my 8500 this gave me a good 8 fps increase. The only downside is the slight loss in quality of the surface textures.

[Guest gasebah]

Hi Anniette,you are right it does the water. However many of us do not have any water where they fly. I used to fly a lot in Germany e.g., not much ocean there. When I flew in a scenery with water around I put the terrain textures back on. I found out that in areas with a lot of water around framerates go up pretty quickly anyway, so in that situation I was able to take the hit of the detailed texures.Having said that, I am glad that with my current system that is no concern anymore.Cheers,Alex