Would FS2004 performance be enhanced by changing the cloud bitmaps to DXT3 format.Thanks,Nick.

Check out all the cloud addons from FSW. There are a wide variety of different cloud textures. (in answer to your question, yes!). The FSW high performance clouds have both 32bit and dxt3 formats. The dxt3 ones are much smaller and give much improved performance, at the loss of visual quality. http://fsw.simflight.com/

yes, i changed all mine to DTX3 ages ago and they only use about a 1/4 of the texture memory, but you must use render to texture for them to work, they reduced stutters by quite a margin, and as i used the default resolution they look no different from standard.

Short answer: YES! :>Longer answer: Just get Chris Willis' package from FSW. You'll be visually pleased as well as getting better performance. He's very good at what he does.