Empty Texture Folders

[martinlest2 58]

Could some guru please clear this up for me? I've searched the forum but get conflicting advice..Are ALL empty texture folders a no-no, likely to cause memory problems in FS9, or is it only texture folders associated with landclass files?And as soon as a texture folder contains as few as one bitmap file, is it somehow therefore rendered 'harmless', no longer being empty? I've never quite understood this 'empty' folder thing - if FS doesn't find the bitmap file it's expecting to find in a particular texture folder, isn't that just as bad as the texture folder being truly empty?Thanks,Martin

[scott967 62]

I guess there is the long-known "landclass texture folder bug". Normally, landclass files are designed to use the texture bitmaps in the default location, sceneryworldtexture. It is possible to place textures within the local texture folder as well (as is done with custom landclass such as photo scenes). It appears that over time an OOM error will occur if the landclass file tries to find the texture bitmaps in the local texture folder but it isn't there (it will still correctly find the texture in sceneryworldtexture). Hence the general recommendation not to mix landclass bgl files with object bgl files requiring local textures.Separately, there may be some theory that deleting the local texture folder if not required may result in some performance benefit though it's nothing I've ever specifically worried about (though I never create a local texture folder if not needed). I suppose one could always segregate scenery addons into two separate layers, one for bgls requiring textures and one for bgls that don't, or placing all texture bitmaps in the general texture folder, but I suspect if my performance is already so marginal that this makes a visible difference, I should be looking into other ways to improve things.scott s..

[Mike T 208]

Martin:As a rule of thumb if the scenery add-on does not require a texture folder, then there should simply be no texture folder. This is, and has been, a problem predominantly with landclass and it has been proven to produce OOM errors. If it is a scenery addon then it probably requires textures and the texture folder should not be empty. So either way, you have no reason to have an empty texture folder.

[martinlest2 58]

Incontrovertible logic! The only exception is a small number of sceneries I have which use empty texture folders as 'holding folders' - if I delete them then I get problems when certain options are checked, as there is nowhere for the backup bitmaps to go.That said, having sorted out my 'memory leak' problems recently (thanks to Process Monitor), my RAM during long flights is now pretty stable, so I guess these em[ty texture folders are not in fact having any adverse effect on performance.Martin

[martinlest2 58]

".. guess these em"What happened there? More haste. less speed! ... guess these empty texture folders are not having any adverse effect....

[Mike T 208]

'holding folders': Now, that's strange, I have never come across that yet! What scenery do you have that has empty texture folders? I'm assuming that with the exception of landclass, mesh, exclusion and AFCADs if you have a bgl defining a scenery object and no texture folder then that object would be missing textures? And you say that if you delete the empty folder the scenery you have scenery problems? Most certainly worth a discussion :-)Regards,Mike T.