I see Greg posted below on the use of ImageTool, here is some more info.GA-Traffic includes the newer version of imagetool.exe (160KB), you will find it in the Bin folder where you installed GA-Traffic. You could make a shortcut to it and put it on your desktop or somewhere in your start menu. I would suggest making a backup of this file so you have it for use in case you uninstalled GA-Traffic for some reason. You can put a copy of imagetool in any other location/folder on your system and operate it from there, just make a shortcut to it.With imagetool open, you can drag .bmp files to it from an explorer window to open them. If you have a dxt3 formatted .bmp that contains an alpha channel for reflections, you will lose the alpha if you format it as dxt1. For many planes such as the default c172 you are not losing much in the appearance by losing the alpha and using dxt1. I've found some .bmps formatted as dxt3 that do not contain an alpha channel and in that case you are not losing anything by using dxt1.GA-Traffic can downsize the textures for you or you can do them yourself. You will lose some quality by downsizing from 1024x1024 to 512x512 or even 256x256, but greatly reduce the .bmp size. It depends on the quality of the original .bmp and also the paint scheme as to how well they look downsized. As an example the default Baron and King Air quality goes down pretty quick and I only went down one size for them from 1024x1024 to 512x512. Others such as the C172,C182, and Pipers look O.K. to me even at 256x256.Of course what is exceptable to me may not be for you, and the best way is to experiment with sizes and formats yourself.Kurt M

Without reading the other posts,what add-on program are you using?I have Ultimate Traffic (highly reccomended) and I have noticed that the single biggest frame rate hit I take concerning the additional AI traffic themselves is...SHADOWS!Turn off shadowing...I get a boost of about 4-5 FPS around the airports while plane spotting.Jeff

Hi Jeff,they use 'GA-Traffic' my freeware program which generate GA Traffic.Problem with GA Traffic is that there are no AI GA planes available, so you must use freeware planes which often have to big textures and high poly count.

You can find out the actual polygon counts using Aircraft Container Manager (ACM). ACM is a payware utility, but it has unregistered mode, allowing you view settings but not make changes. You can find it at http://www.aircraftmanager.com.To view the vertex/polygon counts select an aircraft on the Selection tab then switch to the 3D-model tab. The information is shown under "Info" on the right-hand side of the screen. If the aircraft has multiple LODs, you can select which to view from an LOD combo-box, then click Reload to update the information.

Thanks for the info and link.Kurt M

After reading the post by Crater in this thread I checked a few .mdl files for the poly count using ACM.As a reference here are some figures from Aardvark on some of there AI aircraft.aircraft, lods, mdl size, poly count by lod737-300, 4 lods, mdl 153KB, 1-1,871 2-707 3-386 4-102EMB-120, 5 lods, mdl 324KB, 1-2,205 2-1,724 3-1,080 4-527 5-128767-400(GE), 12 lods, mdl 620KB, 1-2,466 2-2,060 3-1,852 4-1,632 5-1,386 6-1,092 7-828 8-504 9-436 10-300 11-108 12-66--------------FS9 pa28_180, 8 lods, mdl 601KB, 1-5,103 2-3,627 3-3,016 4-2,171 5-1,364 6-1,249 7-168 8-34FS9 C172, 15 lods, mdl 728KB, 1-5,252 2-5,016 3-4,792 4-4,448 5-3,721 6-3,469 7-2,424 8-2,294 9-2,156 10-1,759 11-1,715 12-1,158 13-886 14-56 15-26FS9 Wright Flyer, 6 lods, mdl 2,740KB, 1-10,326 2-7,356 3-5,893 4-3,302 5-746 6-40Chuck Dome Bonanza (bon04moz.zip) 1 lod, mdl 294KB, 1-6,585Pavel Toman/Premier Aircraft Design Katana (da20czai.zip) 1 lod, mdl 385KB, 1-10,206 Kurt M

Fabulous data kurt - does this illustrate my point*?Which plane works better as AI?A.) FS9 C172 - 728kb - Lowest LOD(of 15) = 26 polygonsB.) CD Bonanza- 294kb - Lowest LOD( of 1) = 585 polygonsC.) PAD Katana- 385kb - Lowest LOD( of 1) =10206 polygons?I'm inclined to answer B in this case, because the FS9 172 *could* be displaying as many as 5252 polygons. But I bet it would be close even though the FS9 172 is almost three times larger...The FS9 172 is definately better than the katana, even though it's model file is twice the size.*my point is that .mdl file size shouldn't be the only determining factor in choosing planes for AI use - it can be misleading if multiple LODs are included.Thanks for posting that info.Best,sg

I have downloaded and installed the ACM programme -aircraft container manager. BTW -- it is a very interesting programme to have and use.I can see that none of my installed GA a/c (except the default ones) use multiple LODs. So it is obvious why my FPS are so severely hit by using non-default a/c as AI. I have for now unselected all non-default a/c and at least I am now getting GA AI a/c at airports which were deserted before. But it is a shame that there do not seem to be any multiple LOD GA a/c available.Barry