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arno

Reducing scenery quality

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Guest Jarhead

Hello folks,Not too long ago i downloaded KFLL from the avsim library.I really enjoy flying to that airport , However my FPS really decreases as i approach to the airport.This situation is unacceptable and i really want to improve the performence by reducing the texture and overall scenery quality.My question is how can i perform such a thing , if you possible please tell me what programs to get and the whole procedure to lower the quality of all the scenery.P.S - file name is kfllver1_2.zipThanks ,Steve.

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Hi Steve,As you are not the author of the scenery, you are limited in what you can do. For most changes you would need the source codes. But most common is to use the scenery complexity slider, the author of the scenery will probably have set some of the buildings to a higher complexity level. So if you decrease that level, the complexity should go down.I am not sure if the texture detail has much influence, I never saw a big difference in the performance from changing my textures formats or sizes.


Arno

If the world should blow itself up, the last audible voice would be that of an expert saying it can't be done.

FSDeveloper.com | Former Microsoft FS MVP | Blog

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Hello Steve,I took a look at that file in the library and it does seem to have an awful lot of textures, and a few very large ones.Textures, that is to say, their size and the quantity of them, is the largest influence on frame rates. So, this is good news for you, since you can now resize these textures to a smaller size for your own use. The bad news is that it is somewhat tedious, particularly for that scenery that has so many textures.Please take a look at Martin Wright's web site where you can find some specialized tools for viewing and editing textures. I particularly call your attention to DXTBmp and ConvIm which lets you view all the textures easily.Then, you will have to open each texture one by one and resize, then save as DXT1 bitmaps.Just recently, as an example, I downloaded some scenery for my area that is rather ineptly done (and you will all forgive me for the negative comments). It was not just the amount of textures, but all other scenery details that were just badly done. Anyway, there were 21 MB (!) of textures, and frame rates were in the single digits with lots of stuttering. After a few days work, I reduced the texture folder to less than 9 MB (still an excessive amount and proof of some lack of design knowledge) and now I get about 25 FPS. Of course, I also modified scenery visibility, and removed dozens of useless objects. But, this gives you some idea of the effect.Best regards.Luis

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Guest Jarhead

Hello,Thanks for helping me guys.luis , is there any tutorial to execute such a process ?I have no previous knowledge in scenery design or how to handle texture files.

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Hello Steve,I do not know of any step-by-step instructions for such a process, although I did something like that in the General FS forum for converting textures to DXT1:http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...ing_type=searchIn any case, have no fears and just jump right in. Get DXTBmp, read the instructions and start opening textures. With DXTBmp, you can send the texture to an image editing program. There, you can resize to something smaller - please note that sizes are all binary, therefore powers of 2, i.e., 512x512 pixels, 256x256, 128x128, etc.Once you have resized the texture, you can save it in DXT1 format with DXTBmp. It is all pretty simple, except for the textures with transparencies, usually these are images of people or trees. The instructions I wrote in the FS forum cover that instance, and DXTBmp can be used quite well.If you have any questions, do not hesitate to ask here. We have all been through that phase and successfully mastered the process, so you should not have any major problems.Best regards.Luis

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If we are talking about a lot of textures, there might be a faster alternative. If you use ImageTool you can run it in batch mode from the DOS prompt. So you don't have to open all the texture manually.That allows you to convert all the textures to a 24 bit format for example. You can then resize them with the program of your choice. I use the XnView image viewer (freeware) and it also allows me to batch resize images.In the end you would have to use the batch mode of ImageTool again to convert the textures into DXT1 with mipmaps again. But with all those batch options, it should take you only a couple of minutes to do this all :).


Arno

If the world should blow itself up, the last audible voice would be that of an expert saying it can't be done.

FSDeveloper.com | Former Microsoft FS MVP | Blog

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