Texture resolution.

[Spook 96]

Hi all

 

I have been having some problems with the 4096 textures of the repaints for the NGX.

 

When i start my flight, i like to go to outside view to view AES at work. When i go to spot view, the plane is a skeleton for a few seconds whilst the textures load.Thing is, when i get to my destination,( after a flight, were i guess fsx is taking more and more memory along the way to destination) i go to spot view and the plane will be a skeleton again, and just refuses to load the texture - and looks a mess.

 

After some extensive googling, i found some info on why this is happening.My texture _max_load is 1024, the repaint textures are 4 times the size @ 4096. So when i go to spot view my poor little Gcard is working its &@($* off tryin to convert the textures bk to 1024.On top of this i only fly from addon airports.

 

After some more googling, i managed to find one (1!) repaint @ 1024.

 

I ran the same test..LGKR corfu -> LIBD Bari, Italy, with this repaint.

 

No skeleton at any time, and with the 4096 textures, i would have to close the sim and restart at bari to fly back to corfu( as my pc would r-OOM....with the lower res textures, i flew back and forth till i was bored with no OOMs and actually being able to go to outside view when i wanted and not see a skeleton shell.

 

To my knowledge, the textures can only be downsized by the user, useing photoshop or the likes. Im told the repaint kit from PMDG only makes 4096 textures? anyway..

 

Having not the slightest clue where to start, and the fact the only editing software i have is paint...what do i do?

 

Im not aware of any repaints on avim at the lower res..and google only returned 1 :(

 

i found a topic about PMDG doing low res textures, but with no final answwer, and if they did i cant find them.

I put HIGHMEMFIX in my config..but to honest, i can see any diffrence with it there or not. :unsure:

 

Does anybody know if there is low res repaint availible anywhere?...its the only thing killing the sim for me.

[Beardyman 609]

Hi

 

I do not know much about ur computer, i mean how well is it optimized for FSX.

To be honest FSX without tweaks have very poor performance even with powerful computers.

My first advise or questions are:

Did u pass Bojote tweak ?

http://www.venetubo.com/fsx.html

Did u go through NVIDIA optimization ? - external frame limiter, nvidia inspector tool and so on.

Without those modifications u will not get proper performance, so maybe u do not need to sacrifice texture quality, only follow some well known and already checked advices and ur problem will be fixed.

 

BR/Artur

[Spook 96]

My pc runs sweet. I can be at any of my addon airports with 25fps in VC, even more in outside view..the textures not loading doesnt have any effect on fps.

 

I used to run with a cfg file from Bojote, then 1 day i restored it to default as i was gettin white flashes. The sim seems to run better with a default cfg file.

 

Here are the settings i have within Nvidia control panel..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All pretty default, i havnt changed anything...

 

The fact still remains i have no problem with the setting im currently useing, apart from the Extreamly high res textures, as when i used 1024 textures the problem doesnt occur.

 

By all means, if anyone can advise if changing a setting here and there will help, im all ears !

 

This 1 little problem is really killing the little sim time i have.

 

Thanks for your reply Artur

[falcon999 24]

Have you tried Ryan's suggestions?

 

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/324786-nvidia-configuration-guide-inspector-2xxxx-drivers-version-20-explanations-of-all-settings/

[Spook 96]

Thanks for the link George..ill have a play around and see what i can do with the settings.

[Spook 96]

no, no diffrence..

 

HIGHMEMFIX=1- added

WideView=True- added

Nvidia control set as best as i can follow, as i have a diffrent control panel.

High res texture...

 

 

[ArjenVdv 190]

Not sure if this will help what do you have this in your CFG:

 

[bUFFERPOOLS]

PoolSize=0

 

 

If not, this explains why you didn't see an increase of framerate after you used Bojote's tweaking tool.

[falcon999 24]

What is your system config?

[Guest]

Try these in your FSX.CFG (be sure to make a backup of your FSX.CFG first).

 

[Display]

TextureMaxLoad=12

TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=40

FIBER_FRAME_TIME_FRACTION=0.99

DisablePreload=0

 

[GRAPHICS]

TEXTURE_MAX_LOAD=4096

 

STALE_BUFFER_THRESHOLD=2147483647

HIGHMEMFIX=1

 

Are you running DX10 or DX9?

SHADER_CACHE_PRIMED_10=1693500672

SHADER_CACHE_PRIMED=1693500672

[cmpbellsjc 2,963]

To my knowledge, the textures can only be downsized by the user, useing photoshop or the likes. Im told the repaint kit from PMDG only makes 4096 textures? anyway..

 

Having not the slightest clue where to start, and the fact the only editing software i have is paint...what do i do?

 

I have an older rig that has only 2GB of RAM so I have to use 1024's otherwise I will get the "skeleton" every time I switch from interior to exterior. Personally running 1024 external textures doesn't look all that bad unless you zoom in really close to a logo or letter painted on the outside, but since I normally use a zoom level of .75 and dont move my view point really close to the a/c for screen shots, 1024 looks fine for me as well as saving a lot of memory.

 

What I do after I download and install an NGX repaint, is do into the texture file that was added after the install and make a back up first in case I need to get an original texture back and dont want to uninstall then reinstall the livery again.

 

Once that is done I use 2 freeware programs, GIMP and DXTBmp, both of which can be found with a google search. What I then do is drag and drop the first texture into DXTBmp and then first export the texture to GIMP to be resized to 1024 and then save it. I then reload that into DXTBmp. Then I export the alpha texture to GIMP, resize, save and import back into DXTBmp. Once all that is done, I simply resave the texture in the native format of DXT5 or3 and make sure to leave the check box checked in DXTBmp that says something like "Include Mips"

 

I do each texture file the same way until all the textures that were 4096 are now 1024. I also do the speculars, bump maps, and light map textures to the same size if they are bigger than 1024.

 

It takes me about 20 to 30 minutes to resize a single repaint using this method, but of course once your done you can save it in case you ever need to reinstall the NGX again and dont want to redo all that work. There might be a faster way to do this using Photoshop but since I dont own that I cant say. The only thing is to make sure you always do the alpha channel separate from the main texture sheet otherwise you can risk damaging the alpha channel and you'll have weird looking textures in the sim.

 

When I finish building my new rig I will continue to run the 1024's on the NGX to keep VAS down and allow me to crank up other settings in the sim. I do the same for any addon airports/sceneries I purchase that might have textures larger than 1024. I also run 1024 clouds and water textures and that works well for me. I've tried running 2048 and 4096 clouds and other stuff but the difference in looks doesn't outweigh the performance penalty and VAS usage that comes with it for me. Plus, I find lower res clouds to look more realistic and less sharp anyway.

 

Hope this helps. Using the 1024 internal and external textures in the NGX since day one has worked well for me. Even on my older E8600 and 2GB RAM WinXp32bit system I have yet to get an OOM when flying into big FSDT airports like DFW, LAX, JFK even with traffic cranked up. Running 4096's on this rig would probably OOM me faster than I could blink.

 

 

 

Sean Campbell

[Beardyman 609]

Spook, as i see ur graphic settings, many of the things are set as 'application controlled'.

Generally it is highly advised to skip this option, and let NVIDIA driver take control over texture processing (nvidia inspector)

The difference is significant.

 

BR/Artur

[Fabo 213]

TEXTURE MAX LOAD does not have effect on aircraft. That is not your problem.

 

Texture size itself is, though. 4096 HD textures are 16 times more memory intensive compared to 1024 textures.

Simply put, your memory is either too small or too slow to deal with it.

[Spook 96]

Thanks for the reply everyone.

 

I ran my config through Bojotes tool and ran with the config it put out. Its definatly smoother, and less scenery blurries.Also quicker loading textures.

Unfortunatly though, the high res textures are still behaving in the same way.

 

Ive ran fsx on this rig for a few years and havnt had this problem, but i dont think i have any other textures at the high resolution so the problem has only risen now...It may well be my memory ( pretty sure it is)

 

Im not in a position right now to change that unfortunatly, so i have to go with what i got.In order to do that ill have to resize all my repaints...

 

Whitch leads me to

 

snip

 

What I do after I download and install an NGX repaint, is do into the texture file that was added after the install and make a back up first in case I need to get an original texture back and dont want to uninstall then reinstall the livery again.

 

Once that is done I use 2 freeware programs, GIMP and DXTBmp, both of which can be found with a google search. What I then do is drag and drop the first texture into DXTBmp and then first export the texture to GIMP to be resized to 1024 and then save it. I then reload that into DXTBmp. Then I export the alpha texture to GIMP, resize, save and import back into DXTBmp. Once all that is done, I simply resave the texture in the native format of DXT5 or3 and make sure to leave the check box checked in DXTBmp that says something like "Include Mips"

 

I do each texture file the same way until all the textures that were 4096 are now 1024. I also do the speculars, bump maps, and light map textures to the same size if they are bigger than 1024.

 

It takes me about 20 to 30 minutes to resize a single repaint using this method, but of course once your done you can save it in case you ever need to reinstall the NGX again and dont want to redo all that work. There might be a faster way to do this using Photoshop but since I dont own that I cant say. The only thing is to make sure you always do the alpha channel separate from the main texture sheet otherwise you can risk damaging the alpha channel and you'll have weird looking textures in the sim.

 

Sean Campbell

 

 

Hi Sean

 

Thanks for the info.Im going to take your advice, so i have the 2 programs.

I made a copy of the texture i want to resize, then i drag the first .dds file from within the texture folder into DXTBmp. i click the little square with the the down arrow to 'send to editor', whitch is gimp.

 

When im in gimp, the only option to resize i can see is ''rescale image'', so i set it to 1024. When i save, im not sure what to save it as and gimp wants to save it as something that has no resembulance to a texture file... (am i making sence?)

So i saved it as ''fuse''.dds. When i open it again in DXTBmp, the size is 2048?

Ignoring that, i then clicked on 'Alpha' -> send alfa to editor...but the same thing happens.

So im a little stuck here.

 

Sean : Would you be able to make a step by step guid on how to do this, if you have time ofcorse, it would help me imensly

[cmpbellsjc 2,963]

When im in gimp, the only option to resize i can see is ''rescale image'', so i set it to 1024. When i save, im not sure what to save it as and gimp wants to save it as something that has no resembulance to a texture file... (am i making sence?)

 

Ok you've done it right so far by using the Scale Image function to save it to 1024.. Then just hit the save button in GIMP, not the save as button, then you dont have to pick a format to save it as. I believe it saves as just a .bmp when you hit save.

 

Once you do that just go back into DXTBmp go to Image/Reload After Edit. Then go back to GIMP and click on the top right X to close out the texture sheet image you currently have loaded that you just resized. Then in DXTBmp go to Alpha/Send Alpha to Editor and send the alpha texture to GIMP. Use the Scale button to resize it to 1024X1024 and simply hit save, not save as. Then go back to DXTBmp and hit Alpha/Refresh Alpha and it will reload the alpha channel you just resized.

 

So, now you've done the main texture sheet and the alpha texture. Now just hit File/Save As/DDS Texture and pick either DXT5 or DXT3 depending on what format the original texture was. Make sure that in the Mip Maps box on the right side of DXTBmp you have the Include when Saving box checked.

 

One other thing. When you start with DXTBmp and GIMP open and begin resizing a texture, you leave both brograms open during the process and dont close DXTBmp after you send either the texture or alpha to the editor. Just make sure though that when you resize and save either the texture or alpha in GIMP that you close that window where the texture was seen before you load the next texture or alpha to GIMP.I once forgot to close a GIMP window after I resized and alpha and when I opened the next .dds to resize in DXTBmp and sent it to the editor, it loaded the texture into the same window where the last alpha was that had been resized and merged them together.

 

Hope this explanation helps, if you have more questions let me know, but it sounds like you have the right idea.

[Spook 96]

Well Sean...I owe you a beer :drinks:

 

I managed to do it!!!! :Big Grin:

 

Just to make sure i swapped between the 2 repaints, and sure enough, high res = skelly plane. I loaded the lower textures ( and was reasured by the unreadable nostep on the wing) put it through its paces but couldnt get it to ''skelly'' on me, even in the most demanding scenery)

 

It can be a little misleading, as after i resized the image/Alpha and loaded it back into DXT it would still say 4096x4096 in the window header, but a little pig headedness went a long way here ..i ignored it and saved it anyway and it worked :Party:

 

I would have never been able to do the resizing without your instruction (Its all alien to me) so a big, no massive, Thank You Sean.

 

I can now enjoy the NGX again!

 

Now time to go fly!......oh, hold on, i cant.

 

Have to go help organize a ingagment party :t0116:

 

:lol: . .no rest for the wicked.