Acceptable Video Memory Usage?

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Socoder -> On Topic -> Acceptable Video Memory Usage?
Tue, 06 Oct 2009, 21:38
Mog	I've started up an old project i had shelved a long time ago, a small space trader game that was my learning project way back in the day. I tinkered about with it today, made some textures and a model of a small space ship and began to build. I checked my video memory usage, and it was at... ...109mb. Granted, i am using a few high def textures in places (4096x4096 for the background clouds, and 512x512 for planet textures) So i'm not exactly being conservative about it. Question is, should i be? What do you think is acceptable nowadays? Here's a screeny, just for those curious: -=-=- I am Busy Mongoose - My Website Dev PC: AMD 8150-FX, 16gb Ram, GeForce GTX 680 2gb Current Project: Pyroxene
Thu, 08 Oct 2009, 13:18
Phoenix	Offer several different configurations if you can. I think most computers should be able to handle 109 mb though. Otherwise, think about the target audience: if they're gamers, which they probably are, they probably have better gear than your everyday Mahjong-playing single mom.
Thu, 08 Oct 2009, 14:52
Jayenkai	After a quick test, my celeron's gfx card can't handle a 4096x4096 texture. (NVidia 6200) I'd worry more about that than the amount of memory you're using. Perhaps do a few 1024x1024's, and tile them or something? In fact, if you set a low alpha, you can overlay a couple at different colors to create a neat textured nebulae effect. .. Dang, that looks good! -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
Thu, 08 Oct 2009, 15:00
HoboBen	I read somewhere that you shouldn't have any textures bigger than the screen resolution, because it can be a bit dodgy on some cards. But that's about everything I know on the subject, sorry! -=-=- blog \| work \| code \| more code
Thu, 08 Oct 2009, 16:05
JL235	It really depends on the type of game. Some games won't run well on older hardware anyway because they expect certain features to be present in the card. So having enough video ram isn't an issue because you need a high end card anyway to get said features. If it's CPU intensive, again you'd expect someone with a mid or high end CPU to have a mid or high end graphics card. Initially requiring a 128mb card sound quite high for me. Most indie games can run quite happily on a low-end machine. But after a quick look online I'd say your excluding anything lower then a Geforce FX (and probably the very low end FX and Geforce 6 cards too). That seems acceptable to me.
Thu, 08 Oct 2009, 16:10
Mog	@Phoenix: That's probably the best idea - Scale it down a little. for now, i'm going to develop it on max settings as a benchmark, then scale it down. I sometimes forget constraints since i have a 1gb graphics card (I know - bad practice). Maybe i should work in a system like Source, and scale the game based on your hardware specs, so people like Jay can still get the maximum play experience without gimping the game too bad. @Hobo: i think that's graphics buffers such as images - textures are usually 'window' rendered, or divided into image chunks so it wont get corrupted, though can't be ultimatly sure. I'll research just in case. @JL: it's not really too CPU intensive, although don't know how far im going to take it. I'll agree on targeting an audience, i'm not really looking to cater to everyone under the sun, that would just be masochistic -=-=- I am Busy Mongoose - My Website Dev PC: AMD 8150-FX, 16gb Ram, GeForce GTX 680 2gb Current Project: Pyroxene
Thu, 08 Oct 2009, 22:45
Mog	Ha! Here's a fun thing i did today. Slapped a little DDS texture loader inside of my engine for this game, know how much it reduced all of this? I'm now using 30mb vmem, and the load time is significantly reduced. Gotta love certain things... In celebration of this new finding, i made a secondary layer for the backround - here's the result: PS: Satellites now have a time-based rotation around larger bodies, as denoted by the lines you can see. -=-=- I am Busy Mongoose - My Website Dev PC: AMD 8150-FX, 16gb Ram, GeForce GTX 680 2gb Current Project: Pyroxene
Fri, 09 Oct 2009, 00:43
JL235	I'd be a little careful with DDS. When using OpenGL I've met PCs which are more then powerful to run some of my games but was unable to handle DDS files.
Fri, 09 Oct 2009, 05:11
CodersRule	Ooh Mog, mind making me a wallpaper of that background? I'm 1336x768
Fri, 09 Oct 2009, 14:34
Mog	Hey Coders, Let me clean it up a little. Might do a render of it in MAX instead of just in-game shot. Do you want just the background or the planets as well? -=-=- I am Busy Mongoose - My Website Dev PC: AMD 8150-FX, 16gb Ram, GeForce GTX 680 2gb Current Project: Pyroxene
Fri, 09 Oct 2009, 14:47
Jayenkai	I'd got for Ingame shots.. Those would do better for showing off your game, especially if you made it a weekly feature on your site, or something! -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
Fri, 09 Oct 2009, 16:53
CodersRule	TBH, the planets kind of ruin the background. They don't really look as cool...
Fri, 09 Oct 2009, 18:06
Mog	Screenshot: themongoose.redirectme.net/screenshot.bmp -=-=- I am Busy Mongoose - My Website Dev PC: AMD 8150-FX, 16gb Ram, GeForce GTX 680 2gb Current Project: Pyroxene
Sat, 10 Oct 2009, 04:38
Jayenkai	Just so's you know, .png is lossless compression!
Sat, 10 Oct 2009, 06:09
CodersRule	BMP?! WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!1 png ftw EDIT: WHOA. This is awesome. Thanks so much Mog! ^^
Wed, 16 Dec 2009, 19:45
CodersRule	Windows 7 JPG'd my wallpaper, and I didn't have a copy of it in a different place. Would you be so kind as to make me another wallpaper?