Hi All (again... sorry!)I have made some taxiway signs for my airport using FSDS... basically they're just boxes with a texture stuck on the side (including a night texture) all it contains is 6 polygons and the texture (a 256x256 bmp, which contains the texture for three signs). yet it kills the frame rate, I tried reducing the size of the texture, but it didn't look as nice and it didn't have any impact on the frame rate.Do any of you have any ideas? could it be anything to do with materials?any help or ideas much appreciated!cheersShaun

Shaun,I do not know FSDS very well, but make sure that you have assigned a texture to all 6 polygons. In GMax, I have noticed that if you do not assign a texture to even one polygon, it will slow your fps down.Johan

Hi ShaunPerhaps you could post the code that FSDS cretaed here so that we can have a look and see if we can spot the cause.Kind RegardsGerrish

This is interesting. A simple box should not have that much influence on the frames. As Gerrish said the source might tell us more. Also, how many of these signs have you placed? I have placed around 400 signs on my airport and the frame hit is not that big.

Thanks for your responses,hmm I could try texturing all sides, but I thought the general idea was to keep the amount of textures to a minimum, am I correct?400? wow thats a lot, last count I had about 25-30 I think. I was getting a solid 25fps(locked) and now with the rest of my scenery i get about 13-25fps depending on the direction I'm looking, to be expected really, I've put quite a lot of detail in... but the taxiway signs make it drop to about 4fps.well here is the code!CheersShaun;VODDATA Latitude Longitude Range Scale Rotation Not_used Not_used Not_used Not_used Visibility Altitude Scenery_complexity(0-5) Not_used Not_used;MACRODESC FSDS object 2x0 using scale 0.001953;Generated with FS Design Studio;Copyright 2000; %1 = Latitude; %2 = Longitude; %3 = Range; %4 = Scale; %5 = Rotation; %6 = Not used; %7 = Not used; %8 = Not used; %9 = Not used; %10 = Visibility range; %11 = Altitude; %12 = Scenery complexitymif( 0 ); displays airport symbolArea( 5 %1 %2 1 )RotatedCall( :symbol 0 0 %5 )Jump( :endsymbl ):symbolRefPoint( 7 : 1 %1 %2 )Points( 1-468 0 -78-468 0 78468 0 78468 0 -780 0 0 )Poly( a 1 5 2 )Poly( a 2 5 3 )Poly( a 3 5 4 )Poly( a 4 5 1 )Return:endsymblEndAmifendArea( 5 %1 %2 %3 )IfVarRange( :Exit 0346 %12 5 )PerspectiveCall( :PCall )ShadowCall( :PC02 )Jump( :Exit ):PCallPerspective:PC02mif( %11 )

P.S.sorry, I forgot to turn the smileys off!

Maybe you could post the interesting part of the API? What you posted now is the airport symbol and the first few commands of the actual object :).

bah sorry! not sure how I managed that, heres the rest of it!cheersShaunRefPoint( 2 :Skip %4 %1 %2 E= %11 v1= %10 V2= 1872 )melseRefPoint( 7 :Skip %4 %1 %2 v1= %10 v2= 1872 )mifendRotatedCall( :B 0 0 %5 )Return:B; CRASH DetectionIfVarRange3( :NoCrash 37E -468 468 382 0 312 386 -78 78 )SetVar( 0284 14 ):NoCrashCall32( :Part0 ):SkipReturn:ExitJump( :End );; Part: Box:Part0Points( 0 -467 0 -77 ; 0 -467 312 -77 ; 1 468 312 -77 ; 2 468 0 -77 ; 3 -467 0 78 ; 4 -467 312 78 ; 5 468 312 78 ; 6 468 0 78 ; 7 );RGBSColor( ef 255 204 51 )Dwx( 2d ) ; color commandDbd( 255 ) ; redDbx( ef ) ; flag/transparencyDbd( 204 ) ; greenDbd( 51 ) ; bluePoly( 0 0 -32767 78.03 0 1 2 3 )Poly( -32767 0 0 468.17 5 1 0 4 )Poly( 32767 0 0 468.17 2 6 7 3 )Poly( 0 32767 0 468.17 5 6 2 1 )Poly( 0 -32767 0 -156.06 0 3 7 4 ); BGL_TEXTURE: tclass=1h color=FFEFCC33 name=TaxiwayG.bmpDwx( 0043 001a 0000 0081 efff 33cc )Dba(TaxiwayG.bmp)Dbx( 00 00 )TexPoly( 0 0 32767 78.03 7 0 1 6 0 86 5 255 86 4 255 1 )Return:EndEndA

This code looks like I would expect. No stange things there. The only thing I noticed is the v2, that is a bit high. You probably designed the sign to be used with a small scale, right?

well, I didn't deliberately do so, but when I first added it to my scenery it was rather on the large side, so I scaled it down. I just checked and the scale I used is 0.005.does FS do the scaling then? I wasn't sure how it worked once you've compiled it.what sort of scale would you suggest?cheersShaun

The scale is not the main problem. But the v2 indicates the radius of your object. It is now around 1800 meters (and I guess your sign is a bit smaller :)). With a scale of around 0.005 the actual size is around 10. You could try to enter that value after v2= in the RefPoint, it might have some influence.

Aha I see, I have just read the tutorial on your site (scenerydesign.org) about the V1 and V2 variables, and it makes a lot more sense now. and yes, my signs are just a tad smaller than 1.8km ;)I'll have a play about with them and see how it goes.thanks for your help.CheersShaun