String Table System

Text is just another resource for games, so you can load it using a simple resource manager, just as you would with any other type of resource (textures, models, sounds, music, etc).

On the other hand, from a basic memory point of view, a typical 256x256 32-bit texture takes about as much memory as 45000 english words. When your game text is typed at 80 wpm, eight hours a day, by someone who knows exactly what he is writing, and with no in-game testing whatsoever, it would still take you 75 days to write those words. And today, a 256x256 32-bit texture is considered "lightweight" when in the actual system RAM.

I understand your point but, as in life, not everything is as simple as hoped. Here are a few issues:

- This is for several different consoles, so every byte counts.
- The game may have a lot of text, only a fraction of which needs to be in memory at any one time.
- Load times need to be ultra-fast. Can't parse file or directroy for each load. Must keep offset table in RAM so string or strings can be read in one swipe.
- Avoid "in-the-loop" dynamic memory allocation, so allocating and freeing memory on a per-string basis is not acceptable. Want to use a static cache buffer.

The task is fairly straightforward... just looking for somebody that has done this to see if I'm predicting all the problems.

(BTW: your calculations are a bit off. A 256x256x3 texture is really only about 40K in DXT1. That's about 6600 words (at 5 char and a space per) which can by typed in under 90 minutes :-) )

And such string tables are very useful for localization efforts. [though I concur with ToohrVyk otherwise]