I was reading some stuff in the forums and found a discussion in which our good friend Rafal gave someone advice about the importance of not mixing DXT3 textures with alpha and those without. He mentioned a utility that is available at Alpha India Group's website called AlphaSearcher. I went to their site and saw a discussion in which someone thanked the author and said that he had used it to identify textures at Aerosoft's Maastricht and having fixed them, he was now getting smooth performance.

I downloaded the utility and gave it a try with Maastricht. I set up a flight with the R22 and was getting 37-38 fps. I ran the utility, identified a bunch of textures that needed to be fixed and fixed them using DXTbmp. I then went back to the saved flight and my fps at Maastricht was 78-83! A HUGE IMPROVEMENT! I can't recommend this too highly to any of you who want maximum performance from FS9.

 

It's not difficult to do, though time consuming. But with an improvement like that, it's crazy not to do it!

 

Simply run AlphaSearcher and point it to the folder you want to check. Select "Procress subfolders too" and run it. It will identify the textures that need to be fixed. Then open that scenery and simply move the offending texture into DXTbmp. Save it, (Say yes to overwrite the original file). That's it! By putting it into DXTbmp and saving it, it will automatically regenerate the alpha channel. (I have no idea what an alpha channel is BTW!)

 

This is the best thing I've discovered since the last best thing. ^_^ I'm off to do a bunch more sceneries..... TTFN

 

Cheers

Ian

Thanks. After all this time another thing to try. I thought performance in FS9 couldn't get any better, I may be wrong...

+1

Yup, its a great little tool! A real time saver when hunting for those problem textures.

 

Here's the direct link for the AlphaSearcher at Alpha India Group:

http://www.alpha-india.net/forums/index.php?topic=9633.msg92195

 

you need to be registered and logged in at AIG to get to it.

I did this to my textures a while ago and while it didn't increase my fps as much as it did for you, it sure cures those hard long lasting stutters that you notice mainly while panning around, especially using trackIR.

It's VERY common that sceneries you install have these alpha-less dxt3 textures and this is a good tool for finding them.

Is this available for FSX?

you need to be registered and logged in at AIG to get to it.

 

:mad: I hate everyone that do this. Even reading the forum requires a registration.

Looks like today won't be a productive day, I'm just reading the first of the associated threads with the science behind this... :o Luckily it's a slow day at work. And for FSX, as far as I've understood in the first two pages, this is more about the internal workings of the OS (or my reading comprehension is bad).

 

Would the lack of AF in the Intel HD3000 with FS9 be a problem if I mip all my AI and building textures and convert them to DXT1/DXT3?

After reading this and considering I convert all my AI and a lot of my scenery files to DXT3 w/ batch files using ImageTool it looks like I will be redoing EVERY AI texture 1 by 1!!!

 

Speak to you guys in 2014.... The one thing that confused me was it mentioned not doing lightmaps so does that mean do the *T files only because in those threads it looks like they are doing the *L as well...

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but the AlphaSearcher2.zip file is the newer version, right? I'm also assuming that we do not need to download AlphaSearcher.zip in order to install AlphaSearcher2.zip

Yep .. this work fine

Had some stutters with the Mauritius freeware airport ... they are gone !

I have a lot of work pending ... a lot of airports installed there .. :lol:

Thank's for the head up

I'm also assuming that we do not need to download AlphaSearcher.zip in order to install AlphaSearcher2.zip

Right.. download of 2.zip is enought ...

Great tip Ian - thank you. I knew about alpha-lessness :lol: in terms of VC textures - dramatically reduces load times, but first I've heard of this util - time to hit some sceneries

I have done most of my payware sceneries already, (probably about four hours work) as well as all my WoAI aircraft and the main FS9 texture folder. It's tedious, but not really too bad once you get into a routine for doing it. The example of Maastricht was extreme. I tried it first because it had been mentioned in the discussion thread. But I have seen a significant improvement overall and I am probably only halfway there in terms of doing the entire sim. But for me at least, it has been totally worthwhile.

 

The question about the L files was a good one. The instructions seemed to say don't do them, but what I found was that in almost all instances, they already have an alpha channel. So I decided to give it a go with the ones that didn't and I have had zero problems with it. So my advice is yes, do the lightmaps as well. If AlphSearcher identifies it, I fix it until it doesn't find any files needing to be done. Then I move on to another part of the sim.

 

Trust me guys - if I can do it, anyone can. It's easy and surprisingly fast, given the thousands of textures that need to be checked.

 

Cheers

Ian

ps Usual caveat - back up your files before you do it etc... But so far at least, I have had only positive results and zero problems

I went to their site and saw a discussion in which someone thanked the author and said that he had used it to identify textures at Aerosoft's Maastricht and having fixed them, he was now getting smooth performance.

 

Cheers

Ian

 

That chap might well have been me. ^_^

 

Alphasearcher2 now enters the hall of fame as an essential piece of freeware software.

 

I started with my sceneries ...then AI ...then Flyable aircraft. My sim will load any 32bit or DXT3 texture far faster if it has an alpha channel.

After reading this and considering I convert all my AI and a lot of my scenery files to DXT3 w/ batch files using ImageTool it looks like I will be redoing EVERY AI texture 1 by 1!!!

 

Speak to you guys in 2014.... The one thing that confused me was it mentioned not doing lightmaps so does that mean do the *T files only because in those threads it looks like they are doing the *L as well...

 

Have you tried ConvImX? This is from the same developer of DXTBMP and, unlike Imagetool, if it catches a white alpha layer, it won't remove it from the bitmap. In 2 hours I made sure that all textures had an alpha channel, and added mipmaps to all my FS9 textures, except for AI and user aircraft. Should I mip also the user aircraft textures?

:mad: I hate everyone that do this. Even reading the forum requires a registration.

 

Yep, PITA as far as I am concerned, especially when you start receiving spam e-mails from them afterwards.

 

What I do is this. I have a temporary e-mail address with my ISP which I use when I don't want anyone to know my permanent one. When I start getting unwanted spam etc I just kill off this temporary address and create another temporary one. So I use a temporary address to register in a forum when all I want is a one-off access and create any username which comes into my head. Simple!!

 

David