[ChronoReverse]

In FS2_retail, there was a registry tweak (SOFTWARE\Volition\Freespace2\D3DPreloadTextures - DWORD - 1) you could add manually and enable that forced FS2_retail to load as many textures as possible into _VRAM_ during the loading screen of each mission.  This increased loading times but if you had enough video memory the game performance increased.


Now, I just tried using this registry tweak and it doesn't seem like it does anything anymore.


The question is: could preloading the textures into video memory reduce or get rid of the stutters that occur when new objects appear on screen?

I've noticed that everytime the stutter occurs, the texture memory free drops a little.  It seems to me that the textures are being loaded on the fly.

[Liberator]

Don't see why it wouldn't.  I don't remember suggesting this and I'll wait to flesh it out, but I don't see why the game couldn't just scan the mission file and preload the textures for all the ships in the mission.  It might stop the stuttering problem altogether.

[ChronoReverse]

From this link  I found on google

>It stutters because the engine is loading the textures into vram...the only
>way to avoid this is to preload all your textures into memory first, so that
>they are available for streaming straight away IMO.

Dave is right. One way of accomplishing this is to show all the
textures of the scene in front of the camera when the 3D sprite appears
on the stage (it might be covered with an "initializing..." overlay or
being 1x1 pixel so the user doesn´t notice the trick). That way, the
textures get loaded into VRAM.

So I'm wondering, is it possible to put all the textures found in a level on a giant plane, place it deep enough so the entire thing is visible and then remove it at the beginning of each level before anything else is drawn and before mission time begins?

And if this were possible, it would even better to not have to see this (screen is blanked until it's removed)?


This thread seems interesting too.

I know your coders probably know about these things and already considered them, but I'd feel better if someone came out and said "Nope, already tried it, it doesn't work because of xyz".

[Sticks]

Well, I'm not absolutely sure on the details, but it would seem to me that most users would run out of video memory pretty quick.

[ChronoReverse]

Well, make it an option like it was in FS2_retail.

For me (with a 128MB video card) I never use up all my video memory even at the end of missions, so I'd enable.  Meanwhile, someone with a GF2mx 32MB would turn it off.

[Liberator]

Maybe we could just preload textures above a certain size like 128x128 and up.  Everything below that shouldn't take long enough to load to cause a stutter.

[RandomTiger]

This reg entry has no effect in fs2_open.
I believe the problem you are talking about has been fixed.

[ChronoReverse]

Really?  When will a test build be up?

[RandomTiger]

Try my sig version

[ChronoReverse]

Sorry to say, the sig speech build stutters just as much the 3-23-04 build does.


Oh and the bug where the background of a video isn't blanked out?  The resolved one.  Well, if you have an AA mode on, the background isn't blanked out

[RandomTiger]

OK, Im sorry your stutters arent fixed, I know Bob fixed *a* stutter problem. This must be something else. But I wouldnt waste your time trying to fix it from the outside with reg entries that are dead and gone.

The video problem hasnt been marked resolved, Im well aware of the problem. Its the tradeoff I made to not have the windows switching. Hopefully I will get that fixed up at some point.