[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?

[Lightspeed]

i dont think it makes any difference once its loaded into your vid card mem, does it?

[phreak]

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.

[Lightspeed]

does it actually help? are the textures stored on the card compressed?
I'm asking cause i'm a complete n00b at that

[Drew]

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

in game there would be no diference, it all gets converted to the same internal format

[RandomTiger]

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.

[Odyssey]

[color=cc9900]Seeing these figures makes me very, very glad I'm moving from a 16mb to a 256mb card tomorrow...[/color]

[Flipside]

LOL Someones computer is going to end up sounding like a 747 on tickover

[RandomTiger]

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.

[phreak]

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

[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)

[Flipside]

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

[Grey Wolf]

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?

[Bobboau]

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

[Grey Wolf]

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.)

[Lightspeed]

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?

[phreak]

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.

[karajorma]

What do you do if you only have PSP or not even that?

[phreak]

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

[MadProf]

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