Turning Object Textures to Low Without Affecting Pit or Terrain

[Smokin Hole]

I try to avoid messing with lua files for a very good reason, I don't understand them. What I do understand is that whenever I screw with things I don't understand I generally do more harm than good. My situation is this: I have an underpowered iMac that must run the game at 2560 x 1440. This has become a problem with World. It is no longer able to run the game smoothly. Now, airfields in particular turn it into a slide-show. I have tried lower resolutions but, in addition to looking fuzzy, it really doesn't help performance that much. So, all I want to do is to keep the terrain at high but reduce all objects, static objects, hangars/bunkers/buildings to their lowest possible detail. It may not work but I at least want to try before giving up on DCS entirely. Is this possible? And if so can someone point me to the correct lines to change? Thanks.

[Nate--IRL--]

Textures have little impact on FPS for any computer other than those over 6 or 7 years old. It is the Amount of triangles drawn on screen that hit FPS hard. Reduce the scenes, visibility distance, trees , grass etc etc until you find acceptable performance, then go tweaking.

 

Other tips include No TSSAA, and absolutely no mirrors or cockpit/tree shadows.

 

Nate

[Smokin Hole]

Thanks. But why do airfields have such a huge impact? They are pretty sparse. I mean, let's face it, compared to X-Plane SeaTac there is very little there to draw: some bomb-proof hangars, a couple of An-2s, and maybe a Hip or two. If it were not for the airports I would have little to complain about. But really the airports kill me and have done so since just about the the time P-51 was released. If I get away (or look away) from an airport, everything is fine even with Scenes, Textures and Visibility set to high and Shadows set to medium. It is true that I can make DCS run decently if I adjust it to look like Falcon 4. But then what's the point?

[doveman]

There certainly is an issue with airfields. I run on High, except Water and Shadows I've got on Low, at 1920x1200 and get 40-50fps flying around but this drops to 30fps even flying towards an airfield some distance away. Once at the airfield (Mozdok) and I'm just past it so the runway/vehicles are longer in view but the town/buildings behind it are, it goes back up to 40+

 

Even at the start when on the ground, I get 42fps looking straight ahead but 28fps when looking left at the helos next to me (or 23fps if I use the Ctrl+Num0, Num4 snapview).