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Re: RAM-VRAM swapping

To: REALbasic Games <realbasic-games at lists dot realsoftware dot com>
Subject: Re: RAM-VRAM swapping
From: Lo Saeteurn <realbasic at miensoftware dot com>
Date: Thu, 6 Jul 2006 10:43:01 -0700
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References: <2D9BDC80-BF47-4DD7-9350-BB88F1398D71 at miensoftware dot com> <9EA87C43-65B9-4BCA-952F-CE9331D6FC0A at mindspring dot com> <46C9F356-5033-42EA-BFE4-1903775A1013 at miensoftware dot com> <5697B4F5-77A5-4265-B02D-B528C700E60F at mindspring dot com>
Hmm. My card has 256MB of VRAM (ATI Radeon 9800 Pro), so I'd hope there's plenty of RAM. I have a RB app used for Zombies to create human textures -- only a single model in the RB3Dspace and there's still a hiccup.

It really depends on the number and size of the textures you have loaded. I'm not sure how Quesa works, but it might just be that your textures haven't been preloaded to the video ram.

I believe a 1024x1024 texture (24 bit) uses about 3MB of VRAM. 256MB VRAM will give 85 of those.

If you really want to pack in the VRAM efficiently, I've read somewhere about sticking a single large texture into VRAM and texturing the majority of your models with that -- supposedly speeds load time and avoids much of the RAM-VRAM swapping. Now that I think about it, it's probably a trick best suited for consoles with their fixed hardware requirements, but I think it's an idea worth pursuing.

I might be heading that rout. It's the only way to combine an entire environment to a single mesh while preserving its texture.
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