File Conversion??

[dougal]

Hi Guys

Could someone please explain how to change the file format, or reduce the quality of aircraft skins?

I'm doing some formation flying again, but my PC can't cope with more than about 6 of the magical A2A B17.

I'm sure I've read of it being possible to reduce the video workload with a different format?

Thanks

[mjahn]

Since nobody else has been replying to this, I'll offer my two cents.

One, better ask this at the A2A forum anyway.

But, for what it's worth, some rather drastic measures (not for the faint hearted) come to mind.

Got Martin Wright's DXTBMP? Save the large textures out to 24 bit graphics, scale down to 50% (one click with Irfan View), re-assemble using DXTBMP.

Alternatively, if you've got Photoshop with the Nvidia plugins, open the dds's directly, downsize, save.

All this in a copy of the texture folders, of course.

Alternatively, try flying her on the old (1024 size) texture sets.

Next, most radical, try flying her without a VC model.

None of this may work, best wishes certainly called for. Need more detailed instructions?

[dougal]

Many thanks for the reply. I have found DXTBMP and will attempt this.

What do you mean by the "old (1024) texture sets" and where are they available?

Thanks

[mjahn]

What do you mean by the "old (1024) texture sets" and where are they available?

They were in the original (first) B-17 release. Repaints made for that release will also have them.

[dougal]

Ah right, thanks. Will go check it out.

[Lewis-A2A]

this;

"Got Martin Wright's DXTBMP? Save the large textures out to 24 bit graphics, scale down to 50% (one click with Irfan View), re-assemble using DXTBMP.

Alternatively, if you've got Photoshop with the Nvidia plugins, open the dds's directly, downsize, save."

Is pretty much what you will be wanting to do to help texture sizes etc, however there is only so much you can do before you will have to upgrade the hardware to meet the needs of todays software.

My specs are getting quite old now but perfectly fine for our products and I will raise issue if we ever were to develop something at the moment that my system could not cope with;
E6750
4GB RAM
8800GT 512

I upgraded my GPU recently but it doesnt give too much a performance jump in fsx since CPU is my bottleneck I believe.