Help with an experiment

[BOZO]

Ok some more testing completed.

If you create a mesh with a DXT1 texture applied or with a P8 texture applied and try to replace it with another DXT1 texture, you see the same increased TMAP time as shown in my previous post. Oddly, I created a mesh that uses eight different multiskin textures to cover all triangles and assigned DXT1 textures to them all and found that the TMAP time is the same as if you only had a single texture assigned to the mesh.

If you replace the DXT1 mesh textures with PCX textures (even up to all eight textures in the multiskin array in use at the same time and higher resolutions) you see no real net increase in rendering time.

Thus I am now thinking that a DXT1 texture assigned to a mesh triggers some native code sequence that is causing this increased processing time. I wonder if there is a bug causing the problem here. I don't see what it needs to recalculate from frame to frame... It also seems that DXT1 allowable resolution is limited from 32x32 to 2048x2048. No 16x16 or 4096x4096 textures seem to work without getting a GPF.

I think a look at the native mesh rendering sequence code might shed some light on this problem.

[BOZO]

Some details:

Earlier patch versions (224-225) (and their various video drivers) seem to have problems dealing with DXT1 textures. The exception is the Oldureal Open GL patch ver 224. It seems to operate with complete support. Version 226 Gold works fine. I haven't tested ver 226 yet but it should be fine also I am thinking.

Thus the problems noted before will place some limitations on the implementation of the mutator that it may only be run on a per client basis. I will work on trying to add some code that disallows Client operation if they are running an incompatible patch and/or video driver version before an official release.

Thus we are back on track with producing a beta test version.

BTW: All operating versions and drivers I have tested seem to have no problems using High Resolution PCX files. Potentially, we could create a High Resolution PCX version and a High Resolution DXT1 version of the textures and thus offer support to all comers.