VAS / OOM and Textures

[cmpbellsjc 2,963]

Thanks for sharing your experience. Do you have any links on this? Would be good to read.

No links aside from various postings here that I have written teaching members how to resize textures properly or add mip maps. The conversations with Michael were just conversations where he taught me how to do these things and the differences in texture compressions, so there were no links.

 

The thing is, using batch style converters can be dangerous since a lot of textures are made differently with regards to alpha channels and DXT compressions.

 

As I had mentioned, I always hand do my textures for sceneries and planes by hand and one at a time. The main goal is to get rid of any 32 bit textures (in most cases, but not always), resize and mip scenery textures that are large than 1024 (in most cases but not when used to reduce draw calls, ie. FSDT and Flightbeam).

 

A good example of an add on airport gone wrong is Aerosoft's Madrid and/or Barcelona. They come with a bunch of large 32 bit textures and people on Avsim have been seen complaining about performance at these airports. Once the textures are "fixed" both airports perform admirable.

[abranpuko 369]

hello...when i use the program i have this many times:

 

Texture.Aerogal\HC-CJM\DJC_A320_CFM_T.bmp
 ... Error: Direct3D device faill
Error: DirectX D3DXERR_INVALIDDATA

 

does anyone knows how can we solve this?

 

thank you!

[dukeav 46]

No links aside from various postings here that I have written teaching members how to resize textures properly or add mip maps. The conversations with Michael were just conversations where he taught me how to do these things and the differences in texture compressions, so there were no links.

 

The thing is, using batch style converters can be dangerous since a lot of textures are made differently with regards to alpha channels and DXT compressions.

 

As I had mentioned, I always hand do my textures for sceneries and planes by hand and one at a time. The main goal is to get rid of any 32 bit textures (in most cases, but not always), resize and mip scenery textures that are large than 1024 (in most cases but not when used to reduce draw calls, ie. FSDT and Flightbeam).

 

A good example of an add on airport gone wrong is Aerosoft's Madrid and/or Barcelona. They come with a bunch of large 32 bit textures and people on Avsim have been seen complaining about performance at these airports. Once the textures are "fixed" both airports perform admirable.

 

If only I knew a bit more on what to do with which texture, I could write a better batch converter. Doing by hand will not be an option for most people. Well at least my going's good so far.

hello...when i use the program i have this many times:

 

Texture.Aerogal\HC-CJM\DJC_A320_CFM_T.bmp

 ... Error: Direct3D device faill

Error: DirectX D3DXERR_INVALIDDATA

 

does anyone knows how can we solve this?

 

thank you!

 

Mostly, that tool is not able to read the file format and hence cannot convert. You will have to live with this.

[cmpbellsjc 2,963]

If only I knew a bit more on what to do with which texture, I could write a better batch converter.

The main thing is not that there's a problem with the batch converters themselves, but more about knowing what textures should be resized or converted from 32 bit to DTX. When people start doing batch conversions where they select whole folders without looking first at what textures there are batching it causes issues. For example, some bitmaps that are used for runway light, taxiway, or vasi/papi lights don't usually have mips and adding them using a batch can cause them to not look right.

 

Or in the case I mentioned before about devs like FSDT using a few 4096 textures to reduce draw calls. You resize them and you'll be left with a blurry mess since one texture sheet can cover multiple objects.

 

Another example is when .bmp textures get converted to .dds or vice versa and the textures don't get flipped to make them display correctly.

 

The best way to batch stuff is to take a scenery folder for example and see what types and size files it contains, as well as what the textures are intended for. Then select the appropriate files to batch while leaving some alone. Just selecting an entire folder and batching blindly can cause issues or the same for batching aircraft textures.

 

Doing by hand will not be an option for most people.

 

Why not, all the tools needed are freeware and readily available. The only thing holding anyone back is if they are wiling to spend the time to do it safely and correctly. I did all mine by hand and I own a ton of sceneries that I have collected since 2008. It takes some time, I'll grant you that, but I did mine when I bought them, so it was essentially an airport every once in a while. If you already own a lot you'd have to start first with the airports that cause the most VAS or FPS problems and just do one per day, week, or month depending on how much time you have and are willing to do.

 

The rewards can be great however. Like I said before, I've been in FSX since 2008 done all my problem sceneries and have never had an OOM in 6 years which is saying a lot considering the type of planes I fly and the sceneries I fly into, and the cumulative amount of add-ons running at once. Never even had an OOM when I was on Win XP 32 bit either. It's kind of like the reason why people flying FS9 rarely complain about OOMs, FS9 is stuffed or have the option of running 2048 or 4096 sized textures, plus the sceneries generally aren't as complex or have as many objects to render. If you make FSX or P3D a little more like FS9 in regards to textures section size and compression, you have a lot more VAS overhead and greatly reduce your chances of OOMing.

 

Usually posts like this fall on deaf ears because most people or the average users don't want to go through the hassle of doing all this leg work, they would rather look for a miracle tweak or keep reducing settings to cure the issue. Me, I'd rather keep higher settings and have piece of mind that I will be able to complete a flight in peace without having to worry about if my sim is going to run out of memory after a 10 hour flight, but there is no free lunch as they say.

[Nemo 1,305]

If it is such easy, I would rather expect that developers should do this work. Don't understand why they do not and leave us alone with those VAS/OOM problems.

 

Harry

[dukeav 46]

 

 

Usually posts like this fall on deaf ears because most people or the average users don't want to go through the hassle of doing all this leg work, they would rather look for a miracle tweak or keep reducing settings to cure the issue.

 

The probable reason would be that most of them won't understand the details of what to convert and when not to, to which format, and even won't have the right tools to view the textures etc. It would too overwhelming for them.

 

This is where I think tool can help. I see now that using its ini file there ways to provide wildcards, exact file names, to control the conversion. So a knowledgeable person can go through a set of texture file and come up with list to fill in the ini. Any other user just needs to pick up ini and run the tool.

 

I probably should be able to do it for whatever planes and sceneries I own, over time.

 

Something like having an ini file per scenery or plane, created by an expert, which any one else can download and use with this tool.

 

Note: I see that Aerosoft A318/A319 seem to have panel background display issues after conversion. I did not notice it in the tests because the panels were dimmed. I think this would be 32 bit bitmap you said not to convert.

[Guest]

If it is such easy, I would rather expect that developers should do this work. Don't understand why they do not

 

100% agreement here! If this is a viable way of improving the performance of a payware addon, its ridiculous that the Dev. don't do this for us. It tool me all of 10 minutes to convert Aerosofts Dublin using the method outlined and if I could do it then anybody can. I didn't notice any difference at all in the visual quality of the airport before and after the conversion. I did notice a delay in the onset of OOM though and a slight performance improvement.

 

It kinda makes me a bit angry if devs. take the it will do approuch and an unskilled person like me can improve the performance of the scenery in ten minutes. The products we buy should be fully optimized for performance if not when they are released thereafter by updates.

 

We shouldn't have to do it ourselves!

[Guest]

I converted all of the WOAI packages. I bench marked marked it with 100% AI traffic at FSDreamTeams KLAX. Despite abolutely Making out every setting the Sim I could not even induce the Ping of Death neve an OOM. There was not performance difference between before and after the texture converion THe folder containing the WOAI packages was only slightly smaller. It went form 6.33Gbs to 6.08Gbs. I'll keep using the Converted and assume that OOMs re less likely with the converted Textures. I should have used AeroSofts Dublin where its easy to Get OOM's. Dublin was my first and last Aerosoft Airport:-|

[cmpbellsjc 2,963]

If it is such easy, I would rather expect that developers should do this work. Don't understand why they do not and leave us alone with those VAS/OOM problems.

 

Harry

It is easy but I think it comes to the point that developers get competitive and want to out do other developers by having more HD textures and a better looking airport regardless of how much VAS it consumes. If they put out normal sized 1024 textures people will be complaining that the ground textures are blurry or asking why it doesn't look as sharp as some other airports by another developer. They are in a can't win situation as some will complain about it being not HD enough and some will complain about performance.

 

Years ago I once asked John Venema at ORBX why they don't include as an option regular sized textures to help out performance and VAS. This was in regards to either Brisbane or Melbourne airports which are so memory hungry you can barely use them with a PMDG a/c. His response was something to the effect that he was not going to reduce the visual quality or dumb down the looks of the airport and that he wants it to appear in the highest quality to his customers. So basically he was saying he didn't give a damn about the performance as long as it looked as nice as possible. Those airports are loaded full of 4096 sized textures and I spent a few hours resizing them to claim back reasonable performance. I even made a post detailing what I had done in hopes of helping other people to be able to gain performance and make the airport more usable. I had a couple thankful replies from other users who were going to do it, but then suddenly the thread was deleted and accompanied by a PM from John Venema saying he didn't appreciate my post telling people how to resize their textures and make the airport more usable.

 

The good news however is that some developers are taking notice and delivering resized textures as an optional download or installation option. The new FlyTampa Copenhagen has either as an option, can't remember if it's an install option or download but either are available. FSDT also has it as an option in the installer for Vancouver. So some devs recognize the problem at least.

 

For all the others we are left to fend for ourself and resize textures and optimize the airports ourselves.

[Nemo 1,305]

It is easy but I think it comes to the point that developers get competitive and want to out do other developers by having more HD textures and a better looking airport regardless of how much VAS it consumes. If they put out normal sized 1024 textures people will be complaining that the ground textures are blurry or asking why it doesn't look as sharp as some other airports by another developer. They are in a can't win situation as some will complain about it being not HD enough and some will complain about performance.

 

Years ago I once asked John Venema at ORBX why they don't include as an option regular sized textures to help out performance and VAS. This was in regards to either Brisbane or Melbourne airports which are so memory hungry you can barely use them with a PMDG a/c. His response was something to the effect that he was not going to reduce the visual quality or dumb down the looks of the airport and that he wants it to appear in the highest quality to his customers. So basically he was saying he didn't give a damn about the performance as long as it looked as nice as possible. Those airports are loaded full of 4096 sized textures and I spent a few hours resizing them to claim back reasonable performance. I even made a post detailing what I had done in hopes of helping other people to be able to gain performance and make the airport more usable. I had a couple thankful replies from other users who were going to do it, but then suddenly the thread was deleted and accompanied by a PM from John Venema saying he didn't appreciate my post telling people how to resize their textures and make the airport more usable.

 

The good news however is that some developers are taking notice and delivering resized textures as an optional download or installation option. The new FlyTampa Copenhagen has either as an option, can't remember if it's an install option or download but either are available. FSDT also has it as an option in the installer for Vancouver. So some devs recognize the problem at least.

 

For all the others we are left to fend for ourself and resize textures and optimize the airports ourselves.

 

This is a very good description of the problem. IMO, it is a narrow path betweeen striving for visual perfection and usabilitiy in terms of VAS/OOM. Most problematic for me is the use of complex a/c with those sceneries.

 

I totally agree that scenery devs should leave the decision to the user whether he likes a more detailed scenery together with a less complex a/c or vice versa. If the same would apply for a/c like PMDG (e.g degrading complexity/functionality by simple switches) that would be great too. Maybe all this should be discussed in another thread.

 

To return to the topic, @ cmpbellsjc, if you don't mind, could you please send me (PM) the description of what texture files in YMML and YBBN you did modify.

 

 

Cheers,

Harry

[Fi5kuS 57]

Have anyone tried this with FTX England or any PMDG planes? I mean, flying into Heathrow X Extended with FTX England in the NGX isn't a possibility for unfortunately. 

[RTK1972 288]

Have anyone tried this with FTX England or any PMDG planes? I mean, flying into Heathrow X Extended with FTX England in the NGX isn't a possibility for unfortunately. 

 

 

I did run the tool as mentioned in post 1 over complete ORBX europe and currently flying out of EIDW to EGPF.

 

before conversion VAS was at appx 480mbyte after takeoff with the new airbus A320 and ASN. now i am at 780mybte VAS left.

 

will try more and see what happens. Ground textures look good.

 

The conversion saved nearly 3 gigs..

[Guest]

I flew the CS 727 into Aerosoft Mega City Dublin and ORBX Ireland on setting that would have certainly ended in OOM before I used converted Ireland and EIDW. Converting EIDW seemed to have the biggest effect!

[cmpbellsjc 2,963]

To return to the topic, @ cmpbellsjc, if you don't mind, could you please send me (PM) the description of what texture files in YMML and YBBN you did modify.

 

 

Cheers,

Harry

Harry,

 

No need for a PM as its no secret. For those two airports I just resized all the textures that were larger then 1024. There are too many to list as these airport had a ton of them.

 

Be warned however, if you do them one at a time manually in will take you some time to complete because you will need to open each one and resize the both the texture sheet and alpha channel. Loading one into Photoshop or Gimp and just running the resize alone will screw up the alpha channel. What I did was open the texture with DXTBmp, export the main texture sheet to Gimp, resize it and save it, then import that sheet back into DXTBmp. Close the Gimp window with that texture sheet in it but without closing DXTBmp, export the alpha channel to Gimp, resize it, save it and export it back to DXTBmp. Then save the new texture with mip maps in DXTBmp and let it overwrite the original and your done.

 

You could always try using the posted batch converter to do it, just make sure to make backups first in case it doesn't work correctly. What I would do is make a folder on your desktop, move just the textures you want to convert after your check the sizes, the use the batch converter to just do that folder. Once done you can copy the converted textures back to the folder in which you got them and test it in the sim to make sure it looks and works ok.

[n4gix 4,947]

That is decidedly odd, as I resize DXT1 and DXT5 all the time in Photoshop and have never had a problem with the Alpha channels...