It's hardly surprising that Rio is a resource hog, it's got to be one of the most richly-detailed tracks out there, and largely unoptimised.
@megolito, you could optimise it yourself with 3DsimEd if you really do want better performance. I've been looking for the posts on F1 Classic where somebody (I can't remember who, sadly - might have been Terra21 or maybe Jim Lloyd) told how it was done. Anyone remember the instructions? It's apparently not hard, just time consuming.
I think it was Terra21. I found this quote:
Hi guys.. with most conversions for AC reducing the texture/material count to lower D.I.P is a major factor to getting acceptable FPS.. But it also takes a hell of a long time to do. Some times too long to even bother with.. and the FM7 tracks take the cake when it comes to the material count. as each track has literally thousands of them..so getting a grid of say 24 AI working with decent fps is going to be quite the task..
Edit: aha! It was Jim Lloyd who posted instructions:
its pretty straight forward.....open the kn5s in 3dsimed...the 2 that need looking at are the track and the raceday kn5s
once in 3dsimed open the edit materials tab....then simply search for materials that use the same diffuse texture (dont worry if the shader settings are different at this stage...i can sort that later)
basically its like the game flounders....match the materials using the same texture and name them the same....once you have done a few re-export the kn5 and save over the existing....it may not seem like anything is happening but slowly and surely the dip will come down ...if your totally not sure and worried that something has gone wrong just shout and i will help?
Original post here:
http://f1classic.forumotion.com/t19749p175-list-of-all-tracks-with-links-part-3#376395