4K 32bit textures on all modules

[Cleric812]

Hello all,

I am sorry to be bringing up the same topic again as from months ago, however I feel it is still worth mentioning again and something that might help out a lot of people who are having issues since the latest few releases.

As pointed out in a post in March 2023 by @Taz1004 a lot of the normal map, roughmet, and FLIR texture sizes in the game are absolutely huge. These texture files do not need to be this huge (22+MB and some reaching 64+MB) and are furthermore stored as uncompressed 32bit textures when they can easily be compressed without giving up any visual quality. The FLIR textures don't have to be 4K since all we ever see them through is our MFD's or similar sensors which do not have this resolution in the first place. The textures that are affected are mostly found in a lot of the newer modules but they are not exclusive to them. They are also not exclusive to player controlled modules or aircraft/helicopters. Ground units have the same issues. The issue also occurs with many off the addon modules not developed by ED themselves so perhaps a word from ED to the other developers to have a streamlined and standardized texture creation procedure could be considered?

From what I can tell from some of the videos I have seen regarding the latest issues with stuttering many of us seem to be suffering from, it appears that DCS is trying to use as many cores as it can get to constantly load/unload textures between SSD->VRAM->RAM->page file leading to massive bottlenecks on the SSD side as the threads end up waiting on the SSD and thus each other.

Perhaps one way to combat this issue would be to have the normal map, roughmet, and FLIR textures reduced in size which would, without sacrificing image quality;

1. Alleviate some of the bandwidth requirements between all these different components.

2. Reduce overall VRAM and RAM usage.

3. Reduce texture loading times.

4. Reduce the size of the sim itself (which stands at 861GB for me personally as I own nearly all modules and terrains).

I totally understand the dev team is busy but if a modder can make these changes in a matter of a week or two it should be possible for the dev team to put someone on the task of hunting down these insane textures and make them a much more reasonable size.

 

I implore you @BIGNEWY and @NineLine to please pass this message on to the responsible people and take another hard look at these texture files since this was first reported already over a year ago.

As someone who has been using DCS since the days of LOMAC, please pass this on and take it seriously because I feel this could make the sim so much more enjoyable for many.

 

Kind regards,

Vincent van Veen

Edited September 15, 2024 by Cleric812
Change in title

[Cleric812]

Hello all,

Just checking in to see if there’s any response?

 

Brgds

[Cleric812]

Hello all,

Still no messages I see? I did some digging through the texture files and noticed every single texture is an uncompressed 32bit file. Again for normal maps, bump maps, roughmets and specular highlights this is not needed. It is using up valuable RAM, VRAM, and disk space.

Don’t get me wrong, I do not want the game to go down in graphical fidelity. But these textures are a waste of space. And I know I can set my texture resolution to medium. This helps and is the only way I can actually run the game normally on my 6900XT with my Pimax Crystal, but the cockpits of older modules such as the F-5, UH-1 and Mi-8 are nearly unreadable and a blurry mess because the colour texture files are not high res enough. They are readable at texture resolution high.

If there would be a real effort to optimise all these unnecessarily large and uncompressed texture the game could run so much better at the high texture resolution setting.

 

I am currently not at my home PC but I will have a try at changing these textures to more suitable resolutions and post some before/after shots as well as run some benchmarks.

Again @BIGNEWY and @NineLine I ask you to please take this to the developers. As well as third party devs and ask them to re-examine the texturing process. The way it is done now doesn’t work and needs optimising, badly, and has done so far well over a year. 65MB textures for the chair of the AH-64 alone doesn’t make any sense, nor does it make sense for ground units or the FLIR images.

We are trying to fly a flight simulator, not take screenshots where the FPS and VRAM usage is irrelevant. Perhaps it would be an idea to offer people a chance to use the super over the top textures as an addon so they can choose to load up the sim to these unrealistic textures for screenshot taking? This way the rest of us who just want to fly can use the following:

Colour textures 4096x4096xDXT5

Normal and Roughmet 2048x2048xDXT5

FLIR textures 1024x1024xDXT5

And a look at the damage model textures which are often huge, some even 8192x8129x32bit

Sincerely,

Vincent van Veen

[Zyll]

The cockpit textures for the Chinook are out of control. Wait until this thing gets a helmet display and more functional MFDs, the performance is going to tank really badly. Fortunately for folks who are adventurous enough to try to optimize their own DCS installation, there are threads out there with instructions and even semi automated tools to do our own texture conversions.

https://forum.dcs.world/topic/357233-dcs-optimized-textures-powershell-script/


Zyll @ TAW

[Cleric812]

Good afternoon,

@zyll That is basically what I have been looking for for ages now! An automated way to get the file sizes in check! Thank you so much for pointing me in that direction

I ran the script through my DCS folder and noticed the following results with regards to my original 4 points as laid out in the first post:

1. Less hard stuttering whenever I fly the CH-47, AH-64 or the OH-58 around the new Afghanistan map due to smaller textures being loaded in/out om memory or the SSD.

2. VRAM usage going to a manageable 13-14GB instead of instantly running to the 16GB which is the max on my GPU. RAM usage down from 40GB to 30GB.

3. Game loads slightly faster, though not a huge deal.

4. Total game size on SSD reduced from 861GB to 804GB.

 

The texture conversion took my 5800X3D less than an hour to complete. The aircraft and cockpits look nearly identical and you really have to put them side by side to see the difference but the advantages are huge IMHO.

 

@BIGNEWY and @NineLine This is not a huge ask of the team. This way we can still fly around using high texture settings with clear readable cockpits. It would be a huge deal if someone could please have a look at an optimized texture resolution and format option especially with the newer modules having ever larger texture file sizes. Even compressing all textures from 32bit to a much more manageable DXT5 or similar would be a plus.

Can you please let us know if there is anyone looking into this? It shouldn't have to take 1,5 years plus to do what the community has done with the script and freely available tools (many thanks to @Zyll for pointing it out and @zbysiek for creating the awesome script)

 

Kind regards,

Vincent van Veen

 

 

And two more shots from the AH-64

Edited September 9, 2024 by Cleric812
Screenshots

[Darcaem]

+1

Just here to say my experience has been the same, great improvement and no stutters so far on the same mission. VRAM usage reduzed has been the key for me it seems.

[zbysiek]

Also dear Eagle Dynamics, the license on that script is WTFPL.

Edited September 10, 2024 by zbysiek

[Cleric812]

Hello all,

Don’t mean to be annoying and bumping this thread but I never saw this one and I am honestly shocked to see this thread is so old already!

The issue still persists to this day and is getting worse with every new module that is released! See:

and:

It would take less than an hour to run the script through a fully loaded (every module installed that is available) and it would reduce texture sizes by 60+ GB in total. This allows people to actually use high texture settings at high resolution and have all their cockpits readable since the older modules at medium settings are blurry. 4K 32bit textures are a total waste of resources if used for anything but the actual colour textures. And even then they would probably look just as good if they were compressed as DXT5 or similar saving so much memory both RAM/VRAM and disk space. Please have a look at this to try and improve and optimise the sim where it is sorely needed. @Flappie @BIGNEWY @NineLine

It is not a handful of textures that are affected. There are hundreds of them that have to grown to ridiculous sizes that can be fixed in a matter of minutes using the script by @zbysiek

Kind regards,

Vincent van Veen

[MadKreator]

Ran this script on mine and it modified over 4000  files, saving around 70 gigs of space and couldn’t tell one bit of difference in quality. Used 2-3 less gigs of VRAM flying the CH-47 in Afghanistan. From maxed out 16 to 13.3 ish.It’s a much needed optimization across the board, I believe.

[waterman]

Thats Fantastic !

I hope the next update or a repair does not detect the changes and que the files for download to be restored to their original size !

[Art-J]

^ It certainly will. From dcs_updater's "point of view" a modified file is a modified file and has to be restored.

With the script, however, shrinking these textures afterwards is finally not much more complicated for us than re-enabling mods in OvGME/OMM so at least that's a good thing.

[waterman]

Thats cool and you can just run it after an update or repair.

I am not a big fan of these huge textures and huge poly models in games.

To me its best to let the sim have the breathing room to get on with the actual important background detections and calculations. 

That is a massive amount of space you save.               

4k files are big

When you view a 4k pic in paintshop pro at 1920x1080 desktop and pan around you realize how big 4k is.

 

Edited September 12, 2024 by waterman

[draconus]

2 hours ago, waterman said:

When you view a 4k pic in paintshop pro at 1920x1080 desktop and pan around you realize how big 4k is.

And when you put it on 20m aircraft you can see how small the texture is, so it depends.

[waterman]

Yes i know.

The Aircraft can also be mapped in smaller sections it does not need to be the whole side view projected from a 4k view onto the plane.

[buceador]

It would be helpful to have some input from ED on this.

@BIGNEWY @NineLine ?

[BIGNEWY]

Hi folks, 

this thread is old and the work done on the previous modules and textures sizes were completed. 

The new AH-64D and the CH-47F will also get more optimisations in the future, and I will remind the team about it today. 

Im going to split this thread to cover the new request. 

thank you  

[Cleric812]

So basically what I am getting from your post @BIGNEWY is that 4K 32 bit normal maps (and FLIR/roughmet textures) are intended to be this size and a huge drain on resources? I understand the desire for image quality but at what cost? Do ground units that I don't see from up close really need to have enormous files so that I take a nice looking screenshot of them?

Since the other thread’s GPU's have gotten more VRAM sent we are again at the limits of what is possible with these unoptimised textures both at 4K screen resolutions and especially VR. I think the reason this feels frustrating to many is that using the script to reduce texture sizes proves the game is eating up enormous amounts of RAM and especially VRAM at high texture resolution. If I run the game with the default textures I run out of VRAM (all 16GB) nearly immediately. This leaves me with 3 options.

1. Use high texture resolution but run out of VRAM and encounter massive stuttering as the game constantly loads/unloads textures.

2. Use medium texture resolution, however now I cannot read my cockpit in certain modules since they are older and become blurry.

3. Manually alter my textures so I can use high but now I cannot join servers that require a pure client.

I understand there is no pleasing everyone, but this optimisation which is sorely needed for the entire games texture library, would go a long way on alleviating all these RAM/VRAM issues. And just getting more RAM or a GPU with more VRAM is not a solution due to the costs involved. Brute forcing can only go so far.

As has been suggested more than once. Perhaps the standard game should have these textures optimised and compressed using the optimal method for the texture’s purpose. And a separate pack be made available as DLC which allows users to go for super ultra high res textures for making a cool screenshot or video.

 

Again the game can run and look amazing at high texture resolution IF the texture are better optimised. I understand this has been talked about many times. But I simply cannot see how this has not been addressed yet.

[BIGNEWY]

11 minutes ago, Cleric812 said:

So basically what I am getting from your post @BIGNEWY is that 4K 32 bit normal maps (and FLIR/roughmet textures) are intended to be this size and a huge drain on resources? I understand the desire for image quality but at what cost? Do ground units that I don't see from up close really need to have enormous files so that I take a nice looking screenshot of them?

Since the other thread’s GPU's have gotten more VRAM sent we are again at the limits of what is possible with these unoptimised textures both at 4K screen resolutions and especially VR. I think the reason this feels frustrating to many is that using the script to reduce texture sizes proves the game is eating up enormous amounts of RAM and especially VRAM at high texture resolution. If I run the game with the default textures I run out of VRAM (all 16GB) nearly immediately. This leaves me with 3 options.

1. Use high texture resolution but run out of VRAM and encounter massive stuttering as the game constantly loads/unloads textures.

2. Use medium texture resolution, however now I cannot read my cockpit in certain modules since they are older and become blurry.

3. Manually alter my textures so I can use high but now I cannot join servers that require a pure client.

I understand there is no pleasing everyone, but this optimisation which is sorely needed for the entire games texture library, would go a long way on alleviating all these RAM/VRAM issues. And just getting more RAM or a GPU with more VRAM is not a solution due to the costs involved. Brute forcing can only go so far.

As has been suggested more than once. Perhaps the standard game should have these textures optimised and compressed using the optimal method for the texture’s purpose. And a separate pack be made available as DLC which allows users to go for super ultra high res textures for making a cool screenshot or video.

 

Again the game can run and look amazing at high texture resolution IF the texture are better optimised. I understand this has been talked about many times. But I simply cannot see how this has not been addressed yet.

The AH-64D and the CH-47F have some optimisation's planned, I have also shared this thread with the teams, I can not give you any ETA currently however for those optimisations. 

thanks

[Cleric812]

@BIGNEWY thank you for the reply and bringing this to the attention of the teams working hard to make our sim better. Don’t get me wrong, I love DCS and I just want to see the sim grow and be better.

[BIGNEWY]

1 hour ago, Cleric812 said:

@BIGNEWY thank you for the reply and bringing this to the attention of the teams working hard to make our sim better. Don’t get me wrong, I love DCS and I just want to see the sim grow and be better.

No worries, I understand, and we all want the same. Just bear in mind our teams priorities my not always match what we want and we have to wait sometimes. 

thanks

[SignorMagnifico]

Hello! I see that there have been multiple pings sent to @BIGNEWY and @NineLine. Could either of you kindly please provide a response or alert the dev team? There are some VERY good points in this thread regarding VRAM usage and optimization. 
 

Also, I find it sad that the end user has to compress the textures down with a powershell script to get any reasonable performance back while simultaneously breaking integrity check. We shouldn’t have to do the developer’s job for them.

[BIGNEWY]

1 hour ago, SignorMagnifico said:

Hello! I see that there have been multiple pings sent to @BIGNEWY and @NineLine. Could either of you kindly please provide a response or alert the dev team? There are some VERY good points in this thread regarding VRAM usage and optimization. 
 

Also, I find it sad that the end user has to compress the textures down with a powershell script to get any reasonable performance back while simultaneously breaking integrity check. We shouldn’t have to do the developer’s job for them.

Hi

I have replied to other threads on the same subject, the team have some optimisations planned but we have to wait for free dev time, currently they are busy with other tasks. I have highlighted the user scripts being used for textures optimisations and they are aware its a pressing matter, but I am unable to give any ETA currently on the work. As soon as there has been some progress made we will add it to a future change log. 

thank you 

[BIGNEWY]

Threads merged 

 

[SignorMagnifico]

1 hour ago, BIGNEWY said:

Hi

I have replied to other threads on the same subject, the team have some optimisations planned but we have to wait for free dev time, currently they are busy with other tasks. I have highlighted the user scripts being used for textures optimisations and they are aware its a pressing matter, but I am unable to give any ETA currently on the work. As soon as there has been some progress made we will add it to a future change log. 

thank you 

Thank you, BIGNEWY. 

Edited September 12, 2024 by SignorMagnifico

[zbysiek]

13 hours ago, BIGNEWY said:

Hi

I have replied to other threads on the same subject, the team have some optimisations planned but we have to wait for free dev time, currently they are busy with other tasks. I have highlighted the user scripts being used for textures optimisations and they are aware its a pressing matter, but I am unable to give any ETA currently on the work. As soon as there has been some progress made we will add it to a future change log. 

thank you 

In case it was missed: You (ED) are absoultely free to use and abuse this script however you want.