Holy grail or dangerous stuff?

[Guest]

Found this link on another forum.

Could this be IT or should I stay away from this kind of 'hacking'? It does sound interesting, but I do wonder why these files aren't converted from DXT5 to DXT1A out of the box...!

[HUSSAR 263]

I don't think it's dangerous at all except to say that all the .dds textures including the night and specular files will be converted as well which I do not think is necessary. Would anyone care to comment on how it may affect the overall appearance should all textures be converted, and what about Ultimate Terrain, ASX, GEx, shouldn't all those textures have to be converted as well?I am looking forward to some of the posts that will arise from this finding and hopefully some more positive reports will come as well. Good find! Cheers,

[n4gix 4,947]

Beware of snake-oil salesmen... ;)Most of the 'main' object textures are already quite compact. None of them even have an Alpha channel. For example:Miami_Biscayne.dds 171KBMiami_Biscayne_DXT1a.dds 127KBMiami_Biscayne_LM.dds 171KBMiami_Biscayne_LM_DXT1a.dds 127KBMiami_Biscayne_Specular.dds 342KBMiami_Biscayne_Specular_DXT1a.dds 129KBBut, look at what happens to specular maps (which require an 8bit Alpha) when they are converted to DXT1a as indiscriminate conversion of all the scenery texture files this fellow "recommends!"http://img86.imageshack.us/img86/903/dxt5vsdxt1axx9.jpgAlso, keep in mind that DXT1 by definition is quite 'lossy' and you'll lose a lot of the crisp definition of the images...

[HUSSAR 263]

I guess it could be dangerous! Nice try though, thanks for the input Bill.

[Guest Nick_N]

Dangeous stuffResorting to that for a rink-dink system that wont ever show things clear anyway because the user is not satisfied with the sliders where they belong, is an optionThen again, everyone forgets the texture reduction tweak was one of the first out there and its results damaged the visuals and created other problems.

[Guest]

And always remember that magic bullets aren't...If they don't work however there's no refunds, as dead people can't claim the refund in person :)Therefore the makers never get any complaints...

[Guest]

Well, that was that for me. Thx for bursting the bubble! ;)