Texture Streaming!

revo_phxrevo_phx Join Date: 2010-10-27 Member: 74626Members
in New Player Forum
Hey mates :)

Could somoeone please explain how this works?
Does it give me any visual improvements or is it just to get some more performance?

I'm running everything on high so just wondering if it's worth using...

Haven't found anything in the Forumsearch..

Thx alot!
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Comments

  • AngeluszAngelusz Harmonic entropist Join Date: 2003-07-10 Member: 18072Members, Forum Moderators, Constellation, NS2 Playtester
    It reduces loading times by streaming textures ingame, instead of caching them during the loading process. It should not have much impact on your ingame performance.
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  • shonanshonan Join Date: 2013-01-28 Member: 182562Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    Angelusz wrote: »
    It reduces loading times by streaming textures ingame, instead of caching them during the loading process. It should not have much impact on your ingame performance.

    Actually I have noticed an increase in performance with texture streaming disabled
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  • DrowningwDrowningw Join Date: 2012-12-22 Member: 175899Members
    edited March 2013
    longer loading time versus ocaasional performance drops during in game streaming. your choice.
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  • CurveCurve Join Date: 2003-12-17 Member: 24475Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    Angelusz wrote: »
    It reduces loading times by streaming textures ingame, instead of caching them during the loading process. It should not have much impact on your ingame performance.

    I wonder if its worth turning off then if I have an SSD?
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  • AngeluszAngelusz Harmonic entropist Join Date: 2003-07-10 Member: 18072Members, Forum Moderators, Constellation, NS2 Playtester
    Curve wrote: »
    Angelusz wrote: »
    It reduces loading times by streaming textures ingame, instead of caching them during the loading process. It should not have much impact on your ingame performance.

    I wonder if its worth turning off then if I have an SSD?

    That depends. If you have NS2 installed on the SSD, it'll definitely make a difference, though probably not as much as texture streaming being on. The two combined would make your load times the shortest.

    And yes, in certain situations, texture streaming has the potential to diminish ingame performance, after all, a task is added there. This is heavily dependant on where your rig is bottlenecked though.

    On a high-end PC, I would always recommend turning it on, unless you're experiencing problems when it is.
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  • CurveCurve Join Date: 2003-12-17 Member: 24475Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    I just try to squeeze very single extra frame I can from my rig.
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  • revo_phxrevo_phx Join Date: 2010-10-27 Member: 74626Members
    thanks much for the clarification!
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  • SleekSleek Join Date: 2013-02-01 Member: 182709Members
    I've got an ssd and have streaming turned off as I have noticed a minor performance drop with it on. With the SSD and higher end specs I already load maps fast that 90% of others, but there no point going faster as you still have to wait for everyone else to load in to begin playing...
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  • revo_phxrevo_phx Join Date: 2010-10-27 Member: 74626Members
    edited March 2013
    I really dont have Problems with the loading time on Texture Stream = 0. The first Time loading takes ages for me, but after that first Load, it only takes 5-10 Secs for the next map.
    So i'm acutally happy with that! I'm running a 120gb SSD, so moving NS2 to that is just not possible for me.
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  • AsranielAsraniel Join Date: 2002-06-03 Member: 724Members, Playtest Lead, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow, Subnautica Playtester, Retired Community Developer
    If you have enough video ram, dont enable it, it will indeed slow down your game. On the other hand, if your gpu has little memory, enable it, as it will improve your framerate.
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  • PaajtorPaajtor Join Date: 2012-11-09 Member: 168634Members
    I tried it a couple of times, and loading was a little faster.
    But I also got game-crashes on a pretty regular base (at least once/server-session), so Ieave it to OFF.
    And since build 240, my loading times have significantly improved anyway - around 15secs.
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  • DarkATiDarkATi Revelation 22:17 Join Date: 2003-06-20 Member: 17532Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    I have a question. I have texture streaming enabled. At the beginning of a game r_stats 1 says "[insert number greater than 0 here] wating on GPU." However, towards the end of a game it drops to 0ms waiting on GPU all the time. Is texture streaming doing this?
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  • KamamuraKamamura Join Date: 2013-03-06 Member: 183736Members, Reinforced - Gold
    Angelusz wrote: »
    Curve wrote: »

    On a high-end PC, I would always recommend turning it on, unless you're experiencing problems when it is.

    I strongly disagree with this statement. I have a high-end PC with powerful Gfx card (GTX670 with 4GB memory) and have texture streaming disabled.

    Why? If I understand it correctly, when it is off, the game loads all the necessary textures from disk files or memory to Video Ram, hence the super long precaching phase. That I don't mind, I am interested only in good in-game performance.

    When texture streaming is on, the game "streams" the textures from disk and/or RAM to VRAM when they are needed.

    Since VRAM is much faster than conventional RAM (not speaking about disk), and data in it can be used much faster, and I have a large amount of VRAM, it is more advantageous for me to cache everything I can, and use the fastest VRAM/video card bus when playing.

    Texture streaming might be advantageous for computers with lower amounts of VRAM, I suppose.
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  • DC_DarklingDC_Darkling Join Date: 2003-07-10 Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
    Angelusz is corrrect.
    I have saw performance drop for myself aswell with the currently parial always on streaming.
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  • KamamuraKamamura Join Date: 2013-03-06 Member: 183736Members, Reinforced - Gold
    Okay, could we elaborate a bit on the subject? I am not even sure if everyone (including myself) understands correctly what texture streaming really does.

    My hypothesis is that there are two strategies - streaming vs. caching.

    IMO caching means load as much as possible initially into RAM and/or VRAM, and take advantage of the fastest available memory on the system.

    Streaming, on the other hand, hints that only the absolutely necessary data are kept in RAM/VRAM, and the rest is "streamed" on demand according to what is going to be displayed and what is necessary.

    Therefore, I suppose that streaming shortens load times and allows systems with lower available memory use higher details. Turning this option off seems appropriate to me for high level systems.

    Is this correct or not?
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  • SgtBarlowSgtBarlow Level Designer Join Date: 2003-11-13 Member: 22749Members, NS2 Developer
    There is various things that texture streaming does but to put it simply it's not so much as an impactor on overall fps, It just reduces load stuttering when moving from one area of the level to the other. When it's off a low spec system should see very small pauses as they move forwards as resources are loaded, Perhaps in some cases directly from the HDD.
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  • KamamuraKamamura Join Date: 2013-03-06 Member: 183736Members, Reinforced - Gold
    Okay, thank you for clarification, but if I have a lot of RAM and VRAM (I have 4GB GTX 670), is it possible to eliminate loading altogether and load everything in the "PRECACHING" phase? By setting streaming off?
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  • ScardyBobScardyBob ScardyBob Join Date: 2009-11-25 Member: 69528Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
    It doesn't impact fps, as SgtBarlow said, but the hitching that occurs can be as bad as having low fps. Before NS2 precomplied shaders and precached files, many people had issues where the game would hang for up to a second or two the first time they encountered a new effect/shader/particle (e.g. infestation, nanoshield, lerk spores, etc).
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  • revo_phxrevo_phx Join Date: 2010-10-27 Member: 74626Members
    edited March 2013
    Correct me if i am wrong but i think it is like this:


    It's not exactly how NS2 looks with Texture Streaming=1 but maybe you'll get the idea behind it.
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  • KamamuraKamamura Join Date: 2013-03-06 Member: 183736Members, Reinforced - Gold
    Okay, but why should I want it on, when I have 4GB of VRAM? You people keep presenting conflicting information.
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  • BaallBaall Join Date: 2003-07-23 Member: 18374Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    I always play with Texture Streaming off and I never had any Problem. It takes me a little longer to join servers because my harddisk is slow, but I am in before the game starts.
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