Possible FSX autogen performance fix

[Guest cschmokel]

Hello everyone,We all know that autogen causes a tremendous performance drop in FSX. Here's a post over at www.fs2004.com which might have a solution: http://www.fs2004.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=90965Basically, autogen texture files are stored as DXT5 .dds files, and this guy suggests converting them to smaller DXT1 .dds files to improve performance. Some people who have tried it have reported significant performance gains. So, it looks like the autogen performance issue might not be primarily linked to polygons, but to textures. Personally I'd like to see this go one step further and reduce the .dds texture sizes down to practically nothing, because my hunch is that the detail lost wouldn't be recognized unless you're bush flying.

[OHN 1]

I turned off bloom and reduced water settings from max to 2.0 low, now i can run FSX with most on high settings with good FPS.

[slashed2 53]

Sounds like an interesting fix. I've found turning the texture resolution down a notch from 2m to 5m allows smooth frames with sparse autogen, although the ground textures loose some resolution, I can live with it on my old system. I'm sure within a week of release there will be workarounds (fingers crossed).AMD Athlon 3000+ 2.2ghz1 gb mem6600 GTIan.

[W2DR 1,859]

I've tried it and, yes, it does help quite a bit. Framerates here are basically doubled after the conversion to DXT1 and I see little, if any, difference in visible quality. But, that said, the autogen "issue" is still there. I'm beginning to think that the trees are the problem but more testing is needed.Doug

[FlyingsCool 3]

At the conference, Adam mentioned that there was an issue with the new version. I don't remember the exact details, but it had to do with batch loading. Basically, I believe the tree textures are more detailed now so there are fewer trees types/texture. The way the system is now, you can only batch load objects that are from a single texture at a time. So, whereas before there were 12 different trees which could be batch loaded all at the same time, it takes more operations to build a scene with the same number of different types of trees because there are now only 4 trees/texture or something like that. It's no big deal when there is only a single tree type in the scene, but when you are looking at a mixed forest, it has an impact because it now takes multiple batch loads.So I guess the trick here would be to replace the autogen trees with the old style design so you can fit more different types on a texture.It is possible the real solution would be to have the software combine textures into a larger texture that then allows batch loading of the objects of the larger texture, but FS is not yet designed to do this according to Adam.Thomas[a href=http://www.flyingscool.com] http://www.flyingscool.com/images/Signature.jpg [/a]I like using VC's :-)N15802 KASH '73 Piper Cherokee Challenger 180

[FlyingsCool 3]

Adam said at the conference that features like bloom and the 2x water features and I think shadows, too, require each frame to be rendered twice. Turn these features off and you should get much better performance.Thomas[a href=http://www.flyingscool.com] http://www.flyingscool.com/images/Signature.jpg [/a]I like using VC's :-)N15802 KASH '73 Piper Cherokee Challenger 180

[Guest BOPrey]

Bloom is a 2D effect. Should be easily done on the gpu. Whether current cards support that or not is a different story.

[Tabs 2,790]

>Bloom is a 2D effect. Should be easily done on the gpu.>Whether current cards support that or not is a different>story.You know this how? It's my understanding that bloom (HDR) effects use the pixel shader just the same as any other 3D effect, hence the slow down...

[FlyingsCool 3]

Nope, not handled in hardware in DX9. It's a second pass calculation.Thomas[a href=http://www.flyingscool.com] http://www.flyingscool.com/images/Signature.jpg [/a]I like using VC's :-)N15802 KASH '73 Piper Cherokee Challenger 180

[Guest BOPrey]

"Bloom became very popular after Tron 2.0 and is used in many games and modifications. Ico was one of the earliest games to use the bloom effect"Tron 2.0 was released in 2003.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom_(shader_effect)Personally, I don't really care about bloom at all. It kind of blind the eyes.On another note. If MS took the time to model bloom, I want a pair of sun glasses modelled as well. LoL.

[W2DR 1,859]

Good points. I think also that the texture loading may be the only thing that is helped by a dual-core processor (which I don't have). I just wish I had the full version here to try things out. Grrrrr....:-) .DougDoug

[tgibson 11]

Hi,If you read the entire thread some users who did this have their autogen trees displaying upside down...Take care,--Tom GibsonCal Classic Propliner Page: http://www.calclassic.comFreeflight Design Shop: http://www.freeflightdesign.comDrop by! ___x_x_(")_x_x___

[Guest unitedpilot36]

You guys found that eh. Here's my tutorial on how to do it if you can't figure it out. http://www.fs2004.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=91137;-)

[FlyingsCool 3]

Which thread?Thomas[a href=http://www.flyingscool.com] http://www.flyingscool.com/images/Signature.jpg [/a]I like using VC's :-)N15802 KASH '73 Piper Cherokee Challenger 180

[JSkorna 137]

This one:http://www.fs2004.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=91137Jimhttp://www.hifisim.com/Active Sky V6 Development Team Active Sky V6 Proud SupporterHiFi Beta TeamRadar Contact Supporter: http://www.jdtllc.com/AirSource Member: http://www.air-source.us/FSEconomy Member:http://www.fseconomy.com/