Downscale your textures without quality loss & eliminate ooms

[Kuragiman 227]

DXTBMP is required if the airport is all BMPs or if you want to look at a BMP file and change it to DDS (remember to FLIP IT if you convert it to DDS!).    Optimize Textures off the Skyrim NEXUS will only scan DDS files and it is VERY good at correctly compressing them and adding Mipmaps if they are missing.    I use it on every single payware airport I buy to eliminate those pesky 2k/4k textures that are not really necessary for practical flight usage.  Great for screen caps and selling their pretty products to the masses though!    It is very safe to use and backups ALL textures it touches so if you DO screw something up you just unpack the backup back into the Texture folder for your airport/airplane and overwrite everything.    Huuuge performance boost and VAS savings to be had if you spend a little bit of time combing your payware products correctly.   I just gave Taxi2Gate's KSEA that I just bought a work over and the final report showed it shaved almost 400 megs of fat off the airport which translates into better FPS and better VAS usage at the airport.

[jimmynes 7]

Only works for DDS and not BMP.

 

EDIT!!

 

After further investigation, I now think its my 16bit bmp's that are the problem...

 

Maybe it doesn't work with 16bit.

[Pe11e 812]

DXTBMP is required if the airport is all BMPs or if you want to look at a BMP file and change it to DDS (remember to FLIP IT if you convert it to DDS!).    Optimize Textures off the Skyrim NEXUS will only scan DDS files and it is VERY good at correctly compressing them and adding Mipmaps if they are missing.    I use it on every single payware airport I buy to eliminate those pesky 2k/4k textures that are not really necessary for practical flight usage.  Great for screen caps and selling their pretty products to the masses though!    It is very safe to use and backups ALL textures it touches so if you DO screw something up you just unpack the backup back into the Texture folder for your airport/airplane and overwrite everything.    Huuuge performance boost and VAS savings to be had if you spend a little bit of time combing your payware products correctly.   I just gave Taxi2Gate's KSEA that I just bought a work over and the final report showed it shaved almost 400 megs of fat off the airport which translates into better FPS and better VAS usage at the airport.

 

400 megs? Oh my, that's shocking! That practically means that there is 400 megs of extra data that is not mandatory (just eye candy) injecting into the sim that is 32bit, and very prone to crashing near VAS limit. So I can freely say that some developers of payware airports are ruining our experience, literally.

[Lurk 3]

used the tool last night on my home airport (freeware) scenery.

after optimizing a couple of textures following the guide stickied here on avsim (which I suggest even the skeptical ones as myself to read thoroughly) in order to better understand the process and get the hang of it, I used the texture optimizer mentioned in this thread to downscale the .dds's from 2048 to 1024.

Besides reducing the texture folder of the addon airport from 500Mb to roughly 150Mb, I noticed greatly reduced stuttering (not placebo) when taxiing and taking off and no visible reduction in IQ.

Provided one does things carefully and gradually (no need to suddenly go optimizing everything immediately), after many doubts I'm becoming convinced that lighter textures can actually make a difference in the sim.

I really suggest to read the guide here in the forums. Key is to leave some textures such as props, fresnel ramps and lightmaps alone. The guide is clear in this regard as well.

[flyforever 267]

It seems to me that the add on scenery makers ought to provide this option with their software.

tony

[Kuragiman 227]

It seems to me that the add on scenery makers ought to provide this option with their software.

tony

 

+1    Been saying that forever.    Instead of ramming HD textures up our butts have an option in the installer for 1k or 2k (or 4k for the INSANE airport devs).   Yeah, the installer gets bigger but the anger gets smaller for your end user.

[Lurk 3]

it seems to me that add-on scenery makers should be very damn aware of this and release carefully optimized products to begin with, instead of having end-users do the job instead of flying. There is no reason for a wannabe pilot to see every crease in the leather of their seat with the sim struggling to maintain 10 fps.

I think many developers should keep in mind that while everyone likes to take pretty screenshots in FSX, some of us actually enjoy smooth flying just as well.

I'm surprised this is not common knowledge among add-on producers by now and considering the sim is 10 years old.

I also do reckon there are many developers as well which put a lot of effort into optimization.

[flyforever 267]

There's clearly a disconnect between the add on scenery developers and their awareness of fsx limitations.

It appears like a classic case of form over substance. On the other hand, by now all of us should know what fsx memory limitations/bugs are and stop buying addons that make fsx more constipated.

tony

[Pe11e 812]

It is logical. When you browse the screenshots of any add on airport on your fav flight sim shop site, it is clear that most realistic textures and complex detail will bring your attention. If you can choose between two products of the same airport, I bet you will buy the one that have better textures and more details. I mean that's why most of you abandoned default airports in FSX (I didn't).

[flibinite 18]

DXTBMP is required if the airport is all BMPs or if you want to look at a BMP file and change it to DDS (remember to FLIP IT if you convert it to DDS!).    Optimize Textures off the Skyrim NEXUS will only scan DDS files and it is VERY good at correctly compressing them and adding Mipmaps if they are missing.    I use it on every single payware airport I buy to eliminate those pesky 2k/4k textures that are not really necessary for practical flight usage.  Great for screen caps and selling their pretty products to the masses though!    It is very safe to use and backups ALL textures it touches so if you DO screw something up you just unpack the backup back into the Texture folder for your airport/airplane and overwrite everything.    Huuuge performance boost and VAS savings to be had if you spend a little bit of time combing your payware products correctly.   I just gave Taxi2Gate's KSEA that I just bought a work over and the final report showed it shaved almost 400 megs of fat off the airport which translates into better FPS and better VAS usage at the airport.

Total newbie at this but I downloaded Optimize Textures and ran it with the stock options and  boxes ticked on FSDT's KLAX. The log says it only resized three files, and left the biggest ones alone.  Does this sound right?

[Michael Moe 493]

I also tried the optimizer in Aerosoft EGLL and EKCH by Flytampa.

 

Now Flytampa has a low resolution pack 1024 but i had the HD texture pack installed and it did downsize the the textures saving around 100-125 mb or so.

 

in EGLL only a few files was changed and i could not notice more than 15mb of saving here

 

Michael Moe

[Kuragiman 227]

Total newbie at this but I downloaded Optimize Textures and ran it with the stock options and  boxes ticked on FSDT's KLAX. The log says it only resized three files, and left the biggest ones alone.  Does this sound right?

 

No.   You don't use the stock options.     Start over.   Put your backed up files back into the texture folder and start again from scratch.   This is what I use.

 

[flibinite 18]

That did it thanks

[WayneG 1]

Well it's clear that this tool does indeed work for some users and have actually given them hope that they will not OOM after they have done a 15+hour flight.

[jkeye 150]

Thanks very much for this info.I used the tool

on the PMDG 777 and after a very long time managed a 6 hour flight with ideal flight, opus,fscaptain and MCE and air hauler running. Before this would always crash the sim very early in the flight. I'm smiling again!

Jay