Texture preload option

[________________Seid]

A lot of the perceived lag is due to the client putting everything on hold while loading textures from the HD.

I would like to see an option to PRELOAD these textures once and for all at client startup. I have plenty RAM...

Anyone else ?

[____________McKinlay]

Just ask everyone to wear a black cloak and that'll load much faster.

More seriously, I eared that defrag the disk should help alots

[Thyrra]

i would use such an option.

i forget who told me, but i found out a couple days ago that zoning twice into a zone helps reduce the graphics loading lag immensely.

i used to zone into newland city and stutter like crazy when i turned around as graphics were being loaded. now i zone into nlc, zone out, and zone back in and all is well.

this implies that there is something that isn't being completed in the zoning in process, and that zoning out and/or zoning back in completes.

[______________Nable7]

i bet it would take a LOT of memory to load every texture... probably more than most people have.

/me has serious problems with visual "lag"...

/me goes to defrag his hard drive...

[________________Cado]

It seems that the pure textures of the game is only about 150-200 MB ... I have plenty of RAM for that.

I also at elast want an OPTION to turn more pre caching on !

[______________Cronos]

Originally posted by McFee
Just ask everyone to wear a black cloak and that'll load much faster.

More seriously, I eared that defrag the disk should help alots

Hehe, thats one of the quirks of AO, every character has everything loaded, their cloak, armor underneath, newbie suit, etc. (waste of ram and a deficiency in the game)

[______________Atreyu]

Maybe add a visible bit to everything?

If bit is set, item (or part of item) is visible, load the texture.
else if bit is clear, don't load the texture?

Course then you have visible bit setting overhead

If I put on this cloak, then does this other item remain visible? I'd assume that there is already something for that since the armor on your chest is not normally visible (even if the textures are loaded) with a cloak on on top of it. Course this could be brought about by drawing the armor chest first, then the cloack so the cloak overwrites the chest.

[__________Wraith God]

Originally posted by Cronos
Hehe, thats one of the quirks of AO, every character has everything loaded, their cloak, armor underneath, newbie suit, etc. (waste of ram and a deficiency in the game)

If you watch people zone (especially through wompahs for some reason), you'll notice that their clothing is added in stages. So, in fact, you need all of the textures for all the layers because they are used everytime you zone.

Of course, whether you need to add everything in layers is an interesting technical question.

[______________Nable7]

Originally posted by Cado
I also at elast want an OPTION to turn more pre caching on !

now, that's a good idea, allow precaching adjustment, in settings.

[________________Cado]

I think this is how a Rendering of a character goes :

• Base model, no textures.
• Adds skin textures to model.
• Adds Head model, skin and Hair.
• Adds base armor :
• -Boots
• -Legs
• -Body
• -Arms
• -Gloves
• -Helm
• -Back slot item
• Adds HUD items :
• -Floating torch / Wen Wen ... whatever.
• -Yalmaha (if applied)

You will notice that if a texture also covers an area that already had a texture, that area is "overwritten" .. so that once loaded and rendered once, you only have to render the outmost layer of texture. Which explains why the Framerate recovers after the first loading & Rendering have been done.

Offcourse, all those have to be loaded, even if the Backslot item eventually overwrites half of the oters, they are still rendered that first time they get into view distance.

People in Battle Suits load fast ... they are "naked" under the armor.

[dezibel]

bumpies let me use my ram

[________________Cado]

I think this topic could use a Developer response.

[dezibel]

yeah i think so to

[________________Cado]

Still no response from them.

[svendor]

If loading all these textures causes a good amount of the lag i wouldnt mind it if the made everyone wears the same thing in a PvP situation. Say in a tower attack/defence situation when u get into the 25% zone or grid in to your tower area everyone has on an omni med suit or something like that or are wearing a specific suit for each profession. Then the only thing to load would be each persons weaopns. Or at least try this way till a better soultion can be reached other then the crowd control system which limits everyones fun..

[________________Seid]

Then it would be better to delay-load textures :

Now the client PAUSES the game on SOME of the clients in a conflict situation.

Either : Preload textures in advance

or : Delay load. NEVER freeze the client...better to show people as "starter chars" with no armor etc and load it as the client gets CPU cycles free to do so.

[______________Nable7]

good alternative.