Some scenery textures are very slow to load...

[Daube]

Hi all,

Recently, I have been experiencing a strange issue with some sceneries, for example the various MoCat addons (snow dogs tour etc...). The problem is that the textures of the buildings are very slow to load, causing a huge (but short) loss of FPS. Once everything is loaded, the FPS raises back to normal.

Also, as soon as I look in another direction, making the buildings dissappear from the screen, when I look back at the buildings the textures load once again ! Just like if they were loaded for the very first time, and again causing stuttering and big HD activity.

I do not know why those objects refuse to stay in the memory. It's not a big issue of course, but it's somehow frustrating. Is anybody having the same problem ? Does anybody know a solution ?

[dave3cu]

Basically the author(s) went for quality, over performance.

As in the case of Mocat's Sno Dog Tours, the texture files are large. Takes longer to load, and when you pan, older textures may need to be flushed to make way for new. When you return to the original pov the textures must be reloaded.

Another issue is the lack of mip levels (saved with mip level 1 only). With only 1 level, scaling takes longer.

I have achieved some performance gain, with a slight loss of quality, by reducing the texture size and saving with mips. The most notable gain is the reduction of reloads, and the time to reload when necessary.

Dave

[Daube]

That's a very good information ! Thanks a lot.
Only thing I don't know about is how to create those Mip levels in a texture that didn't have them. Do DXTBMP have such a functionnality ? I never tried...

[dave3cu]

Dxtbmp will save with mips, just put a check next to 'Include when saving' in the MipMaps section below the Alpha Channel toolbar.