Precaching
by Luis Anton · in Technical Issues · 11/21/2003 (4:14 am) · 4 replies
I have to use photorealistic textures, lots of them. We are modelling a real street and we need textures to be as real as possible. We use big textures in the lower part of the buildings (512x512) because that's the part the user must see with detail, and small textures for the higher parts, in order to save memory. However, we have just a half of the whole scenario and the textures occupy almost 50Mb. Depending where de user looks at, textures must be loaded and the framerate decreases to one or two pfs during a few seconds. Horrible.
I have an ATI 9000 graphic card, with 64Mb, and my system has a 1Gb DDR RAM. Being the ATI an AGP card, is the decrease in the framerate a normal behaviour? I don't think so... I suspect that they are being loaded from disc... Does Torque use precaching for textures, like Unreal Tournament? Is there a way to do it?
I have an ATI 9000 graphic card, with 64Mb, and my system has a 1Gb DDR RAM. Being the ATI an AGP card, is the decrease in the framerate a normal behaviour? I don't think so... I suspect that they are being loaded from disc... Does Torque use precaching for textures, like Unreal Tournament? Is there a way to do it?
#2
11/21/2003 (8:39 am)
Well, I'm not using interiors :) It's all just a street. Buildings with mappings. The problem is, there are LOTS of mappings :( If I add LOD, wouldn't that add MORE mappings? 
#3
Another good solutions are :
1. Use all the times the objkects in hierarchy groups (depends on its placement) to keep the onscreen rendering optimaalised.
2. Just make a PLEASE WAIT - PRECACHING blank scren after the mission loaded into memory. Keep this screen until all the used textures is loaded into videomemory. The horrible LAG at the beginning in your mission is just becouse of the big amount of the textures'. Its the long time to loading and decompressing at all.
Dont ask a "how to", im a graphician 8:) but we are usin similar methods for this problem.
01/27/2004 (11:36 am)
The precaching depends on the quality, and the amount of RAM of your videocard. I think a Radeon 9000 is not enough, maybe you will to get even better results on above Gef4Ti or Radeon9500/9600. at least with 128Mb RAM.Another good solutions are :
1. Use all the times the objkects in hierarchy groups (depends on its placement) to keep the onscreen rendering optimaalised.
2. Just make a PLEASE WAIT - PRECACHING blank scren after the mission loaded into memory. Keep this screen until all the used textures is loaded into videomemory. The horrible LAG at the beginning in your mission is just becouse of the big amount of the textures'. Its the long time to loading and decompressing at all.
Dont ask a "how to", im a graphician 8:) but we are usin similar methods for this problem.
#4
Anyway, I have tested the system on a P4 2.8Mhz, 512DDR with a GForce FX5600... and I have problems if I don't tweak the graphics card configuration :( In the task administrator (windows) there's a total transaction load of 800M!!! I don't know why, because that doesn't happen in the laptop I usually use...
01/27/2004 (1:53 pm)
I had no idea that the hierarchy groups where SO important... I though it was just a way of having everything in order while working with the editor... Well, I discover recently that they were also important for triggers, but that about the onscreen rendering is a surprise :) Anyway, I have tested the system on a P4 2.8Mhz, 512DDR with a GForce FX5600... and I have problems if I don't tweak the graphics card configuration :( In the task administrator (windows) there's a total transaction load of 800M!!! I don't know why, because that doesn't happen in the laptop I usually use...
Torque 3D Owner Eric Forhan
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