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Author
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Topic: Problems with Bf109 using too many textures
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Drawde
Cadet
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posted 10-07- 12:44 PM
   
One thing I've noticed (and other people have confirmed) is that the Bf109 add-on aircraft uses a lot of texture files, so when it's used in a mission with more than one or two other aircraft, you get graphical glitches with square clouds, flak, missing textures on planes etc. Are there any versions of this plane that are more "texture-economical"? It's rather incongruous to have to put Fw190s in Battle of Britain missions..IP: Logged |
Werner Molders
JAG
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posted 10-07- 01:41 PM
What's your system spec?Because of the problems with online compatability we tend to be allergic to multiple versions of the same plane. Werner ------------------
Abbeville Field: Dedicated to the SDOE Experience. IP: Logged |
Jerry
Pilot
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posted 10-07- 02:57 PM
Werner, I don't think system spec makes much difference. I have flown several missions using 109's and get blocky clouds and they go away when I swap with FW's. I have a 1.2 GH T-bird o/c to 1.33, 512 mb 133 Ram and an o/c 32mb GeForce 2.IP: Logged |
Werner Molders
JAG
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posted 10-07- 03:42 PM
That is strange, because I don't encounter this with my P2 400, 16 Meg Banshee. Go figure I guess.What about other planes that use multiple textures? WM ------------------
Abbeville Field: Dedicated to the SDOE Experience. IP: Logged |
Jeeves
JAG
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posted 10-07- 06:40 PM
Werner...Our Banshee are notorious for being great SDOE cards.....course they crap out on any of the new games (except CFS2-- it rocks on my piddly Banshee  ) I have been known to get blocky flak when I have too many planes in, but when using 109's I especially have to be careful. It isn't a rare occurence...try out any of my Dover campaign missions and you'll see in a few of them  ------------------
Brought to you by the campaign for a better Dauntless! Jeeves =FC= IP: Logged |
Werner Molders
JAG
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posted 10-07- 07:23 PM
I get the same problem using stock missions or basically anything with 4/5+ types of airplanes and/or 12+ planes. In any case I'm floored that this problem is happening on souped up rigs like Jerry's. Is there any insight into this that any of the patch guys could give? Is this a plane issue or is it an interaction between cards and couple-year-old code?Werner ------------------
Abbeville Field: Dedicated to the SDOE Experience. IP: Logged |
Jeeves
JAG
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posted 10-07- 09:53 PM
The latter I think... the new cards have atrocious frame-rates at times compared to our Banshees. I know of some with great cards getting 10-20 fps on missions that I get 50+ on.IP: Logged |
Werner Molders
JAG
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posted 10-07- 10:53 PM
That's bizarre, Tailslide told me he can fit 20+ planes in missions on his GF2 no problem. I guess it'll be a roll of the dice for me then in a few weeks from now, not sure what will happen if SDOE performance goes down the drain on a new computer.  Werner ------------------
Abbeville Field: Dedicated to the SDOE Experience. IP: Logged |
Jerry
Pilot
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posted 10-08- 12:05 AM
I don't think it's the code. It only happens with the 109 and then only when there are several along with several B-17's. There was a discussion of this a while back and someone related a comment that Michael Harrison had made about the 109's causing texture problems.I think the suggestion to redo it and clean it up would be great. IP: Logged |
Werner Molders
JAG
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posted 10-08- 02:11 AM
...sure thing, so long as it doesn't include a remap otherwise that'll be a big stock of schemes that are rendered useless.  Werner ------------------
Abbeville Field: Dedicated to the SDOE Experience. IP: Logged |
VDU
Pilot
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posted 10-08- 03:28 AM
The texture limitation is absolutely independant of the hardware you have.In fact, this is a hardcoded limitation in the code itself.
The FSSDOE engine is limited to use around 700 different textures files at any given time.
This limitation was made with performance in mind, I guess. The problem is that it is impossible (well, *hem*, nothing really is impossible in software, impossible just means it would take a lot of time ) to have it as a parameter. What we can do is raise this number somewhat higher, but it will have an impact on memory footprint and performances. I hope this clear things up, Vincent IP: Logged |
Yardstick
Pilot
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posted 10-09- 04:34 AM
We used a large number of discrete textures on the 109s simply because we didn't know any better. The G-6 was the first full user made aircraft in SDOE you have to remember - in September 1999! However, these textures are small, many being 64 x 64 and I don't think the texture memory is significantly greater than any other user made aircraft in the game (I suspect it's actually smaller than some).The question that needs to be answered regarding performance, is whether the game will render 1 meg of textures faster if they are on ten 256 x 256 textures or one hundred 64 x 64 textures?If there are no significant differences then increasing the number of textures the game can handle seems to be the way to go. And lets face it famerates are not quite as important on today's machines as they were almost 3 years ago when the game first came out IP: Logged |
VDU
Pilot
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posted 10-10- 02:32 AM
Yardstick,the problem is the following: if we increase the hardcoded number of textures, no matter how many of them a given plane use, the overall game risks to be slower, as the engine will have to handle larger texture vectors (even if less textures than the maximum is used). To answer your question, there should not be any speed difference between using 96 64x64 textures or 16 256x256 textures. The later having the advantage that it will use less textures entries, and thus avoid the total texture limitation. Vincent [This message has been edited by VDU (edited 10-10-2001).] IP: Logged |
Maury Markowitz
Pilot
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posted 10-10- 09:57 AM
quote:
Originally posted by VDU:
the problem is the following: if we increase the hardcoded number of textures, no matter how many of them a given plane use, the overall game risks to be slower, as the engine will have to handle larger texture vectors (even if less textures than the maximum is used).
Is this a "real" problem? If I understand this correctly (and I'm a physics guy, not a 3-D guy) then shouldn't the time taken up doing this be something like 1/1000th's the time needed to actually draw a single tile? I would assume that moving vectors around couldn't be THAT expensive. How do other games do their textures? If I remember correctly, doesn't Janes basically use the same system, a single meta-texture that is then mapped onto the various parts? Maury IP: Logged |
VDU
Pilot
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posted 10-11- 03:56 AM
Maury,you're absolutely right. I just do not like to add things that will slow down the game (even a little bit ) when there are other solutions. This is more a political matter than a technical one ! Vincent IP: Logged |
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