Stay nice people.
I don't want this thread to degenerate to a level that's getting it locked for the main part of time (yes, this has happened before).
Now let's pick this apart. Actually, i'm SAVING you performance with these builds. As you may or may not know, DDS has the nice ability to be used compressed out of your video memory. If you used "-pcx32" PCX files were loaded to your 32 bit mem anyway and didnt have any difference to TGAs or JPGs.
Now, the general shine zip uses the following file formats:
Base map - DDS
Shinemap - DDS
Glowmap - 8-bit PCX (but will be loaded to 32-bit mem with -pcx32)
As for the texture sizes. Most volition maps have horrendous sizes (1382x739) - This map for instance would be SCALED UP by the game anyway to 2048x1024. This will take even more time - Now when I include a DDS map with 2048x1024 the game will not have to rescale anymore. This will speed things up. The memory consumption looks as follows:
FS2 (no -pcx32) | -pcx32 or the TGA shinemaps | the release from this thread
Example 1: one map 2048x1024 (1382x739 in retail), completely env/shine/glowed
FS2: 2 MB (base) 8-bit PCX + 8 MB (shine) TGA (ONLY TGA or DDS can be used for shinemaps since envmapping relies on alpha transparencies!) + 2 MB (glow) 8-bit PCX
==> 12 MB
TGA: 8 MB (base) 24-bit TGA/8-bit PCX + 8 MB (shine) TGA/8-bit PCX + 8 MB (glow) 8-bit PCX
==> 24 MB
NEW BUILD: ~2 MB (base) compressed DDS + ~2 MB (shine) compressed DDS + 8 MB (glow) 8-bit PCX
==> 12 MB
Now, if you disable -pcx32 with my new builds, your memory usage will be:
NEW BUILD (no -pcx32): ~2MB (base) compressed DDS + ~2 MB (shine) compressed DDS + 2 MB (glow) 8-bit PCX
==>
6 MBKeep in mind this is a 2048x1024 pixels texture!!
And you can save HALF OF THE MEMORY SPACE that would be taken away using retail-esque maps (see above).
The animated glowmaps are a completely seperate download - they are for those people that can run the static versions without any problems, and they do not suck up infernal amounts of memory anyway (they dont get loaded into 32-bit memory). The scale of the glowmap is nearly always different than the base texture in the recommended version. Glowmaps can save much more memory in smaller versions and take hardly more (if at all) than one -pcx32'ed glowmap!