CGTC - textures overhaul mod for the Caucasus map

[Rob Mason]

Sorry to be a pain but neither your Megadrive or Googledrive download links are working.

[LucShep]

53 minutes ago, Rob Mason said:

Sorry to be a pain but neither your Megadrive or Googledrive download links are working.

No problem.
But the links from the URLs are working fine here.

Make sure you're downloading the latest 2.84.1 version (refresh page please), and not the 2.84 version that was up earlier today (that has now been deactivated). 

Edited May 21, 2023 by LucShep

[aceviper]

Hey Luc

New version......wow!!!

Absolutely awesome and stunningly beautiful.

Caucasus is a picture postcard with this mod.

Just  flying around enjoying the scenery is a joy.

Btw your trees and forests are great too.

You are a credit to the modding community....I salute you sir!

[KCOOL]

This is great. Thank you so much.

Your trees and forest are gorgeous.

I just did a couple of test fights, but I believe Taz techniques treat VRAM better, key for VR.

Is there any way to combine this awesome and beautiful mod with VRAM savings?

Best

Edited May 21, 2023 by KCOOL

[LucShep]

Thank you @aceviper and @KCOOL.

 

10 hours ago, KCOOL said:

This is great. Thank you so much.

Your trees and forest are gorgeous.

I just did a couple of test fights, but I believe Taz techniques treat VRAM better, key for VR.

Is there any way to combine this awesome and beautiful mod with VRAM savings?

Best

 

If you mean using the CGTC mod with Taz Optimized Textures mod, then by all means, use them. There's no conflict/problem with CGTC. (I use them too, a "must have" IMO).

If you mean adopting similar solutions of those into this mod, well hmmm...  not sure how to make it short for you.

So, all DCS maps have a few negatives with the format/size of textures too, fortunately not as bad as with the Core and Liveries (much better situation with Maps).
The Caucasus textures are all 8Bit DDS, and not the huge and problematic 32bit DDS (which Taz successfully rectified with the mod I mentioned).
But, for example, there are still too many DXT5 DDS format textures that could be DXT1 DDS (these are half the file size!), and there's the odd texture that could be smaller too.
Which means, yes, some textures that could be 2 to 4 times lighter in file size.

The problem is, the way that they're packaged. I don't think anyone has found a way (yet) to change/force a different technique to the texture ZIP packages in Maps (no such problem with aircraft related packages). For certain textures and respective ZIP packages, if you change size and/or format (to DXT1 and/or half size, for example), once repackaged and combined, it breaks the rendering of all related textures (fully black textures instead). If it wasn't for this, yeah, I'd have optimized things better already. 

I believe it was in the old CGTC thread that I once swapped posts about it with Taz (he was still experimenting with tree related files back then), I'm sure he's aware of the issue.
If he ever gets to a practical solution (I haven't), I'm all for it and would certainly adopt the method for CGTC, that's for sure.

Edited May 21, 2023 by LucShep

[Bucic]

I'm glad I enabled forum signatures. This is awesome! IF I don't ditch Caucasus for good this week. I'd describe my experience with Caucasus as... "small ArmA3" in DCS

[Sn8ke]

Been doing DCS since the OG Lockon. No caucus terrain mod looks as realistic as this. 

[harf4ng]

Hi,

How do I install this mod with OvGME? When I try to import a mod it says this is not a valid mod archive.
Should I just copy the unzipped folder into my OvGME mod folder?

Thanks

Edited July 9, 2024 by harf4ng

[Morpheus]

45 minutes ago, harf4ng said:

Hi,

How do I install this mod with OvGME? When I try to import a mod it says this is not a valid mod archive.
Should I just copy the unzipped folder into my OvGME mod folder?

Thanks

 

I think you have to unzip the folder, OvGME only accepts zips created by itself

Tu dois dézipper l'archive, OvGME n'accepte que les zip créés par lui même

[Art-J]

1 hour ago, harf4ng said:

Hi,

How do I install this mod with OvGME? When I try to import a mod it says this is not a valid mod archive.
Should I just copy the unzipped folder into my OvGME mod folder?

Thanks

 

Yes, you create yet another "master" mod folder for it amongst others in OvGME, called whatever you like (ie. "CGTC 2.84.1") and extract "Bazar" and "Mods" subfolders to it.

Edited July 9, 2024 by Art-J

[Hawkeye60]

 

Absolutely  beautiful!

Winter in the Caucus

Would you consider doing the same for Normandy?

We really need winter.

Thanks so much!

A great add on!

[LucShep]

@Hawkeye60 Many thanks for the compliment, glad you enjoy it.  

 Unfortunately I won't be able to help with Normandy, I don't have that map. 
 

 

[Hawkeye60]

How about if you are gifted the Normandy map?

Free!

Would you then consider doing the same?

This one weather change would open up a whole slew of mission possibilities!

[LucShep]

12 hours ago, Hawkeye60 said:

How about if you are gifted the Normandy map?

Free!

Would you then consider doing the same?

This one weather change would open up a whole slew of mission possibilities!

 Ah no, many thanks for the offer/idea but, truthfully, I have no interest. 
I've tested nearly all maps (not tested Afghanistan map yet) and I'm really only interested in the ones I currently own.

[YSIAD_RIP]

Very nice addition to my DCS Mod Library! Nice to give Caucasus a refresh from time to time.

Edited October 4, 2024 by YSIAD_RIP

[LucShep]

On 10/4/2024 at 4:57 AM, YSIAD_RIP said:

Very nice addition to my DCS Mod Library! Nice to give Caucasus a refresh from time to time.
 

Glad you enjoy it too, thanks for the feedback.  

[Nipil]

This is a great mod, thank you for your efforts! Looks gorgeous, runs smoothly, and gives good ol' Caucasus a much prettier look. This mod deserves a lot more notoriety in DCS community.

[ShroomSister]

Incredible mod!! Thank you so much for all your hard work on this mod! I've tried the other big Caucasus retexture mods, and yours is by far my favorite--thank you!! Will this mod be maintained moving forward, or is this the final release? Thanks!

[LucShep]

On 10/15/2024 at 4:25 PM, Nipil said:

This is a great mod, thank you for your efforts! Looks gorgeous, runs smoothly, and gives good ol' Caucasus a much prettier look. This mod deserves a lot more notoriety in DCS community.

Thank you for your feedback and for the compliment!  Glad you enjoy it too.
 

34 minutes ago, ShroomSister said:

Incredible mod!! Thank you so much for all your hard work on this mod! I've tried the other big Caucasus retexture mods, and yours is by far my favorite--thank you!! Will this mod be maintained moving forward, or is this the final release? Thanks!

Many thanks for the compliment, I'm glad you enjoy it too.  

DCS is constantly updated and (from past experience), in the process, it may break something in this mod at some point.
If that ever happens (and your feedback is also important for this), I'll try to implement corrections if necessary.

Other than that, and at this point, the "CGTC project" is to be considered concluded.
But then, knowing myself, who knows if later I feel the urge to revamp it all over again..  lol

Edited October 18, 2024 by LucShep

[British_Dragon_14]

On 5/21/2023 at 12:27 AM, Rob Mason said:

Sorry to be a pain but neither your Megadrive or Googledrive download links are working.

Same for me.

Edit: It works. I was extracting the files wrong. Thanks

Edited November 9, 2024 by British_Dragon_14
Skill issue...

[Morpheus]

6 hours ago, British_Dragon_14 said:

Same for me.

 

Just testing, two links working here 

[LucShep]

Yep, just tested, both links working.  

[Gil80]

So if I use the DCS Optimized Textures Powershell Script on the vanilla install of DCS, and then I install this mod, do I need to run the script again?

[LucShep]

On 11/8/2024 at 6:37 PM, Gil80 said:

So if I use the DCS Optimized Textures Powershell Script on the vanilla install of DCS, and then I install this mod, do I need to run the script again?

No, that makes no sense. Don't do it, not necessary for Maps.

Such optimizations work for Core and Modules because those only use a single set of textures. That's not the case for Maps.

CGTC already has included both "HIGH" and "LOW" resolution packages of textures, so it makes no sense to resize anything in this mod.
And same applies to all other Maps, ones that you buy for the game.

Leave the terrain textures as they are and, if you need better performance and/or lower VRAM usage on your GPU, then just set "Terrain Textures" to LOW (in game options).
You basically get same result by doing that as you would with "optimizing" terrain textures.

Resuming, no need to optimize anything here, and CGTC should be always installed last, after such optimized textures mods (batch process or not).

Edited November 10, 2024 by LucShep

[Sn8ke]

The best Caucus map alternative out there.