I don't see a difference. But then again, I guess everyone has different eyes. Plus, my monitor I am sure is not the best out there, so ya...for me, I see no difference, BUT...at 1024.....yes...I do notice a difference in clarity.

Mostly this will depend on your monitor,

Screen Resolution,

And how far you want to zoom in, especially on Aircraft External Paints.

 

on a Dell 30" running at 2560 x 1600, I do not see much difference in clouds at 2048 or 4096.

Zooming in close on a Hi-Res Aircraft you do notice the difference,

The further out you zoom out though, the more LOD comes into play, so you will notice less difference in quality.

 

On a Low-Resolution display, you will notice a big difference if LOD is enabled in the textures,

and will get much more blurries when sat in the cockpit, depending on how the textures are set up.

Must buy Dell 30" 2560x1600...... :ph34r:

It really depends on your screen size and display resolution.  The bigger the screen, the more you'll notice it,  I fly on a 1080p 60" plasma and different texture resolution can easily be seen.

A simple way to see the differences with your own eyes folks.

 

Go to FSDT KLAX and sit on the cargo ramp.

 

Look at the Korean Air Cargo or Singapor Airlnes Cargo signs and walls, now switch between 4096 and 2048 and you will see what I am talking about.

 

A definite difference between the two.

 

Is it a game stopper? Not to me. But the visual quality is there between the two.

So, FSDT can bypass TML settings?

 

Nobody can bypass the TML setting.  It's just that, in addition to set it in the FSX.CFG, we also set current value in memory with the Addon Manager program, so it can be triggered to be on/off and immediately see the results, without having to restart FSX, which is what you normally would have to do, if you changed the FSX.CFG directly, instead of using the Addon Manager.

 

But that setting will affect any product that uses 2048x2048 or 4096x4096 textures, it's not an FSDT specific setting, it's just that when set from the Addon Manager, you gain the ability to see the results without a restart.

I keep the max texture size at 4096 but I've switched to the 2048 clouds because of the OOM errors. I can only tell the difference when flying close to the clouds, and even then it's not a huge difference.

 

I have TML set to 4096 for PMDG737NG/FSDT KLAX in fsx.cfg and using TML Editor program to keep it set.

 

How do I:

 

1. Check what resolution I currently have for clouds?.

2. How to change from a 4096 to 2048 if I need to.?

Nobody can bypass the TML setting.  It's just that, in addition to set it in the FSX.CFG, we also set current value in memory with the Addon Manager program, so it can be triggered to be on/off and immediately see the results, without having to restart FSX, which is what you normally would have to do, if you changed the FSX.CFG directly, instead of using the Addon Manager.

 

But that setting will affect any product that uses 2048x2048 or 4096x4096 textures, it's not an FSDT specific setting, it's just that when set from the Addon Manager, you gain the ability to see the results without a restart.

So, does that mean, if I have force HD 4096 in addon manager, I will see 4096 textures anyway?

So, does that mean, if I have force HD 4096 in addon manager, I will see 4096 textures anyway?

 

Only for those add-ons (sceneries, plane liveries, clouds, etc) that use textures larger than 1024x1024, otherwise there will be no difference.

As I understand it TML defines the maximum-size texture resolution that will be displayed.  The actual resolution displayed is dependent on the resolution of the texture file (.dds) itself, though.  So, if you have TML at 4096, 1024 .dds files will display at 1024, 2048 at 2048, 4096 at 4096.  If you have TML set to 1024, all of them will display at 1024 resolution.  Ditto for 2048.

 

I find the high-res textures make the most difference when you're wanting to look up really close, on a large screen, and enjoy all the detail a maximum-resolution .dds can display.  Most of the time, while in-flight, though, except maybe for a 4096 cockpit resolution texture set, you're not going to be viewing the .dds long enough to pick out the detail at 4096.  So it's no major loss to choose lower-res textures for things you are passing over or by relatively rapidly (ground and clouds).

 

OTOH it's also a question of what kind of plane you're flying.  If you're going low and slow in A2A Simulations' J3 Super Cub, two things: a) the textures are going to load and remain more slowly, thus putting less pressure on your CPU and GPU; and b) you're going to have more time to enjoy the details of a higher-resolution texture.  So, maxing what textures you use and what TML is at can be fine for those conditions (again, another factor is, country or city?  Each creates a different load).

 

If you're in VR Simulations' F/A-18 Superbug or a high-altitude/airways jetliner, ground texture resolution is mostly going to cause performance loss without offering you the time to enjoy the visual detail.  And, of course, since you're flying dramatically faster, your system is going to have to dump and load a lot more textures, more rapidly, than in the Super Cub, so it's going to put pressure on the CPU/GPU and RAM, and increase risk of OOM for little gain.

 

On the third hand, if you're flying high and want a beautiful, fluffy cloud bed to enjoy around you, maximizing your HD 4096 textures from REX, for instance, for clouds, becomes appealing.  So, you can make that choice.

 

High-res external views of the airplanes themselves is really kind of a virtual modellers' pleasure; you're going to want those for slow, contemplative walk-around of the aircraft, so you can enjoy all the incredibly fine detail work put into the aircraft by the developers.  Or, it's great screenshots, if you enjoy being a virtual aircraft photographer.

 

So that's yet another thing that makes FSX special: you can reconfigure it to concentrate on whatever kind of approach you want to take during a particular session.  Few other kinds of entertainment software out there provide as much variety and customization, and it's sheer laziness not to make part of your enjoyment of FSX the mastery of all these factors, so you can make choices ahead of getting into the aircraft that are optimal for what you're planning to do (ditto with other settings in FSX; they're not just there to set a general/optimal mix for your particular PC, though that is often all we do with them).

 

I don't even know whether this is possible, but I'd love it if landscape/airport developers could provide the equivalent "choose your texture resolution before flight" options for their work, the way REX does for its clouds.  This might not be possible, and/or might triple/quadruple the gigabytes of graphics data needed to support such a goal, so I completely understand if that's a blue-sky idea.

 

But someday.........   When 6TB Super-SSDs, 18-core CPUs and 42-core GPUs with 1TB of RAM is a standard system.....

 

 

But someday......... When 6TB Super-SSDs, 18-core CPUs and 42-core GPUs with 1TB of RAM is a standard system.....

FSX would OOM before loadings is complete. B)