How to convert DX9 textures to DX10

[76496 17]

Perfectly!! stated Paul. Thank You.

[MarkW 1,502]

I must be doing something wrong because I cannot get my WOAI liveries to show up in DX10....still getting the all white plane.

 

Here is what I did.

 

Tested only at KMEM on Fed-Ex liveries.

Copied the ImageTool.exe and ImageTool.bat to the WOAI texture folder.

Ran the .bat file which converted all of the bmp files into dds files and added them to the folder.

I renamed the bmp files by adding .bak

ran the sim, but no change.

 

Any ideas?

[Paul J 349]

Not really, Mark, but here's a great link which might help...

 

and if you succeed, you'll tell us all how you did it, right? :lol:

[MarkW 1,502]

OK, I will take a look. I tried the demo fo addon converter X and it did fix these AI planes. My only issue with purchasing it is that I am not sure if it will affect my framerates and overall sim smoothness.

[Paul J 349]

I tried the same thing with the new Orbx PNW traffic, and didn't fix them, but ACX did - so I'm ahead of the game - however the new Orbx Traffic caused random hesitations, so I went back to a combo of MyTrafficX 5.3 and the original Orbx aircraft.

 

I don't notice any frame reduction when I'm flying converted aircraft, though. At 4.8gig you have nice speed, but the 560Ti limits you somewhat..

 

Cheers!

[MarkW 1,502]

Thanks for the info, I will have to give it a try I guess.

[jewel77 6]

This is the rankle, hcornea. This is just what Steve did! If Steve could do this, and you could do this, then why hasn't the industry in general? This could have been done/fixed four years ago. FSX developers are not all driven by the Aerosoft - Orbx business model of "write it asap and get it out of the door". "It's just a preview" doesn't cut it - that's an excuse. A preview needs definition of what works and what doesn't work. Steve took it upon himself to ask questions - and found out what didn't work, and then he went about fixing it. This is the kind of developer that we would/should/will support - one that has not lost sight of that "I'd love to be a programmer" ethic. If one man can do this - what would a commercial team be able to achieve? I can understand the raw commercial side of the operation, but surely - in the basest motive of technical inquisitiveness - is it only 20%?

 

Perhaps Steve's patch wasn't there as an incentive, five years ago. Fact is - it is there now - and you developers ought to be able to see the interest - and the market potential. Perhaps now - there is an incentive.

I absolutely guarantee that a "Fully DX10 compatible KSFO San Fracisco Airport" (KSAN - KLAX - KPDX - KSEA - KPHL - KORD - KBOS and onward.. even one with a stated 99% DX10 compatibility - would revitalize FSX like nothing else - certainly not in LM's un-appealing "military/civilian training aid".

 

I agree 100% Paul! :good:

 

Look what Mathijs Kok the Sales Manager of Aerosoft said about DX10 after Steve's fix:

 

"Yes I get slightly smoother framerates but that's not an issue many people have these days. For me (and I did test the new ideas) it

 

still makes little sense.

 

That silly DX10 preview mode in FSX has cost us tens of thousands of Euro's in support, it always was a disaster. The new ideas are

 

cool but they also do not document the options (just as MS did not do any documentation in the sdk's).

 

So for professional work it is more or less irrelevant. We cannot develop products and make 5000 boxes only to find out the developer

 

changed something."

[Paul J 349]

He - Mathijs, or one of the Aerosoft programming leads can't open up the general10.fx file and SEE the fixes??? What's the matter with these people?? It's an excuse!!

 

What is so difficult about it? If Aerosoft - or Orbx - or Flight1 - especially Flight One - were to work a "mutually acceptable agreement" with Steve - add in a little bit of extra enhancement - they would corner the market on the patch. This is crying out for commercial backing!

 

Contact Steve. You want to make a better product, with a ready-made market, adding years to it's life - that's all you have to do!!

 

All it takes is some initiative, a few 'phone calls, some exploratory technical research with Steve, a protection system, a business plan - and I, personally - will buy the first one off the line for Eu26.95 / U$33.95.

And there are thousands upon thousands of 'simmers' out there who don't even know about this.

[TheDude71 6]

Agree 100%.....$$$$, lots of money to be made here. All it takes is for the right minds to work together to build a patch to fix a 20% issue. And I'd be #2 in line to purchase a "patch" for a lack of better words to fix a night texture issue. Honestly. This is a huge opertunity for the right developers to make some serious cash. I just wish I could do it. But I'm just a dumb fireman with a huge passion for flightsim. We can put men on the moon, land rovers on mars, reach the outer edge or our solar system but can't put a finger on a night texture to convert ????

 

My .02$

[jewel77 6]

He - Mathijs, or one of the Aerosoft programming leads can't open up the general10.fx file and SEE the fixes??? What's the matter with these people?? It's an excuse!!

The excuse has a name: X-Plane 10 :wink:

[Paul J 349]

:lol: You're right, Jewel - I had forgotten all about X-Plane - but it has another ten years of "team" - not one man - development before it becomes the equal of FSX with either of the DirectX modes. Right now it is a one-man band with a disaster for an interface, and as Ralf Maylin posted in the FSX forum - No seasons, No landmarks, Bad AI engine, Bad ATC, No airport buildings, Bad autogen usage, No ORBX and RealAir availability. And we think DX10 has flaws??? :lol:

 

Yes - Aerosoft = X-Plane and Orbx = P3D - and scenery design is not really Flight1's forte`. The other big guys with the imagination and the technical expertise might be Ryan Marziarz - PMDG or Umberto Colapicchioni at FS DreamTeam - particularly Umberto, with his years (decades) of experience of scenery design. What a great partner for GSX! ** Hello Virtuali!! ** :Thinking:

 

All the best, guys!

 

pj

[hcornea 4]

There is a vast difference between scenery design, and programming.

 

This seems to have gotten lost in the rhetoric.

 

Here it is in a nutshell.

 

There is no way at all to make a true FSX native stable modelled ground surface. The code was not included in FSX at all (we are talking DX9 or DX10)

 

Making an FSX native ground surface is not an SDK technique or otherwise, it is simply a carefully crafted 3D model, which is then tuned over hundreds of FSX startups to appear as stable as you can get it. Ie a trick to fool the eye. That takes (wastes) an enormous amount of time.

 

So, Steve as a programmer is fixing elements of DX10 that don't work. Unless he solves the non-inclusion of a native FSX groundpolygon method also (which I suspect would involve rewriting FSX core code), we have not advanced. Your best hope is that he can get legacy ground textures to work in DX10.

 

There are some pretty wild and ignorant statements in some of the posts above.

 

If there was half an idea about the amount of time it takes to make good scenery there would be a little less dogmatic indignation on this thread.

 

So here's the challenge .....

 

Use the free tools out there and let's see just how quick you can "get it out the door" as suggested above.

 

Has it occurred to anyone reading this thread that it is 'pretty rich' to suggest what 'should be done' when a complete ignorance of the process is evident.

 

So guys, if you know what needs to be done, let's see your contribution to it ...

 

 

[Paul J 349]

You are trying to blend all of the defensive arguments of the developers who won't, or can't - produce a DX10-compilant airport, hcornea, and entirely missing the point of the original discussion, and at the same time - attacking the many DX10 users, the readers and the posters with sarcasm and challenges which you know we can't meet.

 

1). No-one is suggesting developers can or should produce "a true FSX native stable modelled ground surface", indeed until you mentioned this, most of us un-enlightened users are are/were not aware (and don't care) that Microsoft didn't include the code for "a true FSX native stable modelled ground surface".

 

What we do know is that Steve used his intelligent inquisitiveness, dug into the differences between DX9 and DX10, and very methodically, analysed those differences, and fixed the major issue of runways flashing. He then went on to fix the opaque fences: he then went on the fix the Progressive Taxi function.. and so on: my immediate comment is "My God - in six years since inception - why has no developer house ever taken the time to look at the DX10 shaders and correct those inequities?"

I cannot believe that hundreds of experienced programmers, and scenery designers (since you separated the two skill-sets) have not been aware that these problems exist, and that were caused by errors within the main shader folder. Why is it that private individuals - folks like ******* Altuve or Steve Parsons can, in a relatively short time, come up with these "fixes" to the degree that DX10 mode is now very flyable as a result, albeit with a few warts? What other fixes are just sitting there, waiting for some enterprising individual to come along?

 

2). Re the OP's topic - many of us here completely understand the relationship between DX1 - DXT3 - DXT5, 32-bit, alphas and mip-mapping, and understand the impact on stuttering or frame rate that missing alphas make, and that those modifications of themselves - are not making a texture or the addon - DX10 compliant. This is basically just another tweaking tool - not a magic bullet.

 

3). "we have not advanced." Really? For us users Steve's contribution has made an enormous impact on this sim. So some night textures on some addon airports are greyed out. This is not prevalent among all airports - there are a number which work just fine.

 

4). "Your best hope is that he can get legacy ground textures to work in DX10." Absolutely! On this we can agree - but I would hope that with the attention this patch has attracted - that developers such as yourself (and I have no idea who you are, nor which house you represent) would take a higher look at all of the posts here - good and bad, and come away with an incentive to use your knowledge of scenery design and your programming skills, and instead of facetiously attacking us Simm'ers - you might spend some time looking at ways to prolong the life of FSX with DX10, given the uncertain faces of P3D and X-Plane.

 

5). "if you know what needs to be done, let's see your contribution to it"

Our "the users" - contribution comes in the form of money. That's all our contribution needs to be. We support with our wallets.

All we have to do is find - and support - the FSX Addon vendors that produce DX10-compatible scenery's.

I should also add, that FSDreamteam is some $80 richer this morning.

 

All the best,

 

pj

[jewel77 6]

I should also add, that FSDreamteam is some $80 richer this morning.

I'm ready too to make developers more rich even if their future DX10 update patches come at a cost and not for free.

 

FSX is outdated with DX9 but with DX10 and Steve's fix I feel like I have "The Next Generation" of FSX!

[RamonB 449]

I think this thread is veering in the wrong direction.

 

Yes, FSX has a lot of limitations.

Yes, FSX was never completed,

Yes, FSX DX10 support was trivial at best.

Yes, Some users have found fixes for FSX and DX10. ,Thank them all.

Yes, Coding or making scenery is hard, especially since there is non MS or ACES support.

(But then again, we didn’t have it years ago and still managed to do all kinds of things)

 

Yes, Us users want a better flight simulator and more quality.

Yes, Developers want to produce better software thus more sales.

 

So instead of working against, why not try to work together and make the best of what can be done with FSX?

 

On my very limited spare time I’m working or should I say trying on several FSX projects; If successful will improve PFS, lower memory usage and hopefully fix the DX10 texture problems.

 

Cheers