I still have that annoying texture loading problem. It seems to happen only with RealAir Spitfire and SF260. The problem is: after 10 seconds (not one more, not one less) the aircraft textures previously loaded have to be loaded again (causing a 2 seconds pausing while loading). For example, switching from left view (with left wing in sight) to front view (2d panel), then waiting at least 10 seconds, then switching again to left view, wing textures have to be loaded again. I tried everything (BIOS, video-driver settings, FS settings) to no avail. Some suggestions? And why exactly those 10 seconds, isn't it weird?

It is likely because you are runnning out of texture memory and the system is having to swap it out. The only way to fix this is get a new vid card with more memory, turn down the graphics settings, or convert the textures to DXT3 on the ac you like to fly.To check for this go to "create a flight" and put your aircraft on christian island (in the pacific). Its a tiny atol with almost no elevation data surrounded by a 1000Km(600 miles for the metric impared)of water in any direction. Turn the weather to clear and the time of day to 1pm and then check your views. If the problem seems to be less or goes away, you have your answer.You can also help it out a bit by using some of the freeware tweaks found here, such as the replacement cloud textures, the replacment water textures and so on. They all consume much less memory.The last thing to do, if you have not yet done so, is install the update to the sim. It fixes a few memory problems.Good LuckShad

Hi,first of all, thank you for your reply. I tried as you said and more, that is: slewed in the middle of the Pacific Ocean without nothing but water in sight, and no clouds at all, but the problem remains: after 10 seconds the texture have to be reloaded. I even tried setting ALL sliders to far left, still nothing. My card has 128MB on board, and 3d settings are in performance mode.It happens only with Spitfire (well maybe with others a/c too, but in that case the loading is fast and almost imperceptible), so I guess I have to convert a/c textures to DXT3, but I don't know how to do it...what program do I have to use?

I converted a/c textures to DXT3, but no improvements, rather now they load slower. Is it normal that DXT3 have same size of their respective BMP texture?

Hi there,You say you converted the a/c textures to DXT3 and they now load slower? Thats a bit wacky...Normally when you convert a 32bit bitmap into DXT3 (using either imagetool or dxtbmp as your program of choice) the DXT3 version should be a lot smaller (a quarter of the size IIRC) than the original 32bit version. So I don't really know why your DXT3 textures are the same size as your 32bit ones. They should be loads smaller and load a lot quicker in the sim, although you lose a wee bit of quality.I haven't got any other advice other than try converting the 32bits to DXT3 again...

"I tried everything (BIOS, video-driver settings, FS settings)"Did you check your motherboard chipset drivers? Easiest way to do so is to click on Start>Run> type "dxdiag" (without the quotes) and then wait for the DirectX Diagnostic screen to stabilize. Click on the "Display" tab and check that all 3 acceleration options are enabled in the DirectX Features section. If all three are not enabled then you need to reinstall the MB chipset drivers. Also a good idea to then reinstall DirectX followed by your video drivers.Greg

Hi Greg, I was going to write exactly the same!! I hope all is well with you, good to see you're back. Good luck, take care and kinds regards Jaap

>I converted a/c textures to DXT3, but no improvements, rather>now they load slower. Is it normal that DXT3 have same size of>their respective BMP texture?>>>What hardware are you using?Shad

If I recall, someone uploaded a replacement set of DXT3 textures for the Realair Spitfire. They must be here on Avsim. Have alook for them.Lee