For the texture compression, it will only compress textures with "[compress]" in the png comment by default. This is because texture compression looks awful for most of the textures we use, which tend to have a lot of text/logos in them. For natural textures it works fairly well. The settings are "No" - never compress, "Yes" - compress only if the comment is there, "Always" - always use compression.
Replace mx.exe or mxbin with one of the above files. The default location for mx.exe should be "C:\Program Files\MX Simulator". I'd keep a backup of the originals since these aren't well tested.
Josh Vanderhoof
Sole Proprietor jlv@mxsimulator.com
If you email, put "MX Simulator" in the subject to make sure it gets through my spam filter.
I just tested it on Thunder Valley. Cut the texture memory from 474 mb to 205 mb. I only noticed a drop in texture quality at a distance as well. The logos on the start banner got a touch blurry at a distance. Nothing was bad enough to stop me from running on "always" though. Good feature! Now to see if I can notice the steering thing
Also, the compression feature is obviously good for animations. The compression works best when there's not alot of change in colour right? Like, without compression, a 128x128 texture would use the same memory no matter what, but with compression, a texture with a single colour would compress significantly more than a texture with alot of noise?
DJ99X wrote:I just tested it on Thunder Valley. Cut the texture memory from 474 mb to 205 mb. I only noticed a drop in texture quality at a distance as well. The logos on the start banner got a touch blurry at a distance. Nothing was bad enough to stop me from running on "always" though. Good feature! Now to see if I can notice the steering thing
For text it has some bad color bleed. For monochrome text it might be OK. Otherwise going down a step on the resolution looks better to me.
The color bleeding is because the color is done in 4x4 blocks.
DJ99X wrote:Also, the compression feature is obviously good for animations. The compression works best when there's not alot of change in colour right? Like, without compression, a 128x128 texture would use the same memory no matter what, but with compression, a texture with a single colour would compress significantly more than a texture with alot of noise?
It doesn't compress the animations. Those are kept in system memory and uploaded every time the animation updates. Someday it will stream ogg video...
Josh Vanderhoof
Sole Proprietor jlv@mxsimulator.com
If you email, put "MX Simulator" in the subject to make sure it gets through my spam filter.
DJ99X wrote:But it compresses the individual frames right? That would still help
You mean the textures it streams into? They can't be compressed because the frames are constantly being uploaded to them. If you mean the actual animation frames in system memory, they aren't but they really should be.
I'm surprised no one's talking about the new speed variable steering lock reduction. I thought it was a pretty awesome stability improvement!
Also, I forgot to put this in the change list, but I think I fixed the statue lighting in the editor.
Josh Vanderhoof
Sole Proprietor jlv@mxsimulator.com
If you email, put "MX Simulator" in the subject to make sure it gets through my spam filter.
jlv wrote:I'm surprised no one's talking about the new speed variable steering lock reduction. I thought it was a pretty awesome stability improvement!
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For lack of a better Signature.
I had a go before. It is definitely a sweet improvement! I've just got to find a good setting. Sometimes the lack of steering angle makes it hard to have the back end out on fast flat corners.
Did it used to be full steering range at all speeds?
