target vram requirements
Blitz3D Forums/Blitz3D Beginners Area/target vram requirements
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| EDIT: I thought I put this in the Blitz3D Programming section.. I guess it fits here too ? Since im messing with bumpmaps and specular maps , ive gotten worried about hitting a vram , or even a fillrate cap for low end machines such as casual gaming laptops (nvidia go 7x series for example) The maps I plan on making will have anywhere from 6 to 12 individual textures per level (not counting scenery objects) What do you think a good standard would be for texture size ? Right now im at 512x512 but with the visuals turned on (bump and spec) Thats the equiv of a 1536x1536 image per texture! Even with the bump and spec turned off the 512x512 hits my laptop with a few fps, not noticable without my dev fps coutner because rendertweening covers it up, but still theres a hit. I can go down to 256x256 without loosing much in the textures, if I go to 128x128 ill have to have all the textures redrawn with that size in mind, the current set just cant handle that large of reduction. I dont want to remove the bump options because my game will hopfeully draw the players who like to make thier own maps&content , and I dont want to limit them, my concerns are for the official maps that I package with the game. Thanks in advance for any input you have on this. |
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| Maybe you could easily let the map designer set his own spec for machines and define a disclamer where are explained the minimum requirements for the map... Then, the texture size won't be anymore your problem :) I think if you put 128 res texture, it will just fade the graphics... now, video ram can store a large amount of textures... so, allowing low machine is smart, but higher PC will just have pour graphics. 1/ let the mapper map what he wants 2/ Let the player choose the map according to his favour. |
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| I agree with that Bobysait, now what im thinking most about are the official maps that are packed with the game, I think ill try to stay at 256 based on my own opinion and your comment. Thanks. |
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| - Square textures are faster. - Textures should be kept as small as possible. "The smaller the textures are, the better chance they have of being maintained in the main CPU's secondary cache". - Textures with the size 256x256 are the fastest for D3D hardwares. With that in mind, if you happen to have four 128x128 textures, it would be an optimization to combine them all into one 256x256 texture. (Infos taken from Direct3D 7 Documentation) Looking at your game, I don't think the visual aspect will take much of a hit if you use the standard 256 size. Using 512 could be a bit overkill. Only you can know that. Some N64 games keep beautiful levels with only 64x64 textures. They 'fit' in the world, so you don't happen to notice the detailing that much. |
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| RifRaf From memory, Blitz can handle DDS textures as well. I believe that'll reduce vid mem usage. BTW, are you still using Xors? |
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