Resize those HD textures - [Warning pictures in post]

Original Posting by: styckx and copy/pasted from the main Prepar3D forum for posterity. You can follow and comment on this in the thread found here:

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/428473-resize-those-hd-textures-warning-pictures-in-post/

Full disclosure - These screenshots are in FSX but I prepared this with using it as a suggestion for you v2 users who are seeming to suffer from OOM's more often than FSX due to the added overhead that comes w/ P3Dv2 features. A common topic lately is the obsession with HD textures.   Lots of times 4096 textures are completely unnecessary for a lot of people. So I want to show you.. With some work what losing your "HD" actually results in image quality wise.  

Let's take the Carenado 182T as our example..  One of these is using resize 2048 textures, and the other default 4096.. The difference is very negligible..  And this is most zoom in an average simmer will actually use. Is the 4096 worth it?

Answer for those who can't tell

It isn't until you really zoom in on it do the real differences stand out...

4096

Difference in file size... Now the difference in file size is where the real dramatic differences play out..  Textures with the "Copy" suffix are the originals. That's a reduction of nearly 75% in file size..  So, is what you're gaining in less overhead for the game to deal with worth the minor reduction in image quality?

 

2048 interior

 

 

And this time we reduced total file size of the folder by nearly 50%..  For one plane we just reduced the overhead FSX/P3D has to deal with by 60MB with minimal reduction of image quality.  If you comb through your hanger (and even scenery) and trial error your way by trimming the fat on some of these planes it might be the difference between a successful flight, or an OMM.