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Texture Question

Started by The Frugal Gourmet Mar 27, 2004 at 5:47 PM 2 replies 650+ views

Original Post

Mar 27, 2004 at 5:47 PM

When I load a texture using the DirectX API, how is stored on my graphics card? Is it stored in the same format that it is stored on the disk, or is it converted to my screen surface format? Or is it only converted to my screen surface format when I use SetTexture? In other words, is the amount of memory each texture takes up dependent on my screen format or on the texture format originally?

circlesoft

Mar 27, 2004 at 8:27 PM

IIRC, it''s the format of the original texture format (the file on disk). However, if you specify a D3DFORMAT other than D3DFMT_UNKNOWN (look at the D3DXCreateTextureFromFileEx() function) for the requested pixel format, it''s going to depend on that. Specifying D3DMT_UNKNOWN pulls the format from the file.

Dustin Franklin
Mircrosoft DirectX MVP

hplus0603

Mar 27, 2004 at 8:44 PM

Actually, the driver has some latitude to convert the texture on upload (after you unlock the surface). For example, for higher benchmark scores, drivers have been known to always convert to 16-bit textures, even if you create a 32-bit texture and lock/upload 32-bit data. This behavior is usually controllable through control panel settings.

The Frugal Gourmet

Mar 28, 2004 at 12:01 AM

Cool. So I can save memory space by utilizing less colors or a smaller alpha channel, even if my display is X8R8G8B8? Good to know. Thanks.

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