A Huge FPS Increase

[N60JBravo 27]

Yes a summarised post would be most welcome.

What to do and what not to do

What to mipmap what not to mipmap

What to alpha chanel and what not to alpha channel

etc etc etc

That would be much appreciated

 

Yes I know all teh info is here in just over 200 posts, but reading 200+ post also do get confusing after a while.

 

The challenge in that is there are no hard and fast rules for some of that stuff, a lot is personal opinion.

 

And what works for one person on their computer might give different results to others.

 

The very first post covers the only hard and fast fact, that DXT3 textures that lack an Alpha tag cause stutters.

 

That post also says where to get the tool that fixes this issue. There are links to that tool in other posts if the AIG forum is unavailable to you.

 

regards,

Joe

[georgetyrrell 7]

Having been away from the sim for well over a year, I'm amused to see this topic and read thought it. Although I am not that technically minded and never fully understood why he was asking me to do it, I do recall that the late Michael Greenblatt had understood this concept years ago and in our sessions was trying to educate to me the fact that Devs do this to their textures all the time, even respected ones! He could never get over the 'just plain bad sceneries' that were on the market! Anyway it just gave me a chuckle as when returned to simming and attempted to contact him again and found at he had passed away, the next thing I did was read this first sticky in this forum! Because I can hear him now in my ear screaming about it!!

[cmpbellsjc 2,960]

Having been away from the sim for well over a year, I'm amused to see this topic and read thought it. Although I am not that technically minded and never fully understood why he was asking me to do it, I do recall that the late Michael Greenblatt had understood this concept years ago and in our sessions was trying to educate to me the fact that Devs do this to their textures all the time, even respected ones! He could never get over the 'just plain bad sceneries' that were on the market! Anyway it just gave me a chuckle as when returned to simming and attempted to contact him again and found at he had passed away, the next thing I did was read this first sticky in this forum! Because I can hear him now in my ear screaming about it!!

 

LOL, sounds like Michael. I was a friend/customer of his also and got the same info as well as which devs to try and stay clear of and which ones you can trust. I still remember when we started and he was teaching me the in's and out's of mip mapping and all that stuff. At the time I had no idea what he was talking about but once I caught on it was well worth learning about all that stuff as its helped me so much through the years to make bad looking and bad performing sceneries work and look good.

 

Too bad that he passed, he was a great guy, great friend, and a great source of info.

[Hoang 108]

Big thanks to kiwiflyer45 for the topic and neumanix for the DxtFixer B)  I've just back up all my sceneries and aircrafts (that's almost ...1GB scenery and 15GB AI & use aircrafts) and use the tool to fix them.

 

Reading the log.txt file I see that lots of AI aircrafts are presented in here...only some sceneries have problem.

 

I hope it will help me boost the load time

 

About the VC texture of the addon aircraft. Is there anyway to make it more FPS friendly? Because it doesn't show any results in DxtFixer so I think there aren't any problems with them.

[Luis Hernandez 568]

I hope it will help me boost the load time

 

IMHO, I wouldn't expect shorter FS loading times, just a smoother sim. A defrag after fixing all these textures always helps.

 

 

About the VC texture of the addon aircraft. Is there anyway to make it more FPS friendly? Because it doesn't show any results in DxtFixer so I think there aren't any problems with them.

 

VCs in user aircraft may be more FPS friendly if you compress it, i.e., if you go from 32-bit to DXT3 or DXT1. Take into account that DXT1 has only 1 or  as alpha values, and as I said some pages before, DXT1 and DXT3 textures are not dégradé-friendly. But if there are no gray things in the alpha channel or smooth color transitions, of if you don't care about these issues, you're welcome to convert the textures to DXT3/DXT1. This is a process I prefer to do manually using DXTBMP.

[Hoang 108]

IMHO, I wouldn't expect shorter FS loading times, just a smoother sim. A defrag after fixing all these textures always helps.

 

 

 

VCs in user aircraft may be more FPS friendly if you compress it, i.e., if you go from 32-bit to DXT3 or DXT1. Take into account that DXT1 has only 1 or  as alpha values, and as I said some pages before, DXT1 and DXT3 textures are not dégradé-friendly. But if there are no gray things in the alpha channel or smooth color transitions, of if you don't care about these issues, you're welcome to convert the textures to DXT3/DXT1. This is a process I prefer to do manually using DXTBMP.

Thanks! That's all I need to know for now. Because with my system I still sometimes have small pause and FPS drop so just wondering what's wrong.

[jonss1948 20]

Hi Everyone,

 

I registered and downloaded the program and it starts well but fails to respond when I point it at the fs9 root folder. I've actually downloaded the program twice to make certain it was not corrupt the first time. My set-up is with fs9 running from my C: Drive but installed on a separate drive. Bummer, I really want to do this.

 

Jon

[Luis Hernandez 568]

Jon, which program are you talking about? We've discussed about (at least) 3 different programs in this thread. I'm sure we could help you more easily if you tell us the program in which you're getting issues :wink:

[jonss1948 20]

Jon, which program are you talking about? We've discussed about (at least) 3 different programs in this thread. I'm sure we could help you more easily if you tell us the program in which you're getting issues :wink:

Sorry about that. I'm referring to dxt3fixer.zip. I am running win 7 64 bit so that could be the problem. I've run it from my C: Drive and have tried running it on the installation drive with the same negative result. It's annoying because I have a need for speed.

 

Jon

[neumanix 113]

You just have to wait for it to finish, it takes a while to scan the files. It exits on its own when finished and then you can read the log.txt file for results.

[jonss1948 20]

neumanix, on 18 Mar 2013 - 21:52, said:

You just have to wait for it to finish, it takes a while to scan the files. It exits on its own when finished and then you can read the log.txt file for results.

Well I'll be buttered...on both sides. It worked! Previously it had not worked as I was running it from the extracted folder within a window. I dragged it out onto the desktop and it worked. Go figure. I did a simulated fix and It's telling me that the only textures that are bad are these (methinks they could be Qantas and British Airways liveries):

 

THE FOLLOWING FILES ARE BAD:

 

F:\SIMS\FS9\Aircraft\PMDG737-800\texture\PMDG_VC_EIGHT_L.bmp

F:\SIMS\FS9\Aircraft\PMDG737-800\texture\pmdg_vc_five_t.bmp

F:\SIMS\FS9\Aircraft\PMDG737-800\texture.BA\PMDG_VC_EIGHT_L.bmp

F:\SIMS\FS9\Aircraft\PMDG737-800\texture.BA\pmdg_vc_five_t.bmp

F:\SIMS\FS9\Aircraft\PMDG737-800-Winglets\texture\PMDG_VC_EIGHT_L.bmp

F:\SIMS\FS9\Aircraft\PMDG737-800-Winglets\texture\pmdg_vc_five_t.bmp

F:\SIMS\FS9\Aircraft\PMDG737-800-Winglets\texture.ABL\PMDG_VC_EIGHT_L.bmp

F:\SIMS\FS9\Aircraft\PMDG737-800-Winglets\texture.ABL\pmdg_vc_five_t.bmp

F:\SIMS\FS9\Aircraft\PMDG737-800-Winglets\texture.QFL\PMDG_VC_EIGHT_L.bmp

F:\SIMS\FS9\Aircraft\PMDG737-800-Winglets\texture.QFL\pmdg_vc_five_t.bmp

F:\SIMS\FS9\Aircraft\PMDG737-900\texture\PMDG_VC_EIGHT_L.bmp

F:\SIMS\FS9\Aircraft\PMDG737-900\texture\pmdg_vc_five_t.bmp

 

I ran the program which fixed those files and took the Qantas 737 800 for a short flight. Switching into the vc is considerably faster than previously. Thanks for your help.

 

Jon

[neumanix 113]

Glad you got it to work!

[neumanix 113]

As you might have noticed, version 2.0 of DxtFixerX is available from the library now. But I managed to improve on it a bit more and made v2.1 today, not yet available from the library.

Here is however a link so you can test it out and report any bugs or problems.

 

http://www.2shared.com/file/FoQ3rd_Z/DxtFixerX_v21.html

 

I fixed a bug that erased the log.txt file after exiting the program.

It now also remembers the last root folder you selected and will default from there next time you start the program.

 

If all is well I will upload v2.1 to the library asap.

 

Peter

[WILDHEART3003 8]

 

No files were altered. Everything seems To be OK!

[jonss1948 20]

As you might have noticed, version 2.0 of DxtFixerX is available from the library now. But I managed to improve on it a bit more and made v2.1 today, not yet available from the library.

Here is however a link so you can test it out and report any bugs or problems.

 

http://www.2shared.com/file/FoQ3rd_Z/DxtFixerX_v21.html

 

I fixed a bug that erased the log.txt file after exiting the program.

It now also remembers the last root folder you selected and will default from there next time you start the program.

 

If all is well I will upload v2.1 to the library asap.

 

Peter

HI Peter,

 

I've run it in both sims. FS9 shows no errors but FSX has heaps of files reporting errors. Now they're fixed. Great program. Many thanks.

 

Jon