As far as I am aware, the TML is said to be the highest texture setting that FSX will load, however saying that then you would notice a different with the textures in things like the PMDG aircraft that use 4096 textures, when you set it to 1024.

 

FSX does not upscale textures from 1024 to 4096 is you set it to 4096. For this you would need a graphics program with algorithms. FSX is not capable of this, you can see this if you set it to 4096 and load the Aerosoft Airbus. This is designed around 1024 textures which Aerosoft state is to save people from OOMS.

 

Now what this setting does becomes guesswork. I have tried saving the PMDG 777 textures in 2048 size, both VC and external, and found that VAS was not reduced by much, if any. The only thing that I have found effects VAS is the autogen density.

 

It would be nice to see hard evidence, however I still feel that any tweaks in FSX is subject to hardware, settings and add-ons used. 

FSX does not upscale any textures no matter what.

Actually it does internally. You can see the clear difference in these shots. Both shots taken at KSEA runway 34R, (Default style AFCAD, no ORBX except FTX Global which is 1024x1024.

 

TML =1024

 

 

TML=4096

 

Actually it does internally. You can see the clear difference in these shots...

 

Nope, it wouldn't be sharper if it were actually up-scaling the textures, you're seeing a 2048 or 4096 texture there and you're dumbing it down to 1024 with the TML=1024 setting in the first shot. That's the only way it can be, you can't "manufacture" resolution, there's no way the upscaled image could be sharper than the original.

Use a graphic intensive aircraft like FlightSim Labs Concorde at a grahically intensive airport like Aerosoft's Thesalonika and see what happens to VAS usage.

 

Concorde uses 4096 graphics but if you set Texture_max_load=1024 you get an error message that Concorde needs that setting to 4096 then FSX will only display 1024 quality images, check VAS usage.

 

Now change texture max load to 4096 and see how much VAS usage increases. Parked on the active runway at Thesalonika, during the day, OOM. With TML set to 1024 VAS is round about 3,700.

 

Bottom line, it may work for the OP and what/where he flies but it is not a magic cure for the 4GB VAS limit.

You do know the setting will return to 1024 the next time you start the sim? So you have to change that in your cfg. file each time you  fly unless you use a neat little utility that allows you to set your TML and each time you start the sim it will do it for you.

Just Google "Frosty TML" it's free and works great.

Bob G.

 

It will stay as you set it until such time as you make any change to your setting.  As soon as you change something.....like increase AI density,etc. then two things will change.

TML will reset to 1024

LOD will reset to 4.5

Nope, it wouldn't be sharper if it were actually up-scaling the textures, you're seeing a 2048 or 4096 texture there and you're dumbing it down to 1024 with the TML=1024 setting in the first shot. That's the only way it can be, you can't "manufacture" resolution, there's no way the upscaled image could be sharper than the original.

After double checking my textures, which I thought were all 1024x1024 including REX, it appears that the REX runway textures were 2048x2048, so as you say, that's what I'm seeing! Thanks!!

FSX cannot CANNOT upscale images. It does not have the power to upscale images. Graphics programs such as Photoshop can upscale images by using algorithms to do it, this takes CPU cycles and CPU processing power. Considering that FSX struggles to draw textures, compute flight dynamics, optimise weather and everything else it has to do, add to this that it was built before GPU's could make much help so it is mainly CPU intensive and does not use multicore processors very well, to think it can improve textures because you change one line in the config is ridiculous.

 

What it is able to do is scale down to be able to run on lower quality systems, as all games do. There is no magic way of adding detail, the same as if you take a photo and add detail. You can sharpen the textures using a graphic program that will work on an algorithm that looks at the nearest pixel and adds pixels based on this. This involves memory and CPU.

Now if only some bright spark could come up with a solution for FSX being the sole arbiter of what TML we use. Wouldn't that be helpful? :smile:

On the question of upscaling or downscaling textures. FSX does not do either of these things.

 

What is important though are mipmaps. And whether the texture has them or not.

 

For those that don't know mipmaps are prerendered downscale images that are included in the DDS texture file. In a 1024x1024 pixel texture with mipmaps there will be included, along with the full size 1024x1024 texture, a 512x512 version of the texture, and a 256x256 version, and a 128x128 version and so on all the way down to an itty bitty 1x1 version.

 

The reason for this is that it is a lot faster to draw a far away object which may only be 10 pixels on screen with a 16x16 texture rather than a 1024x1024 texture. So mipmapped textures are most commonly used in scenery objects as it definitely improves your framerates. As aircraft are usually seen up close most aircraft textures will not have mipmapping. Although with AI aircraft mipmapping would be desirable.

 

A 1024x1024 DXT5 texture without mipmaps will come in at 1025kb in file size. While the same texture with mipmaps is 1366kb.

 

However, if a texture does not have any mipmaps then FSX must render the texture at it's full resolution regardless of the TML setting. Otherwise, what else would FSX draw?

 

Here is a handy guide to how TML setting and mipmapping will affect each other.

 

TML = 4096: Mipmapped and non-mipmapped textures will be rendered as expected at their full resolution.

 

TML = 1024: Mipmapped textures of 2048 or 4096 will revert to the 1024 mipmap (as shown in tf51d pictures of his 2048 runway textures, you are only seeing the 1024 mipmap when TML is set to 1024). Non-mipmapped textures will be rendered using the full texture (ie a 4096 non-mipmapped texture will still render as a 4096 texture even with TML of 1024 because that is the only texture available to be rendered).

Thanks for that detailed explanation Anthony. I mip mapped all my UT2 planes, and certainly made a difference.

How to check which textures have mip mapping which have not ?

How to apply missing mip mappings ?

You could always open each texture 1 at a time with GIMP and see the mipmaps. GIMP will let you automatically generate the mipmaps  but you better be sure you save it in exactly the right format or you will end up with a mess. There are several programs that do this in a batch for FSX but people have had mixed results. I tried it once a few years ago and ended up doing a clean install of FSX. Best advice is to not mess with it unless you know for sure.

 

There are many wrinkles to the whole TML thing it's not as cut and dry as many think.

 

In the P3D learning center it says even something more confusing:

 

"To adjust texture resolution

1. On the Display Settings Graphics tab, move the Global texture resolution slider to the right or left to increase or decrease the illusion of distance.
2. Click OK."

 

Decrease the illusion of distance? Kind of makes sense but OTOH not.....

 

Random thought: It would be nice to see some kind of list as to which addon devs used which size textures on their products so that you could make an educated decision on which settings were right for your specific setup.

The big test Mitch would be in the PMDG 777  say from FSDT CYVR with PNW and FSDT KJFK.

Hey Julian, I routinely fly FSDT KDFW with megaseceney Dallas to FSDT KJFK, been running 4096 since the beginning of time, and fly this: ( I just painted and uploaded to the Avsim library too)

 

 

Showing  this pic of the the PMDG UPS paint to show you the level of detail we painters can achieve when we can paint on 4096x4096 maps!   Painters LOVE 4096!

 

And  (knock on wood).....I don't know how I got my very mediocre system to run FSX so smoothly and OOM free, but it does I can assure you!  Now, while I don't have every slider maxed out, I'm not running them all the way to the left either.  Its a good mix that makes my system run just fine.  If you look at my specs (in the link under my avatar), you'll see that I'm running on 2 GHZ, turbo to 2.9 on a ASUS ROC Laptop.  Not a killer machine by any means!

 

That is the crazy thing about this whole OOM issue, logic dictates that the guy running an i7 at close to 5 ghz, 32 gb of ram, 6 gb Titan, with an SSD should be running OOM free, and I should be getting OOMs out of the gate!

I don't know why this is, but I'm almost afraid of getting a monster machine after what I read here!  I can tell you (like many others I'm sure), the recent (3 weeks ago) addition of an SSD has transformed this laptop completely!  Anyone not running their OS and their flight simulation on them is missing out on the biggest performance boost you can make for a system that can run FSX.

 

I hope someone someday will find that silver bullet that will cure all the OOMs our community experiences, but know that day will probably never come...we just have to tweak our systems the best we can and be cognizant of VAS usage. 

This explanation may work for AI airplanes, but does not explain how a cockpit is more detailed when selecting TML=4096, even though the cockpit panel textures have no mipmaps..

 

 

Showing this pic of the the PMDG UPS paint to show you the level of detail we painters can achieve when we can paint on 4096x4096 maps! Painters LOVE 4096!

That is a great paint job Steve. Will be adding that to the hangar. I notice and cannot say for sure, but a lot of flyers who seem to OOM a lot are those with more than 1.5 GB VRAM.

I read somewhere, might have been Ryan (Tabs) that  large amount of Vram like 3GB is worse than having 1.5. I cannot qualify that, as it was a long time ago, and my memory is not that good.

 

It is very rare for me to OOM, but if I was silly with my settings I could. Some airports are memory leaks, and hogs, like LVFR KMIA, if you don't trim things a bit, you can end up looking at your desktop instead of your guages.

 

DX10 fixer has been the best thing to happen to FSX, and that has helped manage VAS a lot better, and it has a feature called Cloud Cull that helps reduce the overhead without losing the eye candy.