Cloud textures causing low Frames!!!

Just a quick question. is there any way of reducing the load that clouds put on The FPS??

Usually i can lock my FPS at 25 with everything set to maximum bar one or two settings (i.e ground scenery casting shadows) and still have no problem flying through clouds (or anywhere else...cities etc)...as long as the clouds are not too dense!! if it is overcast my frames can drop to as low as 7 FPS while flyin through them... :-(i reduced the scenery settings to about half what they usually are but that only gave me about 2fps more, so i reckon its a problem with the clouds...

If anyone has any ideas on how to get better FPS, be it from different textures or some trick that some of ye folk might have up your sleeve I would be extremely grateful!!!

P.S.My weather settings are set like the tutorial on an ideal setting on this site...

Cillian,

I'm not sure if they are still around or not, but they used to have replacement clouds for FS9. I'm assuming you are talking about FS9. Just do a search on AVSIM.

What I have is ActiveSky and it has built in replacement cloud textures (zillions of them actually). The replacement textures are smaller in resolutions and DXT3 format (smaller files sizes too). That reduces the load on the CPU+memory when lots of clouds around.

Hope this helps.

Naresh

Cillian,
Go to www.flightsim.com and search for cloudfx3.zip .

Or just do a search for clouds and pick what you require.

To be honest i think Active Sky6 will be better, i know it is payware but it is worth it.

Dave

You can always just select "simple clouds" till you come up with a better solution.

I prefer Active Sky also.

That Helped a small bit Dave..but its still drops aslow as 12 or 13 FPS...i might consider getttin ActiveSky...i think there's a new version (6.5) out for FS9 now...

Jerry: if i can avoid using simple clouds i will...just because they look so bad...