In a previous thread it was suggested converting texture files to this format would improve autogen performance I downloaded the DDS converter 2 and converted the files {DEMO 2} to BMP but am unable to convert them back..I get an error message for every file saying "cannot load" also when I click on a bmp file to view it I get the Windows picture and fax viewer with a message "drawing failed" Are these related and what am I missing? When I try to fly the demo using autogen the trees etc are surrounded by a black background any help would be appreciated..JamesJ

why do you want to convert back? didnt the convert to dxt1 help your performance?

I am unable to convert them back to dxt1. they remain as BMP files no matter what..JamesJ

As others have said use the DirectX SDK to convert them to DXT1,its much easier, another thread here describes very well how to do it, you will get nothing but problems using DDS 2 converting them to BMP`S, textures upside down and stuff like that.

Very odd. I ran texconvert.exe (DirectX SDK) and converted all the files to DXT1 but all the file sizes remain the same and the texture sizes (e.g. 1024 x 1024) are all the same as well. What does changing the file type from DXT3/DXT5 to DXT1 do to help performance?DougDell XPS Gen3 (3.6GHz/800FSB) | 2GB DDR SDRAM | 74GB SATA, 10k RPM (C: ) | 120GB SATA (D: ) | 512MB ATI Radeon X1900XTX (Catalyst 6.8) | Audigy 2 ZS Sound | MS Force Feedback 2 | WindowsXP Pro (SP2) | DirectX 9.0c

DXT3/5 required 8 bits / pixel and DXT1 requires 4 bits / pixel (actually, a 4x4 grid of pixels is encoded into 64 bits of alpha and 64 bits of color in DXT3/5, or just 64 bits of color in DXT1 (with the optional capability to also encode an apha bit within the 64 bit color data)). So a 1024 texture will be 4096x4096 for DXT1, plus the file space for the mipmaps.scott s..

Thanks for the info, Scott. There's much I have to learn before I can start understanding all this! DougDell XPS Gen3 (3.6GHz/800FSB) | 2GB DDR SDRAM | 74GB SATA, 10k RPM (C: ) | 120GB SATA (D: ) | 512MB ATI Radeon X1900XTX (Catalyst 6.8) | Audigy 2 ZS Sound | MS Force Feedback 2 | WindowsXP Pro (SP2) | DirectX 9.0c

Where can I get the DirectX SDK from?Thanks a lot,

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...&displaylang=en