Author Topic: Textures ..Ques (Read 335 times)

sprint · « **on:** July 21, 2004, 11:19:30 PM »

Is their any advantage to preloading textures in system memory?

Video setup/textures

sprint
*MOL*

Blooz · « **Reply #1 on:** July 21, 2004, 11:54:04 PM »

Yes, that's why its an option.

If your system has enough RAM that is. Lots of people have been helped by this. Enter the game offline first. It'll give the textures time to load before you go online and help with the "lost UDP swiching to TCP" thing. Also make sure you've turned off all those pesky backgroud programs like Windows Update, Virus programs and maybe even your firewall.

If your video card is really spiffy you also have an option to load textures to video memory. This would be even better but few people have that much video memory yet.

Best of luck to ya

Skuzzy · « **Reply #2 on:** July 22, 2004, 11:30:28 AM »

Loading the textures into system RAM keeps them from having to be read from the hard drive when they are needed.

Loading the textures into video RAM keeps then from having to be transferred from system RAM when they are needed.

Either option will help keep Aces High II running smoothly. Just make sure to only use one of the options and not both.

bockko · « **Reply #3 on:** July 22, 2004, 12:09:02 PM »

Very interesting thread, I just tried the preload textures last night. How much video ram should you have on your card before you load to video ram? I have 64 meg right now, but will probable go to a 128 or 256 meg card soon.

Thanks!

Roscoroo · « **Reply #4 on:** July 22, 2004, 12:16:49 PM »

I have them loaded to video memory (256mb card)
the game runs fairly well and the stutters are gone ... but my frame rate avg is down below what i expected 20's in furballs and i havent seen over 50 yet .

MOSQ · « **Reply #5 on:** July 23, 2004, 01:13:38 AM »

Skuzzy,
I have both options enabled and use them both. To get the video ram preload to become enabled I had to drop my texture size to 128.

Even with the preload, my video card still has lots of free memory.

Why is it a problem to use both? I, like others, have noticed my FPS has dropped, but I'll give that up in a sec for the smooth game I have now. The stutters were awful for me before.

I assume from your explanation that pre-loading video ram is better than pre-loading system RAM? If you have a choice it's better to load video?

If using both is not a good idea, perhaps you should add a control to the code that will keep folks from enabling both. Basically only one box can be checked at a time.

Skuzzy · « **Reply #6 on:** July 23, 2004, 06:34:36 AM »

Actually, I mis-spoke. You can have both enabled.

Peformance wise, it all depends on the system. Generally speaking, with 128MB or less of video ram, it would be better to just preload into system ram.
As a suggestion, try the various combinations to see what works best with your computer.

MOSQ · « **Reply #7 on:** July 23, 2004, 10:28:50 AM »

Skuzzy,

Thanks for the clarification. I'll try all three possibilities and report back what I find.

I have an Asylum Nvidia FX-5200 Ultra with 128 MBs. I'm guessing that to get the Video to preload requires a Vid Card with an equal or greater amount of ram than the texture size? For instance my system wouldn't enable Vid Ram preload until I got down to 128 textures, or is it just coinicidence that I have a 128 MB card? Would a 256 MB card be able to preload the 256 textures?

It's probably just coincidence, I was just curious.

Thanks Again,
Mosq

Skuzzy · « **Reply #8 on:** July 23, 2004, 10:59:34 AM »

It is all about how much texture memory is required versus how much available video memory there is.

128 gets the textures small enough that they will fit into 128MB of ram today, but as new skins are added and other objects, you will probably not be able to get away with it.