Creating textures is really really low...

milipili · Post by **milipili** » Fri Aug 01, 2008 1:48 pm

At this stage, TA3D takes 103% of my CPU during 15s :

Fri Aug  1 15:43:43 2008] [debug] MAP: initialising map data
[Fri Aug  1 15:43:43 2008] [infos] Blocs readin 0.126s.
[Fri Aug  1 15:43:43 2008] [debug] MAP: creating textures
[Fri Aug  1 15:43:45 2008] [infos] Textures for blocks in 2.426s.
[Fri Aug  1 15:43:45 2008] [debug] MAP: creating blocs texture coordinates
[Fri Aug  1 15:43:45 2008] [debug] MAP: creating low definition texture and lava map

I have all CXX/hpi + the Gp3 file. I tried with and without the new setting low def map. It changes nothing.

Any idea ?

Post by **zuzuf** » Fri Aug 01, 2008 2:04 pm

low def map is only a low poly mode

nothing to do with textures.

You can try to manually disable texture compression. Look at gfx/glfunc.cpp, there is a g_useTextureCompression boolean you can force to false, it'll disable texture compression which should greatly reduce loading times but will greatly increase video memory requirement.

milipili · Post by **milipili** » Fri Aug 01, 2008 2:57 pm

This feature is completely disabled on OS X (sorry I forgot to mention it). It makes the prgram crashes when the function allegro_gl_is_extension_supported("GL_ARB_texture_compression") is called.

Post by **zuzuf** » Fri Aug 01, 2008 4:13 pm

keep in mind that creating low detail map texture is long because it has to manipulate lots of data:
if you gfx card support up to 4096x4096 textures, then a "not too small" map will need a 4096x4096 texture which takes 32MB RAM in 16bits (which is why we use 16bits here instead of 32bits). And assembling small squares to make that texture can be long because of the number of squares

. Also since I put bloc computations back into 32 bits I had to write some "on the fly" conversion to 16bits for that step which isn't optimal ...

milipili · Post by **milipili** » Fri Aug 01, 2008 6:23 pm

May be however It did not take so long before

Post by **zuzuf** » Fri Aug 01, 2008 7:33 pm

try again it should be better now

milipili · Post by **milipili** » Fri Aug 01, 2008 7:41 pm

You're a Voodoo Jedi Master ?

Indeed it is faaaar better

milipili · Post by **milipili** » Fri Aug 01, 2008 7:44 pm

May be you should invert the option.

`Map High definition` may be better for the final user. The green light is more comforting than a red one.

Post by **zuzuf** » Fri Aug 01, 2008 8:33 pm

hm we should vote for this ...

Doors · Post by **Doors** » Sat Aug 02, 2008 3:02 am

zuzuf wrote:hm we should vote for this ... :D

In my own opinion the game should load and initially run in minimum eye candy mode with things set as low as possible.

This could be with all the tweaks turned off(Red), and people could turn on what they want to test to see if it works on their system, but the base game minus all the tweaks to pretty it or speed it up could probably run on anything even though the quality will be low.

Could lead to a contest to see who can turn the most switches to green, when everyone can turn a given switch green all the time it could be moved to an advanced options panel for testing on new systems or environments.

Balthazar · Post by **Balthazar** » Sat Aug 02, 2008 7:06 am

Vote for default minimum settings. But, like Doors say, turning all on (Green) should lead to the best visual appearence.

Post by **zuzuf** » Sat Aug 02, 2008 9:35 am

I don't think setting low def geometry as default is a good idea ... since it has been added for slow computers without accelerated T&L ... but the engine is already optimized at this level and reduce the amount of geometry sent through the OpenGL pipeline without reducing quality (on a flat map, there is no difference between normal and low def modes ...)

Balthazar · Post by **Balthazar** » Sat Aug 02, 2008 10:05 am

Hmm... Maybe geometry settings really should be set to "normal or high def". We should chose the average PC reqirements and set default settings according to it.
There`ll be definately T&L video card with at least 128 MB or RAM
CPU at least 1.8 Ghrz
Ram at least 512 MBs

Post by **zuzuf** » Sat Aug 02, 2008 10:26 am

a 1GHz CPU should be enough if you have a T&L video card (such as a GeForce 2 MX for example

), but I don't think we can cut down the 512MB of RAM if you want to play with TA:CC or/and TA:BT or with mods. If you add a feature pack it'll definitely require more memory

Creating textures is really really low...

Creating textures is really really low...

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