Thank You TJ...I've assembled a collection of viewing screens for the various modules, including opening sound bites and musical loops. And the thought came to me that it may be of community fun to assemble packages that DCS product users may enjoy, while keeping OEM files intact at user discretion. The quandry I'm trying to get a grip on is the average screen size ratio of the average gamer...While its safe for me to assume a 16:9 ratio, and assuming a large menu screen of 1920 by 1080 could be considered small by some standards. Personally I've been a 1600 by 900 guy forever as it is my belief that lower resoluion makes for easier work loads on the System CPU, VPU and the monitor as well. But I know I will find users that will either disagree with my findings or they are of economical standing that small details would never concern them.
It occured to me that I could break down the varied packages to suit the 1920 crowd and the 1600 crowd. The reason being, DCS uses one very large file for each of its opening screens, and the program will downsize to a degree to fit the user's screen settings. Not perfect, but enough to jusify its coding. The short answer is one very large file is loaded into video memory and memory cache, so if we tailor the varied screen graphics for a specific screen ratio size, far less resources will be used for themes, and preserve more memory and caching for what we're asking oiur systems to do- mainly run the simulation without issues. Since the average gaming consumer has probably plunked down an honest $1500 US dollars, that's one niche of the market, given that flight simulation markets are a small niche to begin with.
I'm 60 years of age, and there are those of us that just have store bought off the shelf systems that don't qualify as a gamer's platform until an honest discreet video card is purchased and configured. The average computer user is ignorant to such matters, even something as simple as a discussion of ram type and quantity.
My system is a mere HP Envy 700-210. Its AMD A-10 processor and onboard Radeon 8670 HD has never disappointed until I jumped into the latest simulation programming. Taking the system's ram count from 12 Gb to 24 Gb revealed a substantial improvement, but alas, such discussion is lost on many computer owners and users.
As of this writing I believe the answer is being narrowed down to how I can support the community here. One size fits all is not the direction for the best results I wish to deliver.
Having picked up the F-14 a couple of days ago, I noticed that HeatBlur didn't use full custom themes, instead, allowing DCS default graphics to come into play. While that's all fine and good, it was a small area I discovered that may not even merit discussion. But I have assembled two fully custom theme tailored only for the Tomcat module.
Once I know I've got every tee crossed, I will be in need to where to upload the packages to the DCS server for consumer usage and acceptance.
AllTheBest- Eddy
