Lionheart
April 26th, 2012, 09:15
Hey all,
I have noticed that one of my fave planes, the Carenado FSX C-185F has horrible frame rates at Diamond Point scenery in P3D.
I made a discovery. The package has Bitmaps for the textures.
FSX and ESP and Prepar3D are geared to run DDS format textures which run the best in simulators (and most game platforms). Now, with that said, P3D can run Bitmaps also, but not as fast.
So, if you have a plane, perhaps even a FS9 port-over, note that you can convert the textures to DDS format and that should raise the frame rates a bit on that plane. On my rig, I have Adobe Photoshop 6.0 with the freeware nVidia graphics tools for the gaming industry, like the DDS editing tools. You can thus take a Bitmap and convert it to DDS DXT5 format. You must then flip the texture 'vertically'. DO NOT ROTATE IT 180 Degrees! Just flip it vertically. ;)
Supposedly when a texture is DDS and flipped, the computer can read it 'faster' which means faster frame rates.
Other programs, as you know, can create DDS textures from bitmaps, such as freeware GIMP, freeware SDK graphics converter by Aces/MS/FS, and also Photo Shop Pro (different then Adobe's Photoshop or PS). Another fave that is freeware is DXTBmp.exe here; file:///C:/Graphics/MWGraphics/DXTBmp/DXTBmp.htm They also have a cool program for doing batches; actually two; Convim and ConvimX which together can mass 'decompile' FS formats, then mass-batch compile to FSX / P3D format and will auto-flip the textures as well. Very nice tools, a must for Devs and repainters.
So, that is your heads up on Bitmaps and P3D / FSX / ESP. DDS textures run best! Convert your Bitmaps if you have low frame rates.
Bill
LHC
I have noticed that one of my fave planes, the Carenado FSX C-185F has horrible frame rates at Diamond Point scenery in P3D.
I made a discovery. The package has Bitmaps for the textures.
FSX and ESP and Prepar3D are geared to run DDS format textures which run the best in simulators (and most game platforms). Now, with that said, P3D can run Bitmaps also, but not as fast.
So, if you have a plane, perhaps even a FS9 port-over, note that you can convert the textures to DDS format and that should raise the frame rates a bit on that plane. On my rig, I have Adobe Photoshop 6.0 with the freeware nVidia graphics tools for the gaming industry, like the DDS editing tools. You can thus take a Bitmap and convert it to DDS DXT5 format. You must then flip the texture 'vertically'. DO NOT ROTATE IT 180 Degrees! Just flip it vertically. ;)
Supposedly when a texture is DDS and flipped, the computer can read it 'faster' which means faster frame rates.
Other programs, as you know, can create DDS textures from bitmaps, such as freeware GIMP, freeware SDK graphics converter by Aces/MS/FS, and also Photo Shop Pro (different then Adobe's Photoshop or PS). Another fave that is freeware is DXTBmp.exe here; file:///C:/Graphics/MWGraphics/DXTBmp/DXTBmp.htm They also have a cool program for doing batches; actually two; Convim and ConvimX which together can mass 'decompile' FS formats, then mass-batch compile to FSX / P3D format and will auto-flip the textures as well. Very nice tools, a must for Devs and repainters.
So, that is your heads up on Bitmaps and P3D / FSX / ESP. DDS textures run best! Convert your Bitmaps if you have low frame rates.
Bill
LHC