2 to 3 times speed increase w/o water effects!

[Guest Speed]

By switching off water effects (and taking the opportunity to bump up texture detail to land & water) I have gained 10-15fps. I used to get high single digits to low teens so its about double to triple speed.The crazy thing is that it does not matter whether there are any rivers,lakes,or oceans within sight, the speed increase is the same.I'm finally happy with my FPS. Now if I could only raise the speed of the texture updates of megascenery.Situation: Dreemfleet Cessna 310 over MegaScenery SoCal real weather (fairly cloudy).Settings: All sliders maxed except weather sight distance on 60mi and cloud draw distance on 40mi,1600x1200x32color no AA.System: 2.7ghz P4/200FSB/Geforce4 Ti4600 128mb/AGP4x/768DDR PC2400SpeedP.S. anyone know a good texture replacement for the default non effects water?

[JimmiG 244]

I noticed no improvement from turning off water effects.

[gosta 0]

Hi Jimmi,no you wouldn't notice much of a difference, whereas the original poster would (and has). The reason is quite simple: GeForce graphics cards anti-alias alpha textures, the Radeon 9xxx series don't.Cheers,Gost.http://hifi.avsim.net/activesky/images/wxrebeta.jpg

[Guest]

Speaking of which, I wonder if there is no option somewhere (external of FS) to tell the graphics card to NOT antialias alpha textures? Or maybe it is hardwired into the cards' circuitry, I really have no idea...-Derek

[Guest Fishu]

It doesnt anti-aliase alpha textures.In multi colour alpha textures you can define different levels of opacity and designers usually smoothens the transition between .. say window and the frame, to make it better looking, which doesn't eat FPS any more than the alpha texture itself..Anti-aliasign again smoothens the edges between different vertices, very simply said it creates new textures all the time.

[Guest Bigshot]

I notice no difference in framerates with water slider off or on low with reflections. If I max the water slider, I take a good hit on the frames. So, I leave it set on low. Not because I particularly care for the reflections; but, because if I turn it off completely, I get funky looking purple clouds at dawn and dusk. The cloud reflections must be tied to the water reflections slider somehow.Alienware 2.53; 512mbPC1066; ATI 9700 Pro.

[JimmiG 244]

Geforce cards only anti aliasing alpha textures when using Super Sampling AA or a combination of Multi Sampling and SS AA. The 4xS and 6xS modes on Geforce use a combination. The "normal" 4x and 6x modes use plain MSAA.To turn off AA of Alpha textures, simply switch to a "normal" mode like 4x AA instead of the "4xs" mode.Also I don't think the water uses alpha textures. It's not transparent. I haven't looked at how it works, but I would guess it uses an environment map and a gloss map or a bump map to produce the reflections.

[Guest Speed]

Errr, ooops you're right. It was lowering the slider from High to Low water effects that made the difference in FPS. There is no difference from Off to Low. I guess I didnt check the middle setting properly, I thought I did.Speed.