What is this?

[Repzik]

Ok this is a little stupid question, but what exactly is this? Aren't the Unreal textures pretty high resolution already?

[Smirftsch]

S3TC allows to use way more detailed textures without performance loss, check out http://www.oldunreal.com/screenshots/s3/
for some examples.

[sopa_de_letras]

I have to disagree with the "no performance loss". In *stupidly* old cards like MX440 and slow CPUs like 1ghz there is a performance loss. If I install the UT second CD textures it runs slower.

[DieHard SCWS]

Welcome to the forums Repzik.


On this page you can find more info on the project:

[url=http://www.celticwarriors.net/Website/S3TC/S3TC.htm][glow=yellow,2,300]Unreal Retexturing Project[/glow][/url]


And the first example on that page does show the power of the S3TC textures. Here is the same link to that picture:

http://www.celticwarriors.net/Website/S3TC/AAAMedia/Etub_E_S3TCLarge.jpg

In that example you can see a combination with the original and S3TC texture to show the difference, and those are the actual sizes. The original is 128 pixels x 128 pixels (indexed colors 256), while the S3TC counterpart is 1024 x 1024 pixels and true color (16 million colors).

I have to disagree with the "no performance loss". In *stupidly* old cards like MX440 and slow CPUs like 1ghz there is a performance loss. If I install the UT second CD textures it runs slower.

And i agree on that, it does depend on the size and capabillities from your videocard and computer. But that needs a remark. It is weird that this occurs with the UT second CD textures because almost all the those textures are equal or below the limit from 8 times larger than the original. Which effectivelly should mean you could not notice a difference. And sure enough the actual threshold is on 6 x times, but the difference is that small it should not matter.


For the textures created after that in tyhe URProject its quit different, at this moment those textures are really pushed to the limit for current videocards, at this moment its recommended that you have at least a 2.4 Ghz CPU and a 256 Mb(or larger) videocard. I myself have a 128Mb videocard and its often noticable that i encounter videolag on certain maps.


I am working on a new site that will run aside the celtic warriors site and will be a texture portal for Unreal, UT, UT2004 and upcoming UT3. One of the first things on that site will be seperate downloads for Unreal/UT users having follow videocards:

- 128Mb and less
- 256Mb and higher

The 128Mb group will have a texture limit from 1024 with a maximum to 2048 on a few textures. Animated textures will not exceed 512.

The 256 group will work with the current downloads, where the limit is 2048 with a maximum to 4096 on a few textures. Animated textures will not exceed 1024.

I hope that the seperation of the downloads will help out people on the more lower end videocards. I have enough requests about that from various people that it deserves a split (among those is sopa_de_letras ) But i need to have the website space for it, but hopefully it will be very soon. I am working on it.
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[Repzik]

Holy crap... that's awsome! It's like UT2k4 graphics! Thanks for filling me in.

[DieHard SCWS]

Holy crap... that's awsome! It's like UT2k4 graphics! Thanks for filling me in.

And actually they are higher in resolution in general, so effectivelly they are superior to UT2004. Obviously Epic had to stay on the safe side and doesnt go higher than 1024 and averidge is 512 as far as i can see. And i can blame them, after all they want to have as many people being able to play the game and still try to achieve a good quality as possible. But the project here, averidge is between 1024 and 2048.


Downside maybe, that still not all textures are done, and theres a long way to go, but i think the result is cool already as it is. I still also like the low resolution original textures myself, preferably runnning with software rendering. To me that still looks awsome too  8-)  


The new update is still a couple of weeks away, and it will only cover SkyCity.utx and a fix for Mine.utx (few textures accidentelly dropped off in the last update  ::) ) But the SkyCity package is now approximately 405 Mb big, which means some 130 Mb of textures have been added since the last update. And its a complex update, mainly the copper parts are very, very complex to re-create.
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[sopa_de_letras]

2048 x 2048 is UT3 or Crysis, or Oblivion, or many shader 3 enabled games.

[Shivaxi]

Can't wait for UT3 and Crysis