AI textures and framerates

[PLazarus 0]

Hi,I have seen a lot of posts about AI and I have some thoughts and questions.I have owned Ultimate Traffic for ages, and generally I have been happy with it. Then 1 day I saw a post about converting the AI textures to DXT3 or even DXT1.I found a batch tool on an AI site and converted to DXT3. I immediatly saw an increase in frames on my system.I have questions. I understand there is a loss of quality between 32bit and DXT3. Is this a significant loss? I cannot see any big difference to my AI. I believe that DXT1 is the same, but without the reflections. Is this correct?Would I see a difference in frames between DXT3 and DXT1?I am interested for both my AI and my AS6 cloud textures. It seems I can run 256k 32bit clouds or 512k DXT3 clouds at about same frame rate.I am really trying to get my head around this, as to what is better.Any help would be appreciated.Thanks,Paul

[JMR 2]

Can you point me to that batch tool? I'd like to convert them to DXT3 as don't spend time looking at AI aircraft and I'd like the performance increase.

[PLazarus 0]

JMR,I used A32XTextureConverter.exe by IFDG then just put a copy of it in each flight1 AI aircraft folder and ran it. There may be a more efficient way of doing it, but this was simple and that worked for me!PaulEdit.. I cannot find it on their site. I have it, but I'm not sure about copyrights for posting the file.Anyone know where it is available for general download?

[LuisFelizTirado 33]

Hello Paul,DXT1 will give you an even better result than DXT3.Unless the texture has transparency, I always convert it to DXT1 with no alpha. This allows me to run a lot more AI aircraft.Also, I just about always resize the textures to a much smaller size. The difference is dramatic.By the way, in the Avsim library you will find the FS Texture Converter by Elrond Elvish. This should do what you want. Best regards.Luis

[PLazarus 0]

Thanks Luis,I think I'll go to DXT1 then....Gracias,Paul

[Guest dutton]

Question on doing this - if you used this program - does it ignore textures that are already DXT3? or will it resample them causing some loss in detail?