What eats up the ram more?

[k-arts]

power od 2

So when you are talking about the power of 2 you mean 1024x1024 and so on right?

cheers

ralf

[andrewjohn81]

good question, does it need to be square AND power of 2, or just that each side should independantly a power of 2.
for instance, 1024x1024 or 1024x512?
When I was in school using Maya they told me that you should use square maps that were even. Of course, I knew power of 2 was more efficient, but I didn't know how much.

Also, how much does that really effect the memory/speed?

[instinct]

To be honest i am not sure if POT (Power Of Two) textures still get you any significant gain those days. It originated in weak hardware actually. The reason why they are/were so much better is that powers of two enable a lot of neat programming tricks that dont work otherwise. But these are mainly processing advantages, not memory advantages. An example would be SHR and SHL instructions. That means simply shifting the bytes to the left or right. Mind you that computers work binary. imagine decimal 2. As binary that is written as 10. Shift to the left and you get 100. Wich corresponds to 4 in Decimal representation. Another shift and you get 8 etc.

So instead of performing a multiplication you simply shift bytes wich is a lot faster of course. Considering the amount of other calclualations done during rendering i doubt that POT textures return any noticable gain...But i might be off there. Mind you that they dont have to be Square. Square Textures do provide additional value in the original idea, as you can ignore either U or V in all calculations as they are the same...But as Textures are hardly ever used in their original format but have to be either scaled up or down for almost every damn pixel (stupid perspective distortion :P ) that doesnt really get you anywhere i guess...

Regards,
Thorsten

[percydaman]

actually I guess just square. Power of 2 might indeed just be more efficient.

[Penry]

Another thing

anybody else had problems with insufficient RAM when working with the Vrayblend mtl? I can't get my 2gb machine to stop crashing when using more than two coats in the Vrayblend mtl.

Am I missing something?

[jacksc02]

your not using the additive (shellac) mode are you?