Can someone please clarify as to what this setting actually does?I have tried it on/off without any discernible difference in performance/visuals.Regards,Dimitri.

AFAIK Many payware aircraft, such as PMDG, will not work if the option is turned off.

AFAIK Many payware aircraft, such as PMDG, will not work if the option is turned off.

Thanks for replying.But on my system I can run all payware addons, lvld,pmdg,atr,dreamfleet etc,regardless if this setting is on or off.I"d like to know what this setting actually does by definition with regards to graphics and/or performance.I do know that if you use dxt3 clouds,this setting must be on or the sim wont load.Dimitri.

Take a look here:http://www.visualflight.co.uk/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=4599Dave

Thank you Dave.So is it better left on/off?Regards,Dimitri

I think most agree it should be turned ON. (certainly, reflective textures require it)Dave

I think most agree it should be turned ON. (certainly, reflective textures require it)Dave

Not an expert by any means, but did a little reading. I would guess that with "render to texture" on, fs9 will attempt to have your graphics card perform rendering to a texture surface. Now if your graphics card doesn't support that, I assume fs9 checks first and doesn't try to do it. This may be an issue for very old (from a 2011 standpoint) cards. Certainly I don't think an NVidia 7000 series or newer would have a problem. If you set "render to texture" off, then fs9 won't ever attempt to use that rendering feature. So the question is, why to set it on? From the documents, rendering to a texture surface in the video card allows you some tricks in combining bitmaps without using cpu power. Also, there seems to be something about how a certain 3d technique known as "sprites" are handled, to the effect that render to texture is needed where in earlier versions of directx sprites could be handed. AFAIK, sprites are used at least in some instances to draw clouds in fs9, and this may be where the problems are coming with render to texture off. If my guess is right, in this case fs9 would have to do something with the cloud sprites before handing off to the graphics card, and it could be there are bugs when the clouds are using compressed (DXT) texture formats.scott s..

In my experience you must have either Render to Texture or Aircraft Reflections switched on to avoid FS software crashes. This may well be (as said above) only relevant if add-on aircraft are installed.John

Thank you Dave.So is it better left on/off?Regards,Dimitri

Hi.As you pointed out earlier, the sim won't load without it switched on if you are using dxt3 textures.I have dxt3 HDE2 (High Definition Environment) clouds as part of my FS9 so have render to texture switched on permanently. I haven't noticed it causing any problems though in deference to John's experience, I can't remember whether I have Aircraft Reflections switched on or off (I'm not at my simming PC).I still don't know what it really does though......and would love to find out. Regards,D