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Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => FS2 Open Coding - The Source Code Project (SCP) => Topic started by: Stunaep on December 04, 2003, 02:52:51 pm

Title: 32-bit suggestion thingy
Post by: Stunaep on December 04, 2003, 02:52:51 pm
YOu know, maybe we should use some better compression than TGA. Because, for some reason, I'm not surprised if FS2 runs slow, seeing that only the thruster maps take up 22 mb.

DDS maybe?
Title: 32-bit suggestion thingy
Post by: Lightspeed on December 04, 2003, 03:08:24 pm
i dont think it makes any difference once its loaded into your vid card mem, does it?
Title: Re: 32-bit suggestion thingy
Post by: phreak on December 04, 2003, 03:10:29 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Stunaep
YOu know, maybe we should use some better compression than TGA. Because, for some reason, I'm not surprised if FS2 runs slow, seeing that only the thruster maps take up 22 mb.

DDS maybe?


I posted about DDS in the internal yesterday night.  It works in OpenGL, but not every card supports it.  RT has made it available in D3D about 3 hours ago.  You're going to have to wait a few days until we release another beta build.
Title: 32-bit suggestion thingy
Post by: Lightspeed on December 04, 2003, 03:15:21 pm
does it actually help? are the textures stored on the card compressed?
I'm asking cause i'm a complete n00b at that :D
Title: Re: 32-bit suggestion thingy
Post by: Drew on December 04, 2003, 03:16:56 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Stunaep
YOu know, maybe we should use some better compression than TGA. Because, for some reason, I'm not surprised if FS2 runs slow, seeing that only the thruster maps take up 22 mb.

DDS maybe?


i will quote Bob here: we talked about this in PM
Quote
in game there would be no diference, it all gets converted to the same internal format
Title: 32-bit suggestion thingy
Post by: RandomTiger on December 04, 2003, 04:03:43 pm
Well, JPG is the best for small file sizes,
DDS has the great advantage because it works in *both* OGL and D3D
And TGA has full alpha channel functionality (DDS might have this also for all I know)
But they will all take up the same amount of space when they get to the card.

If DDS supports some kind of card internal compression system then that will have to be implemented in addition to the loading code. I know nothing about DDS so perhaps people could keep me straight on this.
Title: 32-bit suggestion thingy
Post by: Odyssey on December 04, 2003, 04:16:46 pm
[color=cc9900]Seeing these figures makes me very, very glad I'm moving from a 16mb to a 256mb card tomorrow...[/color]
Title: 32-bit suggestion thingy
Post by: Flipside on December 04, 2003, 04:33:03 pm
LOL Someones computer is going to end up sounding like a 747 on tickover ;)
Title: 32-bit suggestion thingy
Post by: RandomTiger on December 04, 2003, 04:35:57 pm
Im, I've just done some research and I get it now.
I'll implement support for loading *and* storing compressed (DDS)textures soon. It looks like a trivial change.

In the meantime people can use those formats and it will load them at least. However, someone is going to have to convince people to start using it.

Just managed to get better compression with DXT1 than with a jpg (though I think that was on maximum quality). Also it will be subject to what compression modes are supported by your card.
Title: 32-bit suggestion thingy
Post by: phreak on December 04, 2003, 04:42:35 pm
DXT1,3,5 are supported in OGL.  I suggest everyone uses that.  Compression is rather good too.  It seems that a 256x256x32 DDS has a smaller filesize than a 256x256x8 PCX

http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,12652.0.html

its kinda old.  if you vote bump it you die :)
Title: 32-bit suggestion thingy
Post by: Bobboau on December 04, 2003, 06:59:38 pm
what I said was in regard to the diference i TGA and JPG, DDS compressed textures do actualy take up less space on the card and run faster, DDS is for all precticality the only exeption (other than other compressed texture formats, though I honestly can't think of any off hand)
Title: 32-bit suggestion thingy
Post by: Flipside on December 04, 2003, 07:11:02 pm
Well, I've been for DDS from the start, though I must admit, from a personal point of view, now we have JPG support, I'm much more nosy about whether any progress has been made on finding a 16 or 32 Bit Movie format of some kind ;)
Title: 32-bit suggestion thingy
Post by: Grey Wolf on December 04, 2003, 08:33:38 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Odyssey
[color=cc9900]Seeing these figures makes me very, very glad I'm moving from a 16mb to a 256mb card tomorrow...[/color]
9800 Pro, 9800 XT, or FX 5900 Ultra?
Title: 32-bit suggestion thingy
Post by: Bobboau on December 04, 2003, 08:41:55 pm
GET A RADEON!
I have a radeon, and as a result all the stuff I do will be optomised for it, and you won't be able to take advantage of trueform otherwise
Title: 32-bit suggestion thingy
Post by: Grey Wolf on December 04, 2003, 08:44:30 pm
I'm getting a 9500 soon myself so I'll have a DX9-compatible card (fairly slow compared to modern standards, I know, but I'm on a budget.)
Title: 32-bit suggestion thingy
Post by: Lightspeed on December 05, 2003, 06:24:03 am
Quote
Originally posted by Bobboau
what I said was in regard to the diference i TGA and JPG, DDS compressed textures do actualy take up less space on the card and run faster, DDS is for all precticality the only exeption (other than other compressed texture formats, though I honestly can't think of any off hand)


So converting them to DDS does help? :)
Title: 32-bit suggestion thingy
Post by: phreak on December 05, 2003, 08:36:28 am
yea.  i think there is a DDS export plugin for Photoshop.  I think its at nVidia's developer page

edit:
http://developer.nvidia.com/object/nv_texture_tools.html

you may want to get the normal map generator too since it would come in handy once bump-mapping is put in.
Title: 32-bit suggestion thingy
Post by: karajorma on December 05, 2003, 09:04:37 am
What do you do if you only have PSP or not even that?
Title: 32-bit suggestion thingy
Post by: phreak on December 05, 2003, 09:13:48 am
there is a DxTex util floating around.  it does a BMP->DDS conversion

there are some tricks you need to learn to make it load an alpha channel with the prog

edit:

http://www.swooh.com/peon/phreak/DxTex.zip
i don't think the help file is in the zip though
Title: 32-bit suggestion thingy
Post by: MadProf on December 05, 2003, 09:40:03 am
http://msdn.microsoft.com/archive/default.asp?url=/archive/en-us/dx8_vb/directx_vb/graphics_samp_vb_9x7m.asp

A basic description of how to use dxtex from microsoft.  Including how to get an alpha channel with bmps
Title: 32-bit suggestion thingy
Post by: Lightspeed on December 05, 2003, 10:00:00 am
i have the photoshop plugin :)
Title: 32-bit suggestion thingy
Post by: Terorist on December 05, 2003, 11:27:38 am
Storing compressed textures, great. This is something I had wished for when thinking about the ever-growing texture sizes nowadays... not all cards support it though (?), but it helps many, I believe.
Title: 32-bit suggestion thingy
Post by: Lightspeed on December 05, 2003, 11:33:50 am
hehe - hopefully the performance boost will be good enough for *certain* things i have in mind :)
Title: 32-bit suggestion thingy
Post by: RandomTiger on December 05, 2003, 12:06:12 pm
OK, committing D3D code that supports compression type inside the videocard now.
Title: 32-bit suggestion thingy
Post by: Odyssey on December 05, 2003, 01:06:55 pm
[color=cc9900]Little late for my comment (School... Bleargh), but anyway. It's a 9600 XT (Was only £20 or so from 128mb to 256mb, so it would've been stupid not to ^_^), which compared to the old Voodoo 3 16mb is frickin' fast. Silent, too.
Now all I have to do is download all the SCP stuff I haven't kept up on...[/color]