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Deferred Texture Loading


Josh
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The latest build has an experimental feature, background loading of textures. In the AI lesson map this sped loading time up by 30%. Combined with DXT compression, the loading time in release mode is now less than two seconds.

 

The new command is Texture::SetLoadingMode(int mode)

 

The mode can be:

  • 0: normal / default. This is the regular behavior.
  • 1: deferred loading: This will load textures in gradually, one mipmap at a time.
  • 2: Managed: This will load and unload textures dynamically from memory as they are needed.

 

This is not documented or officially supported, but I thought you might enjoy trying it.

 

The dynamic loading is pretty cool to watch when you start a level.

  • Upvote 14

My job is to make tools you love, with the features you want, and performance you can't live without.

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Ahh deferred texture loading, reminds me of every single unreal engine game and the swimming textures that get sharper over time. Now I can say I'm using the Unreal engine when asked, wink:wink:nudge:nudge.

 

But seriously, loading is almost instantaneous now. Thanks you for your work Josh. Now I need to find more bugs to give me an excuse for why I'm not being productive with my game making.

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  • 2 months later...

I can't tell what I'm looking at. It looks like maybe the terrain render is getting a partially loaded texture, and so it appears blurry? That makes sense because the terrain only gets rendered when needed. If that is the only issue, I can make it so terrain textures get fully loaded before they are used.

My job is to make tools you love, with the features you want, and performance you can't live without.

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  • 5 months later...

This is an amazing feature. Maps can now be loaded instantly. However it is missing one crucial aspect. Especially in managed loading mode. Muzzle flashes and UI textures are always blurry. We need an extra check box within the texture editor to force a texture to be loaded fully and not removed from the memory.

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Intel Core i7 Quad 2.3 Ghz, 8GB RAM, GeForce GT 630M 2GB, Windows 10 (x64)

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This is pretty cool and will be a great memory saver but if you walk away from something and do a quick 180 you can see a lot of black/texture popup which is quite ugly. I think it should maybe only unload the textures if the player is a good distance away. It seems to happen if they are behind you and only 50 meters or so away. That's so close it's obvious so maybe only unload them if they are 200+ meters away or something. Maybe on an ssd drive it loads them quicker that you wouldn't notice but it's noticeable on my setup with a 7200rpm hard drive.

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Check out my games: One More Day / Halloween Pumpkin Run

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