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Commander Gizmo · 10-20-08, 03:32 AM

First of all: GWX IS BACK??!!!

AWESOME!!!

Ok, now a few responses:

Why is there no speed loading mod widely used? One does not exist nor can it be made. That sounds rather definate. Do modders have control over which file is referenced for each graphic, or are some/most hard coded?
Does the menu backgroun movie (a bik, I think) load, or just stream from file?Everything loads at start up. Cutting a 40MB video could shorten load time somewhat, yes?
Can we effect what is loaded at app launch and what is loaded at game start?No the load sequence is hard coded by the devs. Then what loads at game start (like starting a mission)? That takes even longer.
Why is the artwork for the loading screens much larger than the screen area it fills?I'm not sure what you mean. Mine fits perfectly. The loading images in GWX are 1024x1024 pixels even though they are shown in an area of 1024x768. Cutting back on those pixels would make the files smaller (since TGA's are not compressed). This makes me wonder why, and were else this occurs.
Why are so many blank textures not incredibly small, or just reused from the same file?Again I'm not sure what you mean. Can you give an example? For example, the file Back00.tga is 512x512 pixels, though I can't find anything different between any of the pixels, one from another. Again, it seems a waste of data size. If this occurs often, it could add up to a sizable amount of load time.
Does the game allow modders to choose what sections of what files are used where on the screen?Yes and no. It depends on whether it is an object created by a modder or not. On some objects it would be possible. On others it would not. The purpose of this question is to acertain whether multiple spirtes/textures, could be derived from a single file. For instance, back000.tga could be used for all space that conforms to its color/transparency by 'cropping' a section of the texture and using it here or there instead of multiple images. Another example might be how map.tga and singlemission.tga are both the same file (from what I can tell), just loaded twice.
Can the modder choose tiling or stretching of a texture piece to fill an area of the screen? Again it depends on the object in question. This is really just part of the above question.
Has anyone attempted to optimize the loading time? Yes GWX spent many hours attempting to make this as optimised as possible, hwoever given the way the game works it is what it is. I greatly appreciate their efforts. I'll bet when they first loaded it up it took much, much longer. I certainly don't envy their long hours of testing just staring at that darn progress bar plodding along.

While I realize that keeping the file names and sizes the same certainly makes a mod far more likley to work with other mods, I see some possible potential for a great deal more optimization if such a restriction were not needed. Perhaps the game engine is simply hard coded with too many file names and such to make it possible. Being the anal efficiency natzi that I am, I feel like possibly giving it a go.

What if GWX 3.0 Gold had an optimized version with black and white menu graphics (or even none at all save the text) and all the files cleaned up? I suppose I might be able to do such a thing for myself if I wanted since I don't see any reason the GWX team should spend long hours remaking what they've already made just to satisfy me. Although, I would probably need to be given a few details on what is hardcoded.

10-20-08, 03:32 AM	#4
Commander Gizmo Watch Officer Join Date: Jan 2007 Posts: 339 Downloads: 76 Uploads: 4	First of all: GWX IS BACK??!!! AWESOME!!! Ok, now a few responses: Why is there no speed loading mod widely used? One does not exist nor can it be made. That sounds rather definate. Do modders have control over which file is referenced for each graphic, or are some/most hard coded? Does the menu backgroun movie (a bik, I think) load, or just stream from file?Everything loads at start up. Cutting a 40MB video could shorten load time somewhat, yes? Can we effect what is loaded at app launch and what is loaded at game start?No the load sequence is hard coded by the devs. Then what loads at game start (like starting a mission)? That takes even longer. Why is the artwork for the loading screens much larger than the screen area it fills?I'm not sure what you mean. Mine fits perfectly. The loading images in GWX are 1024x1024 pixels even though they are shown in an area of 1024x768. Cutting back on those pixels would make the files smaller (since TGA's are not compressed). This makes me wonder why, and were else this occurs. Why are so many blank textures not incredibly small, or just reused from the same file?Again I'm not sure what you mean. Can you give an example? For example, the file Back00.tga is 512x512 pixels, though I can't find anything different between any of the pixels, one from another. Again, it seems a waste of data size. If this occurs often, it could add up to a sizable amount of load time. Does the game allow modders to choose what sections of what files are used where on the screen?Yes and no. It depends on whether it is an object created by a modder or not. On some objects it would be possible. On others it would not. The purpose of this question is to acertain whether multiple spirtes/textures, could be derived from a single file. For instance, back000.tga could be used for all space that conforms to its color/transparency by 'cropping' a section of the texture and using it here or there instead of multiple images. Another example might be how map.tga and singlemission.tga are both the same file (from what I can tell), just loaded twice. Can the modder choose tiling or stretching of a texture piece to fill an area of the screen? Again it depends on the object in question. This is really just part of the above question. Has anyone attempted to optimize the loading time? Yes GWX spent many hours attempting to make this as optimised as possible, hwoever given the way the game works it is what it is. I greatly appreciate their efforts. I'll bet when they first loaded it up it took much, much longer. I certainly don't envy their long hours of testing just staring at that darn progress bar plodding along. While I realize that keeping the file names and sizes the same certainly makes a mod far more likley to work with other mods, I see some possible potential for a great deal more optimization if such a restriction were not needed. Perhaps the game engine is simply hard coded with too many file names and such to make it possible. Being the anal efficiency natzi that I am, I feel like possibly giving it a go. What if GWX 3.0 Gold had an optimized version with black and white menu graphics (or even none at all save the text) and all the files cleaned up? I suppose I might be able to do such a thing for myself if I wanted since I don't see any reason the GWX team should spend long hours remaking what they've already made just to satisfy me. Although, I would probably need to be given a few details on what is hardcoded.