Can anyone please tell me how to change the file format of aircraft DDS texture files to something less demanding on the system?Doesn't matter if quality lowers.Thanks

Get the free DTXBmp texture tool. Google it.

I could be mistaken, but from what I understand, DDS files are actually supposed to be quicker and more efficient that using .bmp's, that's the reason developers like FSDT and FlyTampa who are the masters of optimization use those type of texture formats over .bmp.That being said, you could use DDS Converter 2 to open the said .dds files you are concerned about and check the compression. If they are 32bit you could convert them to DXT5 or DXT3, plus add mip maps along the way.Think about it this way. When FSDT sets out to make a huge airport like KDFW, KJFK, etc., and they spend a lot of time optimizing the scenery to get the best possible FPS, do you think they would have used .dds texture formats if they weren't better/faster than .bmp's? I doubt it.Changing the compression from 32bit to DXT will make a bigger difference than converting them to .bmp format. Although most good dev these days don't use 32 bit textures in airport sceneries. Maybe for a/c textures, but not sceneries. I have seen a lot of 32 bit .dds textures from PMDG and others, which I usually convert to DXT since the difference visually to me is not really noticable.POST EDIT: Maybe you edited your post, but I just re-read it and thought that it originally said you wanted to convert them to .bmp. Anwyay same thing still stands, check your compressions.

Forgot to mention that you could also lower you Global Texture slider from full to the right which will give you 1024 to one click to the left which will limited texture size to 512.

I don't think DDS itself will make a difference. You could use the typical DXT3 BMP with mips from FS9 or a DXT5 DDS with mips from FSX and I don't see that it would make a difference. If you got rid of DXT compression I guess you trade bigger texture size for need to decompress in the graphics card. If you got rid of the mips the filesize would go down some, but I don't think that would reduce system load.scott s..

Many thanksI'll give this a try

I don't think DDS itself will make a difference.  You could use the typical DXT3 BMP with mips from FS9 or a DXT5 DDS with mips from FSX and I don't see that it would make a difference.  If you got rid of DXT compression I guess you trade bigger texture size for need to decompress in the graphics card.  If you got rid of the mips the filesize would go down some, but I don't think that would reduce system load.scott s..

The new Lancair from ORBX does not use mips.  Jared - the developer said that then they don't have to rely on the FSX texture setting. (always will be high quality)jja 

The new Lancair from ORBX does not use mips.  Jared - the developer said that then they don't have to rely on the FSX texture setting. (always will be high quality)

I know the question of mipped / unmipped and quality comes up quite a bit, but for just performance (FPS/studders) I'm not sure there's a difference.scott s..