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FSDT KLAX (FS2004) - Textures question
tlabbe:
Greetings,
I have a few questions regarding the upcoming FS2004 version of KLAX which is under development:
-Will the textures be already converted to DXT3
-Are the textures will be already at 512x512? Or do we have the option of the texture resizer?
This will help out for older configs, with older video cards, for graphics smoothness. This will also help out to eliminate CTD's like g2d.dll for example (if the texture size per .bmp files are too big this can happen)
Thanks in advance, Thierry
-----------------------
My system specs:
ASUS P4C 800 Deluxe motherboard
Intel P4 @ 2.8Ghz
2 GB PC3200 Kingston Hyper-X RAM
BFG Nvidia Geforce 7800GT 512MB w/ latest drivers
300 GB 10K WD Raptor
Creative soundblaster Audigy MP3+
virtuali:
--- Quote from: tlabbe on October 15, 2011, 07:53:06 am ----Will the textures be already converted to DXT3
--- End quote ---
The textures will be in their correct format depending if they need an Alpha channel or not, so their will be either DXT1 or DXT3. There's just a single exception, the texture of the pylons light beams at night is 32 bit, but that's the only one in the whole scenery, and it really needs the 32 bit quality. And it's very small, though.
--- Quote ---Are the textures will be already at 512x512? Or do we have the option of the texture resizer?
--- End quote ---
Textures will be in their correct sizes depending on what objects their are textured to, we never made a scenery with all textures of the same size. About half of them will be 1024x1024, the rest will be smaller.
The resizer for our previous scenery never touched the textures of smaller size anyway, it only reduced the ones in 1024x1024 to 512x512.
I don't think doing a resizer for KLAX would be a good idea: textures for buildings are already resized from their original 4096x4096 resolution in FSX which, as was explained in other threads, wasn't made to get an "ultra" resolution, but to get more efficiency, by using much less 4096x4096 textures in place of many 1024x1024.
This means, at least for all the buildings, we really can't go lower than 1024x1024.
For the photoreal backround, we remade it in the native 1024x1024 resolution using many textures (about 50 instead of just 4 in FSX), which means the ground resolution it's about the same as in FSX, so we might have a resizer here, but only if we'll find there's some demand for it.
--- Quote ---This will help out for older configs, with older video cards, for graphics smoothness.
--- End quote ---
Don't think that, just because the scenery is made for FS9, it will run well on lower end systems. Because of the things FS9 doesn't have, we had to increase its polygonal complexity and lower its texture efficiency, which is why it runs so well under FSX.
- Since FS9 doesn't have shaders, we had to do detail textures both on ground and on buildings by using additional polygons, many thousands more than the FSX version
- Since FS9 doesn't have 4096x4096 textures, we had to remodel things (like the ground) using more textures (less efficient) and more polygons too.
- Since FS9 doesn't support objects larger than a certain amount (the limit is much higher in FSX), we had to get rid of LODs levels, otherwise the objects with LODs wouldn't display under FS9 since a LODed object is larger. The good thing is that, without LODs, there's almost no object pop-up, the bad thing is, the scenery is heavier on the system.
Since the scenery was *designed* from the start without caring how FS9 limitations, it means that, on top of being the most complex port to FS9 we made so far (is taking about a month), it won't have "miracle" frame rates just because "it's for FS9", we would be happy if it would run at least like the FSX version, on the same system.
tlabbe:
Hello Umberto,
First of all a big thank you for providing such a detailed and elaborated answer, I really appreciate it.
If I want to run a base of comparison here, let's say between KLAX for FS9 and KDFW 1.0.3, so far I have no issues running this scenery on my system. I get around 15-25 fps while on the ground taxiing.
The question is, based on the techniques used on KLAX for FS9 and KDFW, will I get around the same result or will I struggle a bit more to run the scenery? This will be interesting to see. I noticed in the \texture folder of KDFW 1.0.3 the biggest size of BMP files are around 1,366kb and mostly all other BMPs are around 683kb. So if KLAX will be optimized in this fashion for running FS9, maybe keeping the bmp around these levels it would help alot, don't know if it's feasible, I have no experience in scenery modeling....
thanks again and regards, Thierry
-----------------------
My system specs:
ASUS P4C 800 Deluxe motherboard
Intel P4 @ 2.8Ghz
2 GB PC3200 Kingston Hyper-X RAM
BFG Nvidia Geforce 7800GT 512MB w/ latest drivers
300 GB 10K WD Raptor
Creative soundblaster Audigy MP3+
virtuali:
--- Quote ---The question is, based on the techniques used on KLAX for FS9 and KDFW, will I get around the same result or will I struggle a bit more to run the scenery? This will be interesting to see.
--- End quote ---
I'm afraid KLAX will be slower than KDFW.
--- Quote ---I noticed in the \texture folder of KDFW 1.0.3 the biggest size of BMP files are around 1,366kb and mostly all other BMPs are around 683kb.
--- End quote ---
That's only the difference between DXT3 and DXT1 textures, but they are both 1024x1024. Choosing between DXT3 and DXT1 it's not really a choice: if a textures needs an Alpha channel, it *has* to be DXT3.
About the size, we really can't go lower than 1024x1024 in FS9 because, at this size, they are already resized 4x comparing to the FSX version but, as I've said, we didn't use the 4096x4096 texture size for resolution in FSX, we used it for SPEED so, overall, the resolution in FSX it's exactly the same as if we used 1024x1024 texture, it's just that (being 16x larger) we used 16x LESS of them.
Since FS9 doesn't support them, and in order to remodel all the buildings, we would probably have to work 6 months to re-texture everything (there would be no FS9 version under those conditions), we simply resized them at 1024x1024, so they are still compatible with the original modules, just more blurred. The only exception to this is the ground, which has been remodeled entirely.
You just have to accept the fact that, in order to run KLAX on FS9, you'll have to use a system that would be capable to run it in FSX too.
precious62b:
Would the FPS be comparable to the Cloud9 version with the same system?
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