Saving DDS files properly

[yellowdog]

I've had this working before, but after updating to Photoshop 2023 and the latest Nvidia plugin, I've lost my presets and can't remember which settings I need to use to save dds files in a way that ORTS recognizes them. The default setting doesn't work (outlined in orange), but the drop down gives me 22 different options to choose from, and I can't remember which is correct. I'm assuming it's one of the selections in this box and not another setting....but that could be a false assumption.

[scottb613]

Hi Folks,

For Track - you probably want DXT5 with Interpolated Alpha - DXT3 with Explicit Alpha would be fine as well.

The only difference between DXT3 and DXT5 is the quality of the alpha - DXT5 is better.

Regards,
Scott

[pwillard]

Isn't one of them lower resolution ALPHA (DXT3?) and the other related to more bits (like 255) Alpha channel values? So it depends on *which* purpose you use them. If you NEED the gradient details in the alpha *mask* use the higher resolution one... but you pay a price in *more bits*

[wacampbell]

Use DXT1 whenever possible. It uses only half the GPU resources compared to DXT5.

DXT1 for no alpha ( opaque), or 1 bit ( on/off ) alpha
DXT3 4 bit alpha provides 16 levels of translucency
DXT5 8 bit alpha provides 256 levels of translucency.

[yellowdog]

Thanks for all the responses! The track image was simply what I had handy to load up quickly for demonstration purposes of the photoshop menus.

I thought I remembered using DXT1 in the past, but when I was looking stuff up online there was discussion of using BC5 for some newer things. But I'm still learning about these formats, having used ace and tga extensively for so long. Looks like it's time to experiment with DXT3 and 5!

[scottb613]

Hi Folks,

If you encounter any ROW vegetation textures that flash in unison - the fix is to convert them to DXT1 with Alpha.

Vegetation should be DXT1.

Regards,
Scott

[yellowdog]

Thanks, Scott. In my search for the answer to my op question, I ran across a thread that suggested unchecking Model Instancing under Video options would also solve the flickering. But the manual doesn't say too much about that feature, and I haven't run into this problem very much myself.