Whos converted to PVR?
by Daryll Todd · in iTorque 2D · 02/21/2009 (1:03 am) · 36 replies
Just wondered who has had success converting to PVR's?
Has it made a significant difference to the memory used?
Ive just moved my game to 1.1 and have converted a handful of my 64x64 images as a test, despite the preview PNG looking fine they are not displaying correctly on the device and memory usage appears to be ever so slightly increased, according to Instruments.
I haven't looked into the problem at all so am not after any help yet..just wondered how many of us are using them?
Has it made a significant difference to the memory used?
Ive just moved my game to 1.1 and have converted a handful of my 64x64 images as a test, despite the preview PNG looking fine they are not displaying correctly on the device and memory usage appears to be ever so slightly increased, according to Instruments.
I haven't looked into the problem at all so am not after any help yet..just wondered how many of us are using them?
#22
02/24/2009 (5:59 am)
That was the version both Daryll and I originally used. I guess my point is that if we need to use a different version for iTGB, it would have been clearer to me if I would have seen that PVRTC directory on the Mac distribution of iTGB, also.
#23
Besides that general statement I only care about keeping the cost low and the functionality high. $500 for a game engine that runs on the iPhone, has a great level editor, and comes with source code is a great deal. I wasn't every happy about the $100 royalty per game, cause I plan on writing a few games that make 300-$1000, but that's gone now.
02/24/2009 (8:15 am)
I have to agree to the general statement that we should be able to do all our development and test on a MAC computer only. I shouldn't have to use, or even have, Windows in order to develop an iPhone game.Besides that general statement I only care about keeping the cost low and the functionality high. $500 for a game engine that runs on the iPhone, has a great level editor, and comes with source code is a great deal. I wasn't every happy about the $100 royalty per game, cause I plan on writing a few games that make 300-$1000, but that's gone now.
#24
02/28/2009 (6:19 pm)
Dave: Did you solve the black frames issue? I've got the same problem and haven't been able to figure out a solution. The entire pvr image shows up fine on the device/simulator but once I switch to cell it pops out black frames.
#25
03/01/2009 (11:19 pm)
Eric: I sure haven't. I had to move on to other things and am using pngs for my animations for now. If I have time I'll try to circle back around to this. If you find a solution please post a follow-up. 
#26
Edit. Answered my own question. This is indeed the case.
03/15/2009 (11:30 am)
Will PVR images work in the windows version of iTGB? Or is the only way to test is to convert all in windows, then download to the iPhone via Xcode?Edit. Answered my own question. This is indeed the case.
#27
Its a hardware compression for the iPhone / PowerVR GPUs, similar to DXT / S3TC (commonly found in DDS textures) on the desktop
The PNG versions of the images are used on the desktop
03/15/2009 (2:40 pm)
No PVR will not work on anything but the iphone.Its a hardware compression for the iPhone / PowerVR GPUs, similar to DXT / S3TC (commonly found in DDS textures) on the desktop
The PNG versions of the images are used on the desktop
#28
03/15/2009 (11:09 pm)
So let me get this straight: I can't use my Macbook with its included OS to frickin' make the textures I want? iTGB won't load the files I've created with texturetool so far.
#29
03/16/2009 (8:02 am)
well for what its worth, it seems like there is a problem with iTGB and PVR textures, as neither the iPhone SDK version, nor the Windows version will work correctly with cell based image maps. Can someone working on the engine comment if this is planned to be fixed in 1.2 or anytime soon?
#30
The iPhone would load them on the device when instructed to do so. Potentially the emulator is able to handle them as well.
If they work or especially what is working and what not with the current iPhone SDK (2.2.1) is hard to say.
Didn't retest it with iTGB 1.1 as the major bugs that make it totally unusable for even a seriously cutdown "Lite" version of my game are still present.
I'm hoping for 1.2 to finally adress this buckload of desktop relevant and iPhone irrelevant / performance killing code and de-optimizations that are present in iTGB.
I expect 1.2 to be what iTGB 1.0 was meant to be, an iPhone targeted technology that is opted for the way the iPhone works and what the iphone offers and expects instead of beeing a large pile of trash that just floods the iphone with useless instructions to ensure the performance dies.
iTGB would run several times faster than it does right if this problems were solved.
With the past pace in the iTGB development thought I think that the real iTGB 1.0 won't happen within the next 12 months at least. There is iTGE that also wants to be released. Will be interesting to see how badly it will be crushed by Shiva and Unity given how bad iTGB already performs against Unity and that although unity has no 2D and especially no optimizations for 2D.
But the main problem out of my sight is the attempt of the developers to make iTGB a Desktop and iPhone technology, avoiding any possible required rewrite to optimize it further for the iphone and especially to finally drop that bullshit of "iTGB is a simple to use Deployment path for TGB to iPhone" which seems to be a strong driving force so far, given that iPhone games run within TGBGame on Windows without any problem and that beeing the only platform where I'm able to say that as it has probs on OSX and tendentially larger probs on its real target platform.
03/16/2009 (8:45 am)
Quote:So let me get this straight: I can't use my Macbook with its included OS to frickin' make the textures I want? iTGB won't load the files I've created with texturetool so far.
The iPhone would load them on the device when instructed to do so. Potentially the emulator is able to handle them as well.
If they work or especially what is working and what not with the current iPhone SDK (2.2.1) is hard to say.
Didn't retest it with iTGB 1.1 as the major bugs that make it totally unusable for even a seriously cutdown "Lite" version of my game are still present.
I'm hoping for 1.2 to finally adress this buckload of desktop relevant and iPhone irrelevant / performance killing code and de-optimizations that are present in iTGB.
I expect 1.2 to be what iTGB 1.0 was meant to be, an iPhone targeted technology that is opted for the way the iPhone works and what the iphone offers and expects instead of beeing a large pile of trash that just floods the iphone with useless instructions to ensure the performance dies.
iTGB would run several times faster than it does right if this problems were solved.
With the past pace in the iTGB development thought I think that the real iTGB 1.0 won't happen within the next 12 months at least. There is iTGE that also wants to be released. Will be interesting to see how badly it will be crushed by Shiva and Unity given how bad iTGB already performs against Unity and that although unity has no 2D and especially no optimizations for 2D.
But the main problem out of my sight is the attempt of the developers to make iTGB a Desktop and iPhone technology, avoiding any possible required rewrite to optimize it further for the iphone and especially to finally drop that bullshit of "iTGB is a simple to use Deployment path for TGB to iPhone" which seems to be a strong driving force so far, given that iPhone games run within TGBGame on Windows without any problem and that beeing the only platform where I'm able to say that as it has probs on OSX and tendentially larger probs on its real target platform.
#31
Check the link and look at what I've found. Man those frame rates are nice.
http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?t=6899
Two things that's keeping me from asking for a full refund and switching; I really like TGB and I'm really hoping that the iTGB 1.0 promises would happen. And of course the fact that I've got zero experience with the Unity Engine and mainly just interested in a purely 2D engine for now; but looking at that link I'm seriously wondering. Please GG don't disappoint in 1.2.
03/16/2009 (2:54 pm)
@MarcCheck the link and look at what I've found. Man those frame rates are nice.
http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?t=6899
Two things that's keeping me from asking for a full refund and switching; I really like TGB and I'm really hoping that the iTGB 1.0 promises would happen. And of course the fact that I've got zero experience with the Unity Engine and mainly just interested in a purely 2D engine for now; but looking at that link I'm seriously wondering. Please GG don't disappoint in 1.2.
#32
Did anyone get this to work in the end, did 1.3.1 fix anything?
This is the command I use:
texturetool -e PVRTC --bits-per-pixel-4 -o game-assets.pvr -f PVR game-assets.png
Any help much appreciated.
Cheers
02/21/2010 (3:25 pm)
Hate to drag up an old thread ... but ... I'm struggling with black backgrounds, no alpha, for my animations that have been converted to pvrs using Apple's texturetool.Did anyone get this to work in the end, did 1.3.1 fix anything?
This is the command I use:
texturetool -e PVRTC --bits-per-pixel-4 -o game-assets.pvr -f PVR game-assets.png
Any help much appreciated.
Cheers
#33
\tools\PVRTC\PVRTexToolGUI.exe
There is a section on using it in the document:
\Documentation\iPhone Docs\User Guide - Working with Torque2D for iPhone.pdf
02/22/2010 (3:17 am)
Use the new PVRTexTool provided with 1.3.1. It is all GUI based, and you have many more options available visually instead of command line-aly :)\tools\PVRTC\PVRTexToolGUI.exe
There is a section on using it in the document:
\Documentation\iPhone Docs\User Guide - Working with Torque2D for iPhone.pdf
#34
I converted static sprites - these are fine and animations - these are broken. The animations seem to play backwards and very very quickly, but the black background has gone.
Is there something else I need to do? Do you do any of the other stuff, premultiply alpha etc?
Cheers
02/22/2010 (6:12 pm)
Thanks Luke.I converted static sprites - these are fine and animations - these are broken. The animations seem to play backwards and very very quickly, but the black background has gone.
Is there something else I need to do? Do you do any of the other stuff, premultiply alpha etc?
Cheers
#35
In the PVRTextureTool load the PNG and then hit the "Transform" button, choose "Flip Vertical" and then convert to PVRTC.
They work fine, look pretty good and have improved the frame rate :)
02/23/2010 (2:42 pm)
Sorted the animations.In the PVRTextureTool load the PNG and then hit the "Transform" button, choose "Flip Vertical" and then convert to PVRTC.
They work fine, look pretty good and have improved the frame rate :)
#36
The "Flip Vertical" solved the problem. The results look pretty good also.
05/10/2010 (9:36 pm)
Hey Scott, thanks for posting this. I've been stuck on exactly the same problem most of the day, so I searched the forums and found this. My sprite sheet contains a lot of sprites (some animated, some static), arranged in cells. My screen looked a mess and it was hard to tell what was going on. The "Flip Vertical" solved the problem. The results look pretty good also.
Torque 3D Owner Marc Dreamora Schaerer
Gayasoft