Anyhow, I did a full DDS conversion of all particles in the game and noticed a few things.
1) Conversion required not just an update of gfx, but an update of .material files.
2) In order for the DDS files to be recognized in the log and attempt use in the game, due to the same file names being present in the mod version of the materials file, I had to outright delete the associated files in the vanilla tree.
3) This resulted in DDS files being used, and a massive error reduction in the log file. Files were simply used, without on the fly MIP generation, which I'm operating under the assumption will reduce system load substantially due to the processing already being done in the file.
DDS files are used in a number of assets, so I do know they can work, but when these were finally force loaded, all particle effects became invisible.
This suggests that the appropriate png files and/or the vanilla tree must be present in order for the files to function.
Now, I could go down the rabbit hole of redoing every single particle effect ingame, making a different image file name, material file name, and .pu file name, to go with new entries in FCS associated with appropriate effect types.
But before I jump down this rather deep hole, I'm curious. Has somebody else done this? If so, what were your results? Is it worth it? Does it even function, or is there something hard-coded that I wont be able to get around?
Cheers