Is the texture resolution increased by 400%?

[Fitzcarraldo]

On 1/29/2025 at 8:55 PM, SkateZilla said:

For Those that arent "Graphically Knowledge-able"

The Current FCS: MiG-29's Normal Maps are:
2048x2048 for 4,194,304 px

a 400% / 4x Increase to a Surface ^2 Texture is:
4096x4096 for 16,777,216 px, 

4K ^2 Textures are standard for pretty much everything now.

Put the Pitchforks away.

As long as they're not 32bit/channel...

[LucShep]

On 1/29/2025 at 7:55 PM, SkateZilla said:

For Those that arent "Graphically Knowledge-able"

The Current FCS: MiG-29's Normal Maps are:
2048x2048 for 4,194,304 px

a 400% / 4x Increase to a Surface ^2 Texture is:
4096x4096 for 16,777,216 px, 

4K ^2 Textures are standard for pretty much everything now.

Put the Pitchforks away.

HEH... pitchforks... and the "standard"?
The "standard" is to have full sized diffuse maps and 1/2 size of that on every other map (speculars and glows). Which is what everybody has been asking for, if you noticed.
But ED and 3rd parties actually make them all full size (diffuse, speculars and glows), and most times at 4K size.
That's even in situations when even Diffuse at 2K and speculars and glows (Spec/Norm/NRM/Roughmet) at 1K would be more than sufficient (with armament/weapons, for instances). It's crazy!

Also, it's a mistake to think that the textures need to be at 4K (4096 pixels) or 2K (2048 pixels) or 1K (1024 pixels).
You can use in-between sizes and get more gains with it as well - they only need to be multiple of four.
So many textures could very well be at 3K (3072 pixels) and be pratically indistinguishable from 4K ones, with huge gains once you collect all the textures.
Or be at 1.5K (1536 pixels) and nearly indistinguishable from 2K ones, again noticeable gains once you collect all the textures.

And then comes the format...
Who in his/her right mind would risk to use 32-bit textures in a game like this, with so many textures at such high resolutions? 8-bit is plenty enough, noone will notice a difference whatsoever and it's at least 2x smaller (see here)...!
And transparencies (DXT5) used when there is none in use (so could have been DXT1) - yet more gains ignored, textures that could have been, yet again, 2x smaller...!

The part that irritates me, in all these years that we've been begging for ED and 3rd parties to do it, is the sheer lack of will to even experiment. So that they can see for themselves what we've been talking about. Because it's that evident, once in game, after you correct sizes and formats of textures in everything.

ED and 3rd parties need to do better, there are significant gains to be had for everybody and it's all neglected. It's no wonder DCS is such a VRAM guzzler.
 

Edited February 4 by LucShep

[SkateZilla]

16 hours ago, LucShep said:

HEH... pitchforks... and the "standard"?
The "standard" is to have full sized diffuse maps and 1/2 size of that on every other map (speculars and glows). Which is what everybody has been asking for, if you noticed.
But ED and 3rd parties actually make them all full size (diffuse, speculars and glows), and most times at 4K size.
That's even in situations when even Diffuse at 2K and speculars and glows (Spec/Norm/NRM/Roughmet) at 1K would be more than sufficient (with armament/weapons, for instances). It's crazy!

Also, it's a mistake to think that the textures need to be at 4K (4096 pixels) or 2K (2048 pixels) or 1K (1024 pixels).
You can use in-between sizes and get more gains with it as well - they only need to be multiple of four.
So many textures could very well be at 3K (3072 pixels) and be pratically indistinguishable from 4K ones, with huge gains once you collect all the textures.
Or be at 1.5K (1536 pixels) and nearly indistinguishable from 2K ones, again noticeable gains once you collect all the textures.

And then comes the format...
Who in his/her right mind would risk to use 32-bit textures in a game like this, with so many textures at such high resolutions? 8-bit is plenty enough, noone will notice a difference whatsoever and it's at least 2x smaller (see here)...!
And transparencies (DXT5) used when there is none in use (so could have been DXT1) - yet more gains ignored, textures that could have been, yet again, 2x smaller...!

The part that irritates me, in all these years that we've been begging for ED and 3rd parties to do it, is the sheer lack of will to even experiment. So that they can see for themselves what we've been talking about. Because it's that evident, once in game, after you correct sizes and formats of textures in everything.

ED and 3rd parties need to do better, there are significant gains to be had for everybody and it's all neglected. It's no wonder DCS is such a VRAM guzzler.
 

in my experience, the 2:1 Pulldown in resolution trend was discontinued in 2004ish.

Shoot in my studio renders for TV Shows and Movies the Normal, Metallic and Roughness Maps are 2x the size of the general albedo maps...

As for Formats, it's BC7 For Transparency and BC1 without.

Edited February 4 by SkateZilla

[Ganl]

It's time to stop the pointless stuffing of modelling and textures， the F4 and F14 visuals are pretty much the same as the F16, JF17, FA18, but the frame rate drops considerably, not to mention that this behaviour affects all users, because even if you don't buy the plane, the huge texture maps and liveries will be downloaded to your computer as the game updates. I think users should be given the right to choose, like COD17 launched the HD texture pack, users can choose according to their needs.

[Gierasimov]

18 minutes ago, Ganl said:

the F4 and F14 visuals are pretty much the same as the F16, JF17, FA18,

but the frame rate drops considerably, 

hm... NO, the visual fidelity of anything before F4 is nowhere near it. 

as for the frame drops, it depends, right? It's never a single answer with DCS. 

[Dragon1-1]

On 4/23/2025 at 5:01 PM, Gierasimov said:

hm... NO, the visual fidelity of anything before F4 is nowhere near it. 

Maybe, but you only notice when you're flying it. Even when taxiing next to it, the difference in quality is minor.

I wonder if the pulldown could be done procedurally by the engine. "Extreme" textures will everything in full res, and "Very High" settings with non-diffuse maps downscaled. Won't help storage consumption, but should help VRAM.

[draconus]

It's a mess currently with the newer module's textures "low" being similar quality to older module's "high". More, even the one setting gives you some textures lower or higher depending on the part of the aircraft/cockpit. We'd have to have very detailed settings for each of the aircraft parts/cockpit to keep control of the quality vs performance or get it all overhauled to keep some standard.