This one might make some folks unhappy...
We all know that there are beautiful texture packs out there, with 1024 x 1024 representations of textures which were originally 64 x 64. And we all download them, load them up, and marvel at the exquisite detail we're getting while running at 10 FPS. Then we either go looking for a smaller texture pack, or we make our own by shrinking these down to some more acceptable size, like 256 x 256 or 512 x 512.
Hey, there are even folks with low spec 3D cards who'd like to join in the 32-bit fun, but can't because options are limited.
MHQuake will now handle these textures differently. One of the reasons behind detecting the amount of Video RAM available is to ensure that all textures and stuff will fit in nicely. To help in this, depending on the amount of VRAM you have, MHQuake will now scale down incoming external textures to some sensible multiple of the original size. Typically, a 64 MB card will clamp textures at 2 x the original, a 128 MB card at 4 x original, and a 256 MB card at 8 x original. Only if you have 512 MB or more will you be allowed to use the full external texture size. Is you have less than 20 MB VRAM you're really out of luck, as external textures will scale all the way down to the same size as the original.
Also, if you're running in the "degraded mode" I mentioned earlier (no hardware T&L, max texture size < 512, only supporting OpenGL 1.4 with extensions, Intel card, and maybe a few other conditions to trigger it) you'll have an absolute clamp of 2 x unless it would be even lower.
The name of the game here is playability - it's one thing having a beautiful looking slideshow, but sometime you're going to want to actually play the damn thing. If you really want to gonzo-out your textures you'll have to use a different engine; I've seen enough people loading up 2048 x 2048 textures into DarkPlaces and then complaining that it's running slow to fall for THAT one...!
Monday, July 28, 2008
A small change to texture loading
Posted by
mhquake
at
10:28 PM
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