Author Topic: HiTech, does this idea have any merit? (Read 432 times)

tkor · « **on:** July 27, 2004, 08:02:32 AM »

This will definately show my ignorance about coding, but...
I know in patch 6 you can have textures preloaded to system memory or, if you have sufficient video card memory to the video card. I think you must need 256 Meg of video card memory for that to work, yet a good number of people (myself included) have cards with 128 Meg. With that card (Radeon 9500 Pro) I notice I only use about 30 to 35 Meg, so there is obviously some residual capacity on the card.
My question is this: Is it possible to reprogram the game to have the program load the background scenery textures on the system memory and the plane textures on the video memory? My reasoning is that the video card memory is faster, and the times when I start to bog down is in furballs where there are a lot of planes around. If all the plane textures were loaded into video memory, would that speed things up a bit?
My guess is that if this would be helpful, you would have thought of this already, but it never hurts to ask.

Ohio330 · « **Reply #1 on:** July 27, 2004, 11:32:25 AM »

Dunno bout you, but Textures loadeded into my system memory
take up about 650 MB..dunno any video cards out there that
can hold all that.

Ohio330 · « **Reply #2 on:** July 27, 2004, 11:33:22 AM »

*bonk's self* sorry misread your post. Ignore my
dislexia.

hitech · « **Reply #3 on:** July 27, 2004, 12:38:26 PM »

tkor, they will not fit. but once a plane is in view i.e. it's texture is used, it is in video memory. It wouldn't make any difference at all for speed, it would just eliminate a possible studder when the plane comes into view. And since it apears studders are gone with preload into video memory, it wouldn't accomplish anything.

HiTech

tkor · « **Reply #4 on:** July 27, 2004, 01:09:16 PM »

Thanks, HiTech.
As I suspected, my ignorance of how things work was apparent!

I pretty much figured that if this was a workable solution you would have tried it already.
Just was trying to be helpful.

paulobrien6969 · « **Reply #5 on:** July 27, 2004, 05:35:54 PM »

hitech even though my studders are considerubly better
i am still getting them, especialy when low over a base in a furball
and this is with textures preloaded into my 256mb vid card
the used mem shows about 230mb of 256mb system memory used and only 30-40mb of video memory used
would more being stored in my vid card not help?
because it does seems a lot of my system mem is being used still and little of the vid is being used

MOSQ · « **Reply #6 on:** July 27, 2004, 06:39:19 PM »

I have a 128 MB Video card. To get the textures to pre-load in video memory I have to reduce my texture size to 128. Works real well though, no studders ever anymore.

I just have to remember to go Offline first, then Online to avoid the UDP to TCP issue.