Hard Light Productions Forums

Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The Modding Workshop => Topic started by: LtNarol on April 06, 2002, 01:20:25 pm

Title: larger maps?
Post by: LtNarol on April 06, 2002, 01:20:25 pm

i was trying to fit all the maps for the Epimetheus onto one map today and was doing great for a while before i ran out of room.  I've heard of others who have used 512*512 maps and even 1024*1024.  How do you get that to work for the game?  Is there a hack or is it just a trick somewhere?  please help me out here.

Title: larger maps?
Post by: Kamikaze on April 06, 2002, 01:30:08 pm

Well there is a registry hack that allows freespace to use larger maps.... is that what your talking about?

BTW: it can be found at descent net.

Title: larger maps?
Post by: LtNarol on April 06, 2002, 01:48:32 pm

Quote

Originally posted by Kamikaze
Well there is a registry hack that allows freespace to use larger maps.... is that what your talking about?

BTW: it can be found at descent net.

Hmmm, cant seem to find it, do you have a link to the part the actual download?

Title: larger maps?
Post by: Kamikaze on April 06, 2002, 02:03:20 pm

here http://www.descent-freespace.com/ddn/kb/registry/
These are the FS1 hacks but they work exactly the same with FS2.

Title: larger maps?
Post by: LtNarol on April 06, 2002, 02:31:58 pm

ok, so if i used 1024*1024 maps for ships in my mod, would the person who downloads and plays the mod need to get the registry hacks?

Title: larger maps?
Post by: Kamikaze on April 06, 2002, 02:58:37 pm

not sure, probably. You should ask Aldo as he's used big maps like that in his models. He would know...

Title: larger maps?
Post by: LtNarol on April 06, 2002, 03:16:25 pm

Quote

Originally posted by Kamikaze
not sure, probably. You should ask Aldo as he's used big maps like that in his models. He would know...

ya, i've been hoping he'd get in here and tell me

Title: larger maps?
Post by: aldo_14 on April 06, 2002, 03:28:55 pm

you can use any size of map...within certain restictions;

- Map dimensions are resized downwards to powers of 2 IIRC - eg an 800x800 map will be downsized to 512x512 by the 3d card.  I think it's partly to do with memory allocation.  Also, modelview uses openGL, so any maps NOT in powers of 2 won't display properly - it'll look like you're mapping is crewed.  Seeing as the 3d cards aren't great at this downsizing, and probably still store the original texture themselves, it's best to resize - upwards or downwards - yourself.

Important bit!!!!

- Without the registry edits, maps are always downsized to 256x256 if they are bigger.   So you can use the big maps, but they'll lose res.

End of Important bit!!!!

Because the 3d card isn't as good at resizing as a paint prog, it's best you provide hi and lo res version of the maps.  The other thing is that big maps will take up the same space regardless of whether they are resized or not, which could lead to slowdown with older cards (use of texture RAM).

Title: larger maps?
Post by: CP5670 on April 06, 2002, 04:41:59 pm

It seemed to look about the same to me in the game, but you're right about the extra texture memory usage. Do you happen to know if the game automatically switches to the smaller texture maps (used on the lower LODs) if D3DUseLargeTextures is 0 or does it just shrink the big textures?

Title: larger maps?
Post by: Galemp on April 06, 2002, 04:59:08 pm

The hacks aren't working for me. :sigh:

Of course I've never hacked the registry before. (I've looked so it's not totally alien.) I guess I need to add new DWORD keys named D3D*whatever*, then enter the value. Which values should I use and are they binary or hexadecimal?

Title: larger maps?
Post by: delta_7890 on April 06, 2002, 05:14:03 pm

A *really* helpful thing would be for someone to have the altered register for d/l...or if that proposition is insane, perhaps two screenshots showing the registry unaltered, and then the altered version so we idiots (me being one of them) know what to change.

Title: larger maps?
Post by: Kamikaze on April 06, 2002, 05:21:41 pm

I could do that as soon as my website's ftp is online...

Title: larger maps?
Post by: LtNarol on April 06, 2002, 05:24:45 pm

someone needs to make an exe that can change the registry settings from 256*256 to 1024*1024 and vice versa

Title: larger maps?
Post by: CP5670 on April 06, 2002, 05:41:21 pm

I could make a reg file available for download containing the registry tweaks, but the problem is the Regedit only allows for exporting of all of the entries in a folder, so it might override some existing data. There might be a way around this, though; I'll look into it.

Title: larger maps?
Post by: Alikchi on April 06, 2002, 07:11:37 pm

Go to the Babylon Project website, download their original "High Res" file and the patch for it. Install on FS2. Done.

Title: larger maps?
Post by: EdrickV on April 09, 2002, 04:31:39 pm

Assuming the registry entries for FS2 are the same as FS1 for large textures, here is a reg file to enable it:

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Volition\FreeSpace2]
"D3DUseLargeTextures"=dword:00000001

Just copy the above into Notepad, save it, and give it a .reg extention. Then double click the file to import it. (.reg files are basically text files so, if you want to make a .reg file for other people to use you can export then edit it in Notepad to remove stuff you don't want imported.)

Title: larger maps?
Post by: CptWhite on April 09, 2002, 05:48:03 pm

http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/babylon/additional_downloads/setreg.exe

simply double click on this little number to update the regsitry for high res maps.  note you will only see high res with 3d acceleration set to full, if your 3d card support textures greater than 256x256 and if you dont have any speed optimisations set in the freespace setup screen (d3d fast draw or something??)

nothing will happen when you double click on this, but it will update, if you want to be certain it ran simply right click and select "open" :)

now enjoy your high res stuffs, b5 station uses 2 texture maps of 1024x1024 its needed for detail on such a detailed and large model.

Title: larger maps?
Post by: Galemp on April 09, 2002, 08:36:03 pm

Then import the Lucifer maps from FS1. :devilidea