How does torque handle textures?
by FruitBatInShades · in Torque Game Engine · 09/28/2004 (12:13 pm) · 11 replies
Does it load them all at mission start?
Does it page them in and out of video memory? If so how and when?
What is the max mb/texture count torque can handle in a mission?
Does bm8 improve performance and how do I use it :)
Thanks
Does it page them in and out of video memory? If so how and when?
What is the max mb/texture count torque can handle in a mission?
Does bm8 improve performance and how do I use it :)
Thanks
#2
10/06/2004 (8:01 am)
Anyone got any idea? Bump!
#3
10/26/2004 (3:50 am)
Here I am bumping again! Doesn't anyone have any idea?
#4
10/26/2004 (5:55 am)
I don't know about the other questions, but bm8 is an 8-bit bitmap format which is/was used in the Tribes games so that less graphics memory is needed for each texture. Whether using it would increase performance would depend on the amount of memory on the end user's video card and which display mode they used (as well as how much memory your textures needed).
#5
10/26/2004 (6:10 am)
The textures are quite detailed but should drop to 8 bit quite easily, a set at the moment is running at about 1 meg, thats for about 10 textures (Walls, doors, windows) etc
#6
10/26/2004 (9:13 am)
I'm not 100% sure, but I think that video cards still use 16 bits per pixel in 16-bit display modes, even if the textures are 8-bit.
#7
10/26/2004 (10:02 am)
There are a variety of tactics you can use to save on texture memory - it's usually a space/quality trade off.
#8
10/30/2004 (11:24 am)
What would be a good target for a mission? 2, 4, 8, 16 ,32 mb?
#9
10/30/2004 (12:01 pm)
Some ATI Cards don't even support 8 bit textures(maybe others too), so maybe thats not such a good idea. The best thing would be to get DDS textures working. Also I'm curious about what the texture manager does do. Does it only load at run time, does it do any management based on vram, does it stream? What would one give up if it was sidestepped? 
#10
10/30/2004 (12:02 pm)
It depends, FBIS. For Marble Blast Xbox we used 32-bit textures, sampled at 16 bits, and it performed very well. Our texture size was also huge for the tiles, 256x256. (Regular marble blast is 64x64) I wouldn't worry about it too, too much at first. Make it look like you want it to, then find ways to cut, just try not to shoot yourself in the foot while doing so. (That's what I do with programming at least)
#11
Make the game you want, keeping in mind the general limitations of your target systems, then worry about making it run on the lowest common denominator.
10/30/2004 (3:37 pm)
The best target is the one that meets your needs. On a console, you have a fixed footprint; on a PC it's somewhat fuzzier.Make the game you want, keeping in mind the general limitations of your target systems, then worry about making it run on the lowest common denominator.
Torque Owner Eric C. Tomlinson
Sorry to hit you up here but contact me so we can talk about buildings and models for UnCivilized.
I apologize for hijacking this thread.