Would be cool if someone created some bat files for various common addons since Imagetool works with standard bat files.  Sounds too much like work though

This is what I will provide you all with, not for specific add-ons but for specific texture types.

It won't work on everything but will cover most textures.

Then... I started looking at my airports with their HD Everything mentality. I used Texture Optimizer from my Skyrim days to force a rebuild of ALL my payware airports to knock them down to 1024k textures with full MIP MAPS. I also went into all my PMDG 737 liveries and knocked down their 4k external textures to 2k.

 

Is it "Texture Optimizer", or "Optimizer Textures"? ...see below from https://steamcommunity.com/app/72850/discussions/0/611698195148727427/

 

"Optimizer Textures and Mod Organizer

I downloaded OT after reading about it in one of Nazenn's threads and he said that as OT would not recognise MO's mod structure to just optimize some or your mods individually; at least that is how I understood it. Unfortunatelly I could not get OT to work with MO either from within or outside of MO. Maybe because I could not get MO to install the mod. Would appreciate some help here.

 

If someone reads this and I do not respond it will be because the post did not appear in my discussions page. Don't know how many times I have clicked on "Post Discussion" and my post just disapeared."

 

Thanks Kman,

 

Chas

Like Kuragiman I also reside HD textures and mip mapped them all.

This helped a lot with free VAS.

This thread is going to be full of much win.   I am in your corner Toby.   I kept OOMing on 2-3 hour flights in the PMDG 737 with all my payware running with normal autogen settings, 1024 textures, 512 texture REX clouds, etc, etc.    and I was like..   Why?  @_@  I am not running things that hardcore!  Why are you still bugging out and crashing with OOM!?  

 

Then... I started looking at my airports with their HD Everything mentality.   I used Texture Optimizer from my Skyrim days to force a rebuild of ALL my payware airports to knock them down to 1024k textures with full MIP MAPS.   I also went into all my PMDG 737 liveries and knocked down their 4k external textures to 2k.

 

The results are dramatic.    Better FPS at large payware airports.  No black loading textures.    No stuttering.    The VAS usage dropped dramatically and I've been able to soar for up to 5 hours so far without a crash and the best part of all... the simulation pretty much looks exactly the same as it did at 2k/4k.     

 

I haven't tried messing with any textures on the VC yet but the bottom line is folks...  4k textures are great for screen capping.  They are NOT great for practical simulation flying.   Get out of the mind set of BIGGER is BETTER.   It is NOT in the simulation environment.

 

EDIT:   For those of you who want an alternative tool to Toby's, Texture Optimizer works great for resizing P3D aircraft and airport textures.   You can grab it off the Skyrim Nexus.  RTFM before you start.   I use it because it performs automagic backups of all your originals and archives them in the folder of your choice so you can restore the originals at anytime should you desire too.  You also won't need Photoshop or any Nvidia plugins for this package.

Hi Brian,

thanks, this is the answer that I was expecting, I've tried the tool, but I don't know if I have selected the right options in the interface, could you please tell me wich options I need to have selected and wich not? I asking this because I've seen a great performance decrease after resizing and mipmap textures of a payware addon, and I don't know why if this procedures should increase performance.

Fortunally it backup textures automatically.

 

Paolo

I am at work at the moment everyone but when I get home I will post a Screencap of what your Settings screen should look like in Optimize Textures/Texture Optimizer to get the best results out of your compression and mip mapping.   Keep in mind, this software will NOT touch your BMP files.  It only looks at DDS files.   The bitmaps used by airport designers have to be dealt with in another way as they are special bitmaps.   I believe Image Converter X has to be used for those.    And I REALLY wish payware airport designers would STOP using BMP files for their textures.   We are done with FS9 folks.    If you are making airports for FSX/P3D then your texture packages should be in DDS format so STOP it!   No more BMP files for FSX/P3D!   GRRRRRRRR!

Thanks Brian! Appreciate!

So I'm guessing that BMP files need to be converted to DDS, then processed and resized and THEN converted back to BMP?

 

As you can tell, the scenery/texture area is not my area of expertise.

 

Brian - looking forward to your screencap - I had same questions as Pablo.

 

Vic

BMP stays BMP, it just gets mipmapped and converted to DXT1 or DXT5, depending if it has an alpha layer and if it's uncompressed.

You can use ACES Image Tool for this, unless the developer has saved it in a specific way, in which case it won't open in Image Tool.

 

If you are converting a BMP to DDS format, it will need to be flipped when saving or it will appear upside down.

I am working on a document explaining all this but it will take some time..

Thanx Toby - looking forward to your document. I've been reading a bit on the subject but to say it can get a little muddied is an understatement.

 

I guess the next logical question would be - is there any benefit converting BMP to DDS?

 

 

Vic

is there any benefit converting BMP to DDS?

That depends on the size and quality of the original.

Ideally, every texture in Prepar3D and FSX should be in DDS format but even ACES didn't convert every texture to BMP in FSX, if I remember correctly.

 

The problem is that if you already compress a compressed texture, the image quality will degrade.

If you have a high quality original though, then convert it.

Understood. ok - one last question (hah!) - several mentions of alpha channel - I don't need to know what it is but how do you tell if it's in a specific file? Will the converter recognize it or does the user have to know which files do and which don't?

 

 

Vic

An alpha channel allows a texture to have transparency.

You will see top right in Image Tool if it has an Alpha, you can also preview the alpha layer.

Got it now.

 

 

Thanx!

 

Vic

Image Tool

 

Whaaaaaaaaaat? Wait....I have used DXTBMP or is it BMPDXT… Anyway I've used it for years but I had never used ImageTool .....heard about it a lot but never used it .....sure does sound like DXTBMP… what am I missing? Can anyone enlighten me as to the functional and practical differences between the two?

 

Thanks,

 

Chas

THIS.   You can grab it off the Skyrim Nexus.    This only does DDS files.  BMP files and AGN files will be ignored.   BMP files have to be done as described above by Toby and others.