Hi all...I want to free up as much as my PC resources to flying and outside scenery. I have planes which look great on the outside but I'm sure they take up resources. is there a way to 'tone down' plane liveries which can help free up some PC resources for better flying ?Many thanks...JB

Hi all...I want to free up as much as my PC resources to flying and outside scenery. I have planes which look great on the outside but I'm sure they take up resources. is there a way to 'tone down' plane liveries which can help free up some PC resources for better flying ?Many thanks...JB

If you literally never look outside the cockpit, just dont assign a texture folder to the aircraft in the aircraft.cfg. The model will be blank. Some people fly like that. Not me, but its possible. The other thing is to convert your 32 bit textures to DXT3. That will increase compression on the bitmaps (make them smaller file sizes) which will also improve loading times. Sometimes this is done at the expense of sharpness of the livery however. If you use FSX, you can compress to DXT5, which is even tighter but doesnt work in FS9.The best way is to add more ram. Its not very expensive nowadays.

Hi all...I want to free up as much as my PC resources to flying and outside scenery. I have planes which look great on the outside but I'm sure they take up resources. is there a way to 'tone down' plane liveries which can help free up some PC resources for better flying ?Many thanks...JB

A lot of freeware and probably payware aircraft as well use 32bit textures(High quality) to show of there models,the trouble with these 32bit textures is that DO have a significant(i cant speak for the latest PCs)affect on performance.A lot of simmers (myself included)use texture conversion programs(freeware )to convert these from 32bit to something called DXT3 which are lesser quality(don't worry about that the aircraft still look great)these dxt3 textures give a significant boost in performance,and you will even see there advantage when selecting an aircraft as they appear quickly in the preview panel with all textures showing,32bit models will somtimes take a good few seconds to display (you will see a grey aircraft )this also happens as you fly as well as you cycle your views when you come to spot mode for some seconds (maybe more i have heard)your aircraft will be a grey shell until the textures draw in.Anyways these are the two most popular conversion programs DXTBmp great for identifying what an individual texture is actually displaying and will also convert files from 32 to dxt3 however its one draw back it can only do one texture at a time.The other program I use is called CONVIMX the advantage of this program is that it will convert a whole aircraft folder in one operation.Both are pretty easy to get the hang of,but If you have problems posters here (maybe even me :( )will be able to help.Both programs should be available here,or FLIGHTSIM.COM or any fine simming emporium.cheers to you Andy

Best to get them from the source, the programs Andy mentioned are by Martin Wright and available here- http://www.mnwright.btinternet.co.uk/To further the discussion you could also re-size the textures. Most are 1024X1024 for FS9, changing them to 512X512 would make them 1/4 the file size, thus reducing the workload on your CPU at a cost of severely reduced quality.If you do re-size them just remember they have to be sized to a square of 2, ie: 1024X1024, 512X512, 256X256, etc.The idea of not using a texture folder at all is an interesting one, just remember that will impact the VC as well. Finally the difference between DXT3 and DXT5 is all in how they handle the alpha channel, they handle color the same and both compress at a 4:1 ratio.Hope this helps.regards,Joe