Hello!

 

Ive been reading out there relating DXT1/3 Mip or not...

I was wondering if somenoe could explain me if should I convert all scenery textures to DXT1 and also AI TRaffic to DXT1...I don´t really understand whats "mip or not".

Should I convert scenery textures to DXT1 with or without mip?

I use TEXTURE DOCTOR for massive texture converter to DXT1...but I dont know how to add mips

 

THANKS

First of all, the mips:

When you look at any object from far away, the further it is away from your eyes the less detailed it becomes. However, a PC graphics system will always try to render a texture in it's full detail and independent of it's distance. This results in frame rate losses, especially when in external view and panning around, can then even cause stuttering in various degrees of severity.

A so called mipped texture has a number of copies behind it, each getting less and less detailed as the viewing distance increases, the last one often even no longer being visible for the graphics system, thus keeping frame rates as high as possible.

Flyable aircraft textures should always be at least DXT3 without mips because their textures are always viewed from close up. However, AI aircraft and scenery textures should be mipped for the above given frame rate reasons. DXT3 is finer and displays somewhat better colors than DXT1 but DXT3 textures take longer to load.

An older but still very useful program called DXTBmp Bitmap Manipulator, as it's name already says, can be used to manipulate almost all texture formats in various ways but also to add/delete mips. This program should be set up to open automatically as soon as any texture is double clicked. It has very comprehensive and clear usage instructions.

Hope this helps.

Regards

Hans

 

1 hour ago, hjwalter said:

First of all, the mips:

When you look at any object from far away, the further it is away from your eyes the less detailed it becomes. However, a PC graphics system will always try to render a texture in it's full detail and independent of it's distance. This results in frame rate losses, especially when in external view and panning around, can then even cause stuttering in various degrees of severity.

A so called mipped texture has a number of copies behind it, each getting less and less detailed as the viewing distance increases, the last one often even no longer being visible for the graphics system, thus keeping frame rates as high as possible.

Flyable aircraft textures should always be at least DXT3 without mips because their textures are always viewed from close up. However, AI aircraft and scenery textures should be mipped for the above given frame rate reasons. DXT3 is finer and displays somewhat better colors than DXT1 but DXT3 textures take longer to load.

An older but still very useful program called DXTBmp Bitmap Manipulator, as it's name already says, can be used to manipulate almost all texture formats in various ways but also to add/delete mips. This program should be set up to open automatically as soon as any texture is double clicked. It has very comprehensive and clear usage instructions.

Hope this helps.

Regards

Hans

 

Thanks a lot for the info!!

Im rtying to reduce all ai traffic do DXT1 512x512...so i can get improve in fps...

Do you know any massive texture converter? It could take me a while to convert 22GB of ai traffic!

I noticed better frames with DXT3 textures instead of DXT1. I recommend to make a test before converting all in a bunch.

With mips I have less microstutters but at some places also blurry textures. I would handle this issue very individual.

Dedl

Dedl,

I've had blurries before as well but was able to trace these back to (scenery) texture folders containing a mix of DXT1 and DXT3 textures. It appears that a graphics card (or system) can get itself quite stressed up when the smaller and faster loading DXT1 textures are being processed, while at the same time the larger and slower loading DXT3s are also being processed. It's therefore important that all textures within a (scenery) texture folder are of the same compression format, DXT1 or DXT3 but not both. It's also advisable to have alpha channels present in all such textures.

Take care though because older scenery textures can be DXT1 (no alpha) and these must be left as such.

Regards

Hans

 

2 hours ago, hjwalter said:

Dedl,

I've had blurries before as well but was able to trace these back to (scenery) texture folders containing a mix of DXT1 and DXT3 textures. It appears that a graphics card (or system) can get itself quite stressed up when the smaller and faster loading DXT1 textures are being processed, while at the same time the larger and slower loading DXT3s are also being processed. It's therefore important that all textures within a (scenery) texture folder are of the same compression format, DXT1 or DXT3 but not both. It's also advisable to have alpha channels present in all such textures.

Take care though because older scenery textures can be DXT1 (no alpha) and these must be left as such.

Regards

Hans

 

Thanks!

I´ve been checikng and a lot of sceneries have mix textures DXT1 and DXT3...will set all to DXT3

11 hours ago, hjwalter said:

....advisable to have alpha channels present in all such textures.

 

 

I would say essential to check for alphas.

2 hours ago, edetroit said:

... essential to check for alphas.

I agree completely,

Btw. I got much better frames and much less microstutters in my FS2004, when I converted for example the old FS2002 stuff like Denver, Salt Lake City, Atlanta, Cincinnati and more from DXT1 into DXT3 with mips and where necessary I had to add alphas. DXTBmp is a good program for me to deal with.

First time I hear that DXT1 and DXT3 shouldn't be mixed, Hans.

Dedl

Edited April 20, 20206 yr by Dedl

3 hours ago, edetroit said:

I would say essential to check for alphas.

How can I add Alphas to scenery textures? I now DXTbmp, but I should go one by one!

DXT3fixer. https://library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=Peter+Nyman&CatID=root&Go=Search

Some textures have aereas that are opaque while the are in DXT1(no alphas) format. After compiling into DXT3 it happens that these aereas will get black if there are no alphas.You will have to create an alpha channel.

When this is done, the result will look like this and the black aereas in the whit box upp left will display transparent.

This is the reason why I am doing this step by step and I hope I was able to explane this with my funny (almost 50 years old) schoolenglish.

Dedl

 

Dedi,

Older scenery objects from FS2002 and before, were created by using the SCASM (SCenery ASseMbler) program but the main drawback with these scenery objects was that whenever they came into view, they needed to be completely built up every time, again and again, especially when, e.g. panning around in circles and in external view. When in normal cockpit view the effects of this were more or less acceptable but in external view, stuttering in various severity was quite unavoidable, depending on the scenery object complexities coming into view and of cause, on the PC hardware.

Since then PCs, graphics cards, etc, have become very much faster and more efficient but the basic SCASM drawbacks still remain, independent of the texture compression formats being used.

In the meantime, after the introduction of FS2004, other more modern scenery development software was introduced and which use more or less ready made (library) scenery objects, which do not need to be built up every time they (re-)come into view. The result is, among others, less stuttering and higher frame rates.

Hope this helps to further your understanding on this subject.

Regards

Hans