Texture compresion.....?

[CuTTingEdg3]

Since JK2 uses the Q3 engine shouldnt it support TC?

Is there a comand 2 enable this,a patch????????????

If its not supported they NEED 2 put it in a future patch.....

[DerthNader]

It supports it and is turned on by default.

[LessThanJake]

What exactly does texture compression do?

[CRULL]

You get better graphics....because the textures are compressed and sent to the video card all at once which makes a smaller initial size, then decompressed and thats what you see for textures. I'm not sure if this is exactly right...but I am sure it does relate to better in game textures.

[Wormstrangler]

Ive turned TC on in my Kryo 2's graphics panel in windows...helps loading time majorly!! and i can now have everything on Max (32bit colour, 32bit texture, and max texture detail) and it only takes 30 seconds to load

[Rancor]

Hmm, you're sort of right.

 

If a given texture is uploaded to the video card with texture compression ( vs. without TC ), the texture quality will actually be worse, especially for textures that have really smooth/subtle gradients. Things like lightmaps and skyboxes don't tend to compress very well....This is all assuming that the given texture is of the exact same size.

 

So...the only thing TC does is provide a way for a given texture to take up less video card memory at the expense of quality degradation. But, using less texture memory on the card translates to the ability to:

 

A) have a much larger number of textures uploaded to the card..

B) have much larger textures uploaded to the card..

C) some combination of the above two..

 

With option A, an advantage becomes apparent when a game uses a ton of textures; compression would allow the game to fit a lot more textures in the cards memory. This is important because non-resident textures have to be uploaded to the card before they can be rendered...when this happens, texture memory is "thrashed" and rendering performance takes a hit.

 

In the case of B..the texture will theoretically be of slightly lower quality, but since the texture is larger ( probably at least twice the size in each dimension in a typical case ), the end result is usually "crisper" graphics.

 

In Quake3/JK2 terms, the only way the quality could get better with TC is if you decrement the r_picMip setting from the console, with zero being the best quality, or go to the menu and adjust the texture quality to the next highest setting, with VeryHigh being best quality.

[kalniel]

I think I have the same problem - that is there isn't an option under video or more video to alter texture compression. At least there isn't in my game even though I have a gf2 ultra with latest drivers.

 

I also don't have an option for lens flare, yet both of these are mentioned in the manual (but not noted as missing in my readme).

 

Thanks,

 

kalniel

[Rancor]

Hmmm, I'd guess it defaults to 'on' if your card supports it.

 

I think the console command to check it is:

 

r_ext_compress_textures ( 0 - no TC, 1 - using TC )

 

Looks like there is also one to override the game default texture compression method. I can't say that I'd recommend altering it though.

 

r_ext_preferred_tc_method ( ? )

[Necro]

yea but what i want to know is the FPS/load time increase substancially (sp?) better then what you would get with TC off (and better gfx)

[WhiteChedda]

Originally posted by CuTTingEdg3

Since JK2 uses the Q3 engine shouldnt it support TC?

Is there a comand 2 enable this,a patch????????????

If its not supported they NEED 2 put it in a future patch.....

 

Same as Q3 igf your card supports on the fly S3TC Texture compression and the drivers don't disbale it, its already being used.

[Rancor]

Yeah, using TC could improve FPS if the game is thrashing texture memory...I think setting r_speeds to 1 at the console will tell you roughly how much texture memory you are using ( it's on the right-ish side of the list being displayed ). If the listed texture memory usage is more than what your card supports, you are thrashing the texture memory and your FPS is probably taking a hit. I'm not sure if the r_speed texture mem. usage is 100% accurate, but it's probably close.

 

As for loading speed, it might make a difference? The part of loading textures that is probably slow is binding them to GL ( which is basically uploading them to the card )...so, if the vid driver is able to compress the texture prior to uploading, then you'd be using the upload bandwidth more efficiently.

 

Ultimately it will probably depend both on your card and the quality of drivers you have for it.

 

So, I guess the answer is....maybe it'll make a difference?

[Emon]

Originally posted by CRULL

You get better graphics....because the textures are compressed and sent to the video card all at once which makes a smaller initial size, then decompressed and thats what you see for textures. I'm not sure if this is exactly right...but I am sure it does relate to better in game textures.

 

You are correct, sir. Texture compression compresses textures so that they are smaller in size when sent to VRAM, then uncompressed when it gets there. This allows for higher resolution, crisper textures that would normally not fit into VRAM.