Allegiance Installer 3.01

Catch-all for all development not having a specific forum.
factoid
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Location: Winnipeg, Canada

Post by factoid »

Optimizing PNGs isn't going to do anything, except convert electricity into heat, unfortunately.

Allegiance does not use compressed textures, so depending on the ARGB format of the texture surface, it's going to take up 16, 24, or 32 bits per pixel (2,3, or 4 bytes). bmp.mdl files are basically just texture surfaces dumped to disk for quick reloading. Which is annoying because they're basically bitmaps, and thus annoyingly large in terms of file transfer. PNG or JPG textures would be ideal for reducing the size of the downloads, and it would be best if the Alleg engine would just "compile" those textures at runtime from the source art, but this was probably done to minimize load time. Alternatively we could ship mdlc with the game and have the installer "compile" the textures after downloading.

But basically optimizing textures for disk size has 0 impact on texture ram consumption. There are exactly 3 things which govern memory usage for textures. # of pixels, # of bits per pixel, and if you're using one of the card supported compression methods like DXT5.
"I make it a point not to chat with AP off... space is vast, but it's never vast enough for my scout."
factoid
Posts: 929
Joined: Fri Sep 02, 2005 7:00 am
Location: Winnipeg, Canada

Post by factoid »

I've resized textures and recompiled them. Aside from one file that didn't compile properly, this seems to work on pcore at 2048. Try them out, let me know if you think any textures got sampled down too far.

High Res Textures

EDIT: Updated the link to the final set.
Last edited by factoid on Thu May 29, 2014 3:05 am, edited 1 time in total.
"I make it a point not to chat with AP off... space is vast, but it's never vast enough for my scout."
TheAlaskan
Posts: 2256
Joined: Tue Apr 03, 2007 2:15 am
Location: Denver, CO

Post by TheAlaskan »

This works for me - though I would say there only needs to be 5 hi-res drac textures:

ta_drac_garr
ta_drac_sy
ta_drac_exp
ta_drac_sup
ta_drac_tac

The rest in 1048 versions render sharply in 2048 map texture pack, so the hires versions aren't even needed. Next steps for me are to go through the drac 1048s and see how many I can bump down to 512 and 256 to save any more memory use.
factoid
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Joined: Fri Sep 02, 2005 7:00 am
Location: Winnipeg, Canada

Post by factoid »

All the drac textures were forced to 1024 in my build.
"I make it a point not to chat with AP off... space is vast, but it's never vast enough for my scout."
factoid
Posts: 929
Joined: Fri Sep 02, 2005 7:00 am
Location: Winnipeg, Canada

Post by factoid »

If there are any that should be bumped up to 2048, we can try that. I saved a bunch of memory reducing other textures like the missiles and the posters.
"I make it a point not to chat with AP off... space is vast, but it's never vast enough for my scout."
TheAlaskan
Posts: 2256
Joined: Tue Apr 03, 2007 2:15 am
Location: Denver, CO

Post by TheAlaskan »

Honestly - they're all fine at 1024. I.e. you can read the text on the ships with 1024-res textures at 2048 max texture size.

The only plus of the 2048 is they make the texture sharper on the bases (the text, decals, etc.).

I'd be fine if nobody ever played them at 2048.
factoid
Posts: 929
Joined: Fri Sep 02, 2005 7:00 am
Location: Winnipeg, Canada

Post by factoid »

Ok, then please test and provide feedback if any others have been overly-reduced. Otherwise we should be clear to make these the defaults in the installer.
"I make it a point not to chat with AP off... space is vast, but it's never vast enough for my scout."
fuzzylunkin1

Post by fuzzylunkin1 »

factoid wrote:QUOTE (factoid @ May 28 2014, 10:40 AM) Optimizing PNGs isn't going to do anything, except convert electricity into heat, unfortunately.

Allegiance does not use compressed textures, so depending on the ARGB format of the texture surface, it's going to take up 16, 24, or 32 bits per pixel (2,3, or 4 bytes). bmp.mdl files are basically just texture surfaces dumped to disk for quick reloading. Which is annoying because they're basically bitmaps, and thus annoyingly large in terms of file transfer. PNG or JPG textures would be ideal for reducing the size of the downloads, and it would be best if the Alleg engine would just "compile" those textures at runtime from the source art, but this was probably done to minimize load time. Alternatively we could ship mdlc with the game and have the installer "compile" the textures after downloading.

But basically optimizing textures for disk size has 0 impact on texture ram consumption. There are exactly 3 things which govern memory usage for textures. # of pixels, # of bits per pixel, and if you're using one of the card supported compression methods like DXT5.
I didn't mention ram consumption at all. I mentioned installer size, primarily.
factoid
Posts: 929
Joined: Fri Sep 02, 2005 7:00 am
Location: Winnipeg, Canada

Post by factoid »

But aren't we converting the files to MDL, and putting those in the installer? If so, it doesn't really matter right? Or can the engine currently load native PNG? I'd asked earlier and no one responded.
"I make it a point not to chat with AP off... space is vast, but it's never vast enough for my scout."
TheAlaskan
Posts: 2256
Joined: Tue Apr 03, 2007 2:15 am
Location: Denver, CO

Post by TheAlaskan »

Looks like the resizing borked the mapping - the texture is all over the place for all the models.

I have a hunch that a reinstall will fix that, but can you confirm that it's fine for you? If it does, I'll then reinstall, use those textures and see how it looks.

Just out of curiousity, are the new 1024s less of a memory-suck than the current 1024s that come in the default installer?
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