Stutter when airport comes into view

[Misha_K 0]

Hi guys, I have a darn fast Duo Core machine and run FS9 maxed out with frames I couldn't even dream of before upgrading. As of late, though, I am having some stuttering problems. The following: if I turn with the aircraft or pan in external or VC mode and somewhere within the field of vision an airport pops into view, there is a brief stutter. Now, before you jump on this as a probable cause, let me tell you this has nothing to do with AI or addon scenery. This happens even with small default airfields in the middle of nowhere with no AI whatsoever. It seems to be related to texture loading of airport ground textures. I suspect there may be some silly oversized airport texture that installed itself into the default texture folder along with some wily addon. Has anyone seen this problem and can help me pinpoint the culprit? What are the filenames for the default airport textures? Thanks in advance. http://www.commerciallevel.com/base/suppor...46supporter.jpg

[Misha_K 0]

Bump.Anyone?http://www.commerciallevel.com/base/suppor...46supporter.jpg

[Murmur 3,940]

>What are the filenames for>the default airport textures?Surprisingly enough, I think all the files in the texture folder beginning with the word "runway" are the runway textures. :)Probably you can extract the default ones from one of FS9 CD's?Marco

[tgibson 11]

Did you install any airport texture impprovement packages? If so, then they are the ones in those packages.Hope this helps,--Tom GibsonCal Classic Propliner Page: http://www.calclassic.comFreeflight Design Shop: http://www.freeflightdesign.comDrop by! ___x_x_(")_x_x___

[virtualstuff 750]

>Did you install any airport texture impprovement packages? >If so, then they are the ones in those packages.>>Hope this helps,>-->Tom Gibson>>Cal Classic Propliner Page: http://www.calclassic.com>>Freeflight Design Shop: http://www.freeflightdesign.com>>Drop by! ___x_x_(")_x_x___Yep the problem with those files is that the file size is to large ;-)1024 * 1024 and 32bit... Andr

[Guest Zevious Zoquis]

Yeah, some scenery devs make what seem to me to be some really odd decisions when it comes to this sort of thing. I noticed recently that several airport sceneries I've downloaded use 1024x1024x32 textures that are each 1 mbit in size for the numbers at the ends of the runways. Every time the airport comes into view the sim has to load about 5 megs of number textures. I converted a few of them to 256x256 and the file sizes dropped to like 100kbits and frankly, they still look fine in the sim. Are they a bit less sharp? Of course, but come on...I'd much rather have slightly blurry runway numbers than a 2-3 second load puase everytime the airport comes into view...Now, that's not intended to be a criticism of the devs at all. I have no idea if there might be some specific reason for using the high res textures (aside from the obvious improved clarity). Maybe I'm messing something up - I don't know. My system is by no means cutting edge and probably on a more powerful machine there's no problem anyway. But I'm going to go through one of the airports in question, convert everything down to smaller size and see what happens...

[Misha_K 0]

Thanks. I wil check that. What are the taxiway textures? I recall once having a similar issue with a silly oversized taxiline texture. No, I haven't installed any texture replacements.http://www.commerciallevel.com/base/suppor...46supporter.jpg

[Murmur 3,940]

>Thanks. I wil check that. What are the taxiway textures? I>recall once having a similar issue with a silly oversized>taxiline texture. I'd say all the texture files beginning with the word "taxi_" or "taxiway_" :)Marco

[razorseal 0]

>Yeah, some scenery devs make what seem to me to be some>really odd decisions when it comes to this sort of thing. I>noticed recently that several airport sceneries I've>downloaded use 1024x1024x32 textures that are each 1 mbit in>size for the numbers at the ends of the runways. Every time>the airport comes into view the sim has to load about 5 megs>of number textures. I converted a few of them to 256x256 and>the file sizes dropped to like 100kbits and frankly, they>still look fine in the sim. Are they a bit less sharp? Of>course, but come on...I'd much rather have slightly blurry>runway numbers than a 2-3 second load puase everytime the>airport comes into view...>>Now, that's not intended to be a criticism of the devs at all.> I have no idea if there might be some specific reason for>using the high res textures (aside from the obvious improved>clarity). Maybe I'm messing something up - I don't know. My>system is by no means cutting edge and probably on a more>powerful machine there's no problem anyway. But I'm going to>go through one of the airports in question, convert everything>down to smaller size and see what happens...which one were the 1024 ones? I'm curious...I might do this myself, but I don't know where these textures are?

[Guest Zevious Zoquis]

They are in the Addon Scenery folder in the individual airport texture folders. Theres 110 megs of textures in the specific one I' referring to. So far, I've got it down to around 70 megs by shrinking various texture sizes down and it's definitely helped with the load times. I suppose if I had a system that could run the sim at uber-high res I might notice the visual difference but at 1152x864 I really don't see much af a visual hit at all by reducing the resolutions from 1024 down to 512...

[Guest ha5mvo]

sorry if it sounds stupid, but how do you go about reducing the resolution of a texture?

[Guest brillo]

I, too, get the stutters when nearing an airport. Never guessed stutters might be due (in part) to the resolution of the runway numbers. So I'm with ha5mvo, how do you reduce texture resolution? Folks here in the forums mention it occasionally, but only in passing. Never seen the procedure explained, never understood how-to. Is there a tutorial somewhere? Or a handy-dandy prog for doing this efficiently? Sounds like Zevious Zoquis is doing it by hand, one at a time. Some of those airports have a zillion texture files... Rob

[Guest Zevious Zoquis]

The only way is to do it by hand I'm afraid (as far as I know). I use a program called "DXTBmp." Basically, I go through the texture folder and pick out all the 1024x1024 textures as those seem to be the ones that give me trouble. - Open the image up in DXTBmp- send the image to an editing program (I use Photoshop) - reduce the image size (to 512 x 512 generally) - import the edited image back into DXTBmp- send the alpha to the editor (assuming there is one)- reduce the alpha to the same res- import the new alpha back into DXTBmp- save the new image in the same format it was originally.it's a somewhat laborious process, particularly if you happen to not be paying attention and you save a few textures in the wrong format. Suddenly that fence that you are supposed to be able to see through is an impenetrable black wall. :)