"Mike, according to the EMB pilot who contributed to the development of this panel, the EMB 170 is not flown with full flaps during approach. Flaps 5 is the preferred approach flaps setting. ricardo" I mis-spoke. By "full flaps", I meant the recommended landing configuration; that is Flaps 5. Now that I've got the frame rates at an acceptable value, this plane is really a keeper. Dreamwings could easily charge $30 for this one and not be out of line. Gotta go make up some flight plans..... :-) Mike

too bad this plane doesn't have a VC :( probably the only I won't be flying it :(

Super looking and handling aircraft. Great panel too.Trouble is for me..... a HUUUUUUGE frame rate hit!On final to KLAX with PIC737 - FR=20-24On final to KLAX with PMDG744 - FR=15-19On final to KLAX with Erj170 - FR=7-9 !!!!!

Dougal, As John said, it's the textures that are causing the frame hit. Go to http://trackmania.filefront.com/file/DXT_Converter;44186and down load the program, then go to http://fly.to/mwgfx/ and get the mwgfx.dll file also. Installation is a breeze. I then just went through and opened each texture file and then re-saved as a DXT 1 file. That was it! You'll see some of the textures change from 1 MB files (!) to something on the order of 200kb. I went from 7-10 fps with 90 % traffic and clear weather to my locked value of 28 fps. Just did a flight with 100% traffic and overcast and had at worst 16 fps. The plane is definitely worth this little bit of extra effort. Mike

Mike, I went the the url you list for 'trackmania', but it says the file is not found.And I DID download the mwgfx.dll file but--what does it do? before I install it.ThanksBill

opps.. got it-- I didn include the-- ;44186bill

Hi Mike,Forgive my ignorance, but exactly which files are you converting? The bmp files in the panel folder? If so,does this require a change in the panel.cfg? I read the documentation with the converter, but it didn't help me much. Is the .dll file needed for the conversion to work properly?Thanks for any help,Dale

Files are the aircraft texture(bmp)files for each livery.

Dale, As John said, it's the files in the texture folder; don't mess with the panel files. I'm not sure exactly what the .dll does, but the author did say on his web site that it is needed for the program to work, so I installed it. The program has more functionality than what is needed here such as transfer to paint programs, etc.. My procedure was 1) Back up all the texture files 2) Open the conversion program and then one-by-one in the conversion program open each texture file. 3) Resave the texture under the "extended bitmap" routine, then choose DXT 1 as the file format when the standard Windows Save popup opens. That's it! To see if everything went ok, check the before and after file size. I also found that if I list the files as icons they would also show up with the little paint brush icon (I found some I forgot to convert that way; doing 5 liveries at one sitting :-) ) Mike

Thanks, Mike and John,I got the conversion to work, but I have another question - should the outside textures (fuselage, wings, etc) be saved in DXT 1 or DXT 3 format? My somewhat questionable understanding is that DXT 1 files do not contain the alhpa channel and the reflective features may be lost?Dale

Not sure about that one. However, in the available save file formats I remember seeing "DXT(no alpha)" so I chose the regular DXT 1. I spend more time doing cockpit work than watching the plane from the outside, so very minimal textures are fine for me. As long as the livery looks reasonably ok, I'm happy. Others, I know, want more detail. Mike