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Texture Memory Question

Started by GroZZleR Aug 5, 2005 at 1:45 AM 0 replies 450+ views

Original Post

Aug 5, 2005 at 1:45 AM

Hey all, Just a quick question about texture memory. Let's say I have a 512x512x32 texture that's saved as a PNG totaling 200,000 bytes. When I load that texture and it goes to the graphics card, is it taking up 200,000 bytes or 1,048,576 (512x512x4) bytes of video RAM? Thanks.

Nik02

Aug 5, 2005 at 2:22 AM

The textures are uncompressed before they get to the video memory, so your example would need the megabyte there.

There is an exception: DXT (DirectX name) / S3TC (OpenGL name) compressed textures can be used directly with almost any card made within the last five years. Depending on your quality requirements, they may work very well with your programs.

Also, the newest generation cards support a specialized normal map compression format, name of which escapes me now, directly.

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