421 skin mod/fix for Voodoo 5 users.

[Hornit 3]

I have been working on and getting some great help and support from FSD member Roger Dial with the skins on the F1 421C. I am using a Voodoo 5 and I know its long in the tooth, but Im squeezing the last bit of life out of it I guess until I upgrade to GF4 very soon. I have had some problems with the large textures on the NAMC YS-11 and now the 421. What was happening was the textures for the Aircraft were taking very long to load and sometimes not at all. Also the terrain would remain furiously blurry making it a not enjoyable experience. I tried a few things on my own but nothing worked very well. What has done the trick is the use of imagetool to make the large 32 bit 1024 textures into DXT3 bmp's allowing for a significant reduction in texture load with minimal loss of detail. My frame rates are back up in the low twenties and my terrain is crisp and detailed once again. Thanks to Roger and Eric Joiner this has really helped and I wanted to spread the word to V5 users...(are there any?? :)) and also to those with older or cpu/gpu challenged systems as this should work for them also. For those with FS2K2 pro you will find imagetool inside the gmax folder under gamepacks. Find the .exe and just put a shortcut to it on your desktop. Now open it and browse to the file you want to change. You will have to have Texto-matic create the skin for you first then use imagetool as it creates 32 bit textures. Once you run textomatic, use imagetool to open up the image of your choice, and use the format button to navigate to DXT3 and check it. It then converts the image to DXT3 reducing its size significantly. On the 421 I did the fuselage, wings, and wheels. Make sure you save each image as you convert it. Now your aircraft will load the textures faster and my terrain loads and stays crisp instead of blurring badly. I recommend this to all V5 users as a valid fix if you think its running slow. Here is a shot of a repaint I am working on that is giving me about 20-23 fps in spot view and nice terrain.Thank you very much Roger and Eric, I can really enjoy this aircraft now!! :)http://www.flightsimmers.net/airport/hornit/421b.jpg

[Guest]

Hi HornitGreat to see I am not the only one using the Voodoo 5. I find mine produces some very blurry ac textures at times. I am no expert so I just work around the problem. I will try your advise and report backI have all my card settings at default, maybe there is a Voodoo 5 clever person out there to help modify these. Prehaps we should start our own Forum of Voodoo 5 owners, we could maybe swap setting etc.If we get enough members we could form a group, have get togethers, parties and the meet in a phone box near you.....Brave Capt Bob