Conserving texture memory

[Wint]

Each texture used in a track eats up a chunk of precious video memory, 256x256 model textures equal 16 small 64x64 textures.... so using too many model textures can really "clog" up a game and cause jerky lag even when the 'complexity' is low. Too many models have killed many tracks due to having more textures than can easily swap in and out of texture memory, you get those long pauses as the game tries to load the upcoming textures.


One thing to do is be efficient in your texture use, squeeze as much as you can into a 256x256 texture and then map the heck out of it ;-)

I have seen some really stupid things done with custom models. Lets say someone needed a solid color to map to something, so instead of using a single 64x64 solid colored texture they used a 256x256 SOLID colored texture -- well that is only 16 times bigger than it needed to be! Thanks for clogging up my video card pal ;-) (I think I have an idea for the new fix-it pod Phin ;-)

Truth is you can often get by with adding a small patch of a solid color to a portion of an existing 256x256 texture and mapping your faces to it. A solid color is a solid color, it's the same whether it's 1 pixel wide or 256 pixels wide

A neat trick for saving texture space:
In certain circumstances you can shrink a 256x256 texture to 64x64 and save it under a new filename. Then load up the model that uses it and "normalize" it to the new texture and save the model under a new unique filename-- all the mapping will stay proportionate, only your texture will be a bit more blurry than the original.

This trick works great for the mtm2 cow, it's hard to tell the two apart but one is 1/16th the texture load as the original! Try it.

[MIYH]

Thanks for the tip. I am guilty of wasting texture memory on models myself, I'll try to keep this in mind the next time I make one.

[Wint]

Like I've got room to talk... I have a custom backdrop that uses 14 large textures, hehe (that is almost 900kb worth!). I must admit it is the coolest backdrop I've yet seen (wait and see for yourself ;-) but it comes at such a steep price.

[Psyco]

sheesh man .... 14.... good grief

well take ur own advice

lets see 14x4 = 56

56 divided by 16 (# of 64x64's it takes to = take up the some amount of memory according to wk) = 3.5


hmmmm

14 vs 3.5 wow.... heheh it would take a while tho....



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