Mike,

 

You need to down size them. They can start at any size but the end result for scenery must be 256 X 256. Then they can be used in FS9.

Down to 1024x1024.

 

That is what has me confused!

You can use 1024px textures in FS9 as long as they're mipped, in fact you can copy them directly from your FSX folder into FS9 and they'll show up, but unfortunately you won't see anything beyond the 256px mip level. Since all you're seeing is the 256px mip level, a 1024px texture at 16x the size is no more than a waste of disk space - unless we can crack the 256px barrier somehow but I've tried a hundred things over the last several hours and haven't seen anything other than "256" from my test texture with the mips labeled. I really think if it was possible somebody like Holger Sandman would have done it 10 yrs ago.

 

Dillon, check your PMs, the link you sent me didn't work.

 

Jim

You can use 1024px textures in FS9 as long as they're mipped, in fact you can copy them directly from your FSX folder into FS9 and they'll show up, but unfortunately you won't see anything beyond the 256px mip level. Since all you're seeing is the 256px mip level, a 1024px texture at 16x the size is no more than a waste of disk space - unless we can crack the 256px barrier somehow but I've tried a hundred things over the last several hours and haven't seen anything other than "256" from my test texture with the mips labeled. I really think if it was possible somebody like Holger Sandman would have done it 10 yrs ago.

 

Dillon, check your PMs, the link you sent me didn't work.

 

Jim

 

Check again problem solved.

That is what has me confused!

Sorry for the confusion. If you have GEX try what's written below. I was going by what Jon had written me about the conversion but we are looking into exactly what's going on here.

 

 

Mike,

 

You need to down size them. They can start at any size but the end result for scenery must be 256 X 256. Then they can be used in FS9.

You can use 1024px textures in FS9 as long as they're mipped, in fact you can copy them directly from your FSX folder into FS9 and they'll show up, but unfortunately you won't see anything beyond the 256px mip level. Since all you're seeing is the 256px mip level, a 1024px texture at 16x the size is no more than a waste of disk space - unless we can crack the 256px barrier somehow but I've tried a hundred things over the last several hours and haven't seen anything other than "256" from my test texture with the mips labeled. I really think if it was possible somebody like Holger Sandman would have done it 10 yrs ago.

 

Dillon, check your PMs, the link you sent me didn't work.

 

Jim

 

Exactly! This nonsense is starting to drive me mad as this has been discussed in many different threads lately.

Come on people, how hard is it to understand.

FS9 can load landclass textures that are 1024x1024 and contain mipmaps. The bottom line is that no mip-level larger than 256x256 will ever be shown in the sim, so you're just wasting

resources. The reason some screenshots look so much better is that the textures are sharper and simply better looking to begin with.

 

The link you talk about I would guess is the "unofficial ORBX world textures for FS9". That package contains 1024x1024 textures and thus fool people to believe that they are fully used,

when as always only mipmap 256x256 and smaller are being used.

 

So if you've got some 1024x1024 landclass textures, just resize them down to 256x256 with mipmaps. This way you are using all the mip-levels and also loading textures that are 43KB instead of 1366KB each.

it will be 10 years on 7/29 since fs9 was released.  it's still a good platform to fly the classic tubes and old a/c around for a spin.

 

it's kind of embarrassing to read users trying to convince themselves fs9 is capable of displaying anything better than 256x256 landclass textures after a full decade of use.

 

-------------

 

note to self: accept fs9 for what it is, enjoy it.  no secret tricks after 10 glorious years of fs fun.

Wouldn't it be a great 10th birthday present if the ones with the source code would re-compile the dll (my guess is it's the G2D.dll) to support 1024 textures.

It should be a simple thing to do, not requiring a major code overhaul.

The link you talk about I would guess is the "unofficial ORBX world textures for FS9". That package contains 1024x1024 textures and thus fool people to believe that they are fully used,

when as always only mipmap 256x256 and smaller are being used.

 

I didn't realize the file would be 2 Gb so I need to wait for my bandwidth allotment to renew for the month, but if "FTX Global for FS9" is what it contains, heck, I already did that a couple yrs ago, lol

 

On sharpening: I guess it's a matter of personal preference but in this most recent experimentation I've done I've been using nconvert.exe to batch process hundreds of textures at a time with no sharpening specified just because I wanted to see a quick result for testing purposes. In the past I've used PhotoShop and did batch conversions with complex sharpening routines, but after seeing nconvert's handiwork I'd swear the best look in the sim comes with no sharpening at all - sharpening seems to produce a sort of "mealy" appearance, it's hard to describe but I see a lot of that with the default textures, for example I think the default 050b2 is one of the worst offenders for that.

 

nconvert.exe is a free command line utility BTW, FSDT used it in those texture size reduction packages they used to release for their airports which is where I first became familiar with it. Google should find you a copy with little or no drama. If you copy a bunch of 1024px textures to a temporary folder, drop in a copy of nconvert and a copy of Imagetool.exe, and then run nconvert -resize 256 256 *.bmp from a command window in that folder it will resize them all, then follow that with an Imagetool conversion by running Imagetool -brief -terrain -e bmp *.bmp also from the command window. That folder full of converted .bmps is now ready to go into your FS9\Scenery\World\Texture folder but make a backup first. (use the FSX version of Imagetool, it has a much improved compression algorithm over the FS9 version, that's available here BTW: http://www.cat-tamer.com/flightsim/downloads/imagetool.zip )

 

Jim

I have checked out the textures here and the reason  they are so big is twofold:

 

1. The textures are sized 1024x1024

2. The textures are 8 bit bmp (no compression) with 11 mips

 

In comparison to the FSX Orbx FTX PNW regional textures:

 

1. The textures are sized 1024x1024

2. The textures are 16 bit (DXT1 compression) with 9 mips

 

As a result the textures in FS9 are approximately twice the size as their counterparts in FSX Orbx.

 

Now for a couple of flights. First FS9 takeoff from Comox CYYQ heading towards the Comox Glacier. Looking at the ground at about 1000 feet and we have major ground blurries. Same flight in FSX flying over Orbx PNW textures at 1000 feet ground textures are nice and clear.

 

Second test and we takeoff with FS9 from Altona CJL6 heading north. Looking at the ground at about 1000 feet and we have major ground blurries again. Same flight in FSX flying over Ground Environment X textures at 1000 feet ground textures are nice and clear.

 

These textures may represent an improvement over the default FS9 textures but are a disappointment when their massive size format is taken into consideration. Compared to FSX they aren't even close. Not only are they much more blurry at 1000 feet, they also don't look anywhere near as good.

The blurries unfortunately are a "feature" of FS9, no way to eliminate them completely.

As I and Jim said earlier, if you decide to use the textures, at least resize them down to 256x256 as that is the largest FS9 can display as landclass anyway.

It will look exactly the same but the filesize will go down to 87KB for a mipmapped 8bit 256x256, or 43KB for a mipmapped dxt1 256x256.

 

 

The blurries unfortunately are a "feature" of FS9, no way to eliminate them completely.

As I and Jim said earlier, if you decide to use the textures, at least resize them down to 256x256 as that is the largest FS9 can display as landclass anyway.

 

Yes, I know. The thinking behind leaving them as is was to eliminate any possiblity of people assuming that the textures were somehow degraded by resizing.

 

Note that viewing both the Orbx textures and these textures in ImageTool shows that these textures appear better detailed; which they should as they don't use any compression. Which would indicate that any blurries observed in the simulator are the result of FS9 and not the images themselves.

 

 

Tried that little while ago. Result? Worse. For some reason they only stay sharp left at 1024.

 

Which tool(s) did you use for resizing?

 

 

note to self: accept fs9 for what it is, enjoy it.

I realized after reading this, that this is what had gone missing for a very long time in my simming experience. I was spending all my time trying to find ways to make the sim better, make the computer run faster, rather than just taking what I have spent ten years and more money than I care to think about, and just enjoying it. My rig is my best one so far, and it is running a 27" monitor at 2560X1440. Time to just start flying. And thats what I did this afternoon. Took my Christen Eagle out for a ride and it was great! Not looking at frames, blurries, load times etc. I just enjoyed the ride. I would love to see improvements in FS9, and I think what is going on here is both fun and exciting. However, I think I am just going to take a step back and utilize what I have for what it is. Also, thanks to everyone here who over the years have helped me get my sim to the place it is now. Happy flying!

I realized after reading this, that this is what had gone missing for a very long time in my simming experience. I was spending all my time trying to find ways to make the sim better, make the computer run faster, rather than just taking what I have spent ten years and more money than I care to think about, and just enjoying it. My rig is my best one so far, and it is running a 27" monitor at 2560X1440. Time to just start flying. And thats what I did this afternoon. Took my Christen Eagle out for a ride and it was great! Not looking at frames, blurries, load times etc. I just enjoyed the ride. I would love to see improvements in FS9, and I think what is going on here is both fun and exciting. However, I think I am just going to take a step back and utilize what I have for what it is. Also, thanks to everyone here who over the years have helped me get my sim to the place it is now. Happy flying!

Very well said. I'm doing the same but still adding nice FS9 sceneries. I can enjoy GEP textures even at low altitudes.

Nothing wrong with what some people are doing with sharper textures, but I don't think it's for me.

I was pretty excited at first but not anymore.

One thing I really like in my sim is consistency. I use a lot of payware scenery and the last thing I want is to have nice and sharp global textures that transition to blurry textures as I fly over payware sceneries.

I do find this project interesting and will keep an eye on it even though I don't plan to convert textures.