Cure for NGX external skeleton view?

[Rocky_53 1,588]

NB: Please be aware that this post is referring to an initial test.

 

There is an anomoly with the loading of external textures on the NGX that some people experience and others don't. It's when changing to an external view of the aircraft after sitting in the VC and experiencing a delay in the loading of the external textures, resulting in the classic 'skeleton' aircraft for a split second, but in some cases this can be a couple of seconds. While this can happen for several reasons, the most commonly accepted cause is that the textures and addon being flown at the time are simply very resource hungry, hence the delay. This, for me personally, has always been more apparent on the NGX rather than any other aircraft so when I first purchased the NGX I didn't even consider the HD textures and immediately started to run them at 1024, but with no real benefit with the loading textures. Then I realised that the reason was that the textures themselves were still 4096! So I spent an hour resizing the actual textures to 1024, using DXTbmp a freeware graphics editing tool. The improvement was noticeable, although the delay in texture loading was still apparent.

 

Yesterday, on a flight from PAKT to CYVR, I noticed that the skeleton aircraft seemed particulalry bad, in fact so bad I decided I would try a few tricks to see if I could eradictae it completely. After doing some research around the forums, I came across a guy who suggested the HighMemfix tweak and also running the textures at 4094 in the cfg ie the TextureMaxLoad=4096. I already have the HighMemFix tweak in my cfg and the thought of running extra resolution textures to eradicate the problem didn't make sense to me. Anyway, bearing in mind that all my NGX liveries are 1024 I thought I would change the TML in the cfg. Wow!! I couldn't believe it. I reloaded the flight and increased the cloud cover and flew for about ten minutes on the previous route. No skeleton aircraft, AT ANY TIME!

 

Now before anyone gets too excited, I need to do some further tests, but so far, this appears to have cured the problem. So to summarise, I have resized the liveries to 1024, but the important thing is that the TextureMaxLoad is changed to 4096, this is the important bit. Now it may be that some guys are running the HD NGX textures at 1024 while they are in fact HD textures. So I would suggest you try either resizing the textures to 1024 and still mainatin the TML at 4096 or if not, simply change the TML to 4096 anyway.

 

I won't be in a position to do any more tests until later today, but I'll be interested to hear feedback...  Cheers...

[Jackal. 25]

Have you tried using the 4096(HD) textures with TextureMaxLoad=4096?

[Rocky_53 1,588]

Hi Dev, no I haven't...

[Rocky_53 1,588]

To confirm, I have just completed a one hour flight in which time I observed no skeleton aircraft at any time!

[vc10man 732]

Have you tried using the 4096(HD) textures with TextureMaxLoad=4096?

As I too have been having the same issue as Howard, I was awaiting to see how this solution evolved. Where exactly does that fix go? Thanks.

[Dougal 165]

Would you be so kind as explain how this resize of textures is actually done with DXTBmp, and exactly which texture files need doing?

 

Thanks

[XPX64man 130]

How do you reduce the resolution of just your livery textures?

[Spook 96]

Would you be so kind as explain how this resize of textures is actually done with DXTBmp, and exactly which texture files need doing?

 

Thanks

 

How do you reduce the resolution of just your livery textures?

 

This worked for me, see Sean's post http://forum.avsim.net/topic/401324-texture-resolution/?p=2610599

[Rocky_53 1,588]

Hey guys, you need to have two things 1) DXTBmp, which is an image manipulator and 2) a way of resizing the files eg, a program such as Photoshop. You effectively have to import the files into DXTBmp, and then export them into Photoshop (or similar) resize them from their native resolution of 4096 to 1024, then you save them at the new resolution. I can't go into an explanation of a step by step process, as I have only used DXTBmp once and that was twelve months ago, so I can't remember every step. From what I remember it's not that difficult. If you do a search on the forum there are a number of relative threads. I think the important thing to note is that when running the cfg with Texture_Max_Load set at 4096 with the smaller 1024 textures. The problem has gone, but when running Texture_Max_Load at 1024 with the 1024 textures the problem reappears! So a strange conundrum if ever there was one. The one thing I have not tested is to run Texture_Max_Load at 4096 combined with 4096 HD textures. Maybe I could suggest someone tries it. If it doesn't work and the skeleton is still apparent then the combination of TML=4096 + 1024 textures maybe the key :wink:

[vc10man 732]

Thanks for that, Howard. Not as simple as I was thinking of just amending a .cfg. Besides, I do not have PhotoShop.

[XPX64man 130]

I do have Photoshop CS6 and will be trying some of this stuff.  Thank you very much

[Rocky_53 1,588]

Thanks for that, Howard. Not as simple as I was thinking of just amending a .cfg. Besides, I do not have PhotoShop.

 

Hey Rick, sure, I understand. But as I said, if like me who had not originally tried running at Texture_Max_Load at 4096, then why not try it anyway. It may be that the 1024 textures are not needed (unlikely) and just the change in TML will provide the answer. All I'm doing in this thread is simply to report my findings on how I personally have achieved things.

 

BTW, here's a link for the DXTBmp app   http://www.mwgfx.co.uk/index.htm

[Spook 96]

You can resize useing GIMP and as stated, DXTBmp ( both free ) - instructions on how in my link above.

[vc10man 732]

Hey Rick, sure, I understand. But as I said, if like me who had not originally tried running at Texture_Max_Load at 4096, then why not try it anyway. It may be that the 1024 textures are not needed (unlikely) and just the change in TML will provide the answer. All I'm doing in this thread is simply to report my findings on how I personally have achieved things.

 

BTW, here's a link for the DXTBmp app   http://www.mwgfx.co.uk/index.htm

Thanks Howard.

 

You can resize useing GIMP and as stated, DXTBmp ( both free ) - instructions on how in my link above.

Brill and thanks again.

[aentwis 61]

I am wondering if there is an issue with running the 4096 textures and the TML at 1024. The resizing that must occur, with the additional payload of the NGX on top, may be causing this delay which leads to the skeleton view at first (even on an i7-2700K @4.8GHz). I am going to try the TML4096 to see what happens. I have a new GTX670 in now...

 

Thanks for addressing this issue and posting your results...

 

A