Convert normal maps to RGTC?

[duzenko]

It's interesting that people like to mention the forceHighQuality flag and very rarely remember about uncompressed/highquality flags

I think you should not use the former if you don't know the difference with the latter

[OrbWeaver]

uncompressed / highQuality — Do not compress this image in medium quality mode
forceHighQuality — Do not compress this image in low quality mode

Given that we do not expose the concepts of "medium quality" or "low quality" in TDM, I'm not sure how this difference is applied in practice.

[duzenko]

32 minutes ago, OrbWeaver said:

uncompressed / highQuality — Do not compress this image in medium quality mode
forceHighQuality — Do not compress this image in low quality mode

Given that we do not expose the concepts of "medium quality" or "low quality" in TDM, I'm not sure how this difference is applied in practice.

There's a cvar to ignore highQuality flag that does not apply to forceHighQuality

In reality forceHighQuality should not be used on anything that highQuality is enough for because

• it robs the end user of options
• it's less typing and parsing

[stgatilov]

I implemented RGTC compressor in SIMD (generic and SSE2), as well as mipmapping.
The compressor uses min/max value of a block as min/max ramp points with 6 intermediate ramp points between them, and snaps each color value to the closest ramp point (well, almost closest sometimes).

On the shitty i3-5005U CPU which I have now, compressing 2K x 2K normal map takes 28 ms (with all mipmaps included). This means 7 ms per 1K x 1K texture, or 7 ns per pixel.
Given that loading the 2K x 2K TGA image from PK4 file takes about 200 ms, I think 30 ms is negligible in comparison.

The only question is quality. It seems that naive compressor should be good enough for RGTC.
I guess I'll wrap up the changes and commit them, so that someone else could test it on hard cases if there are known ones. It took me several days here to download 10 MB installer of DDS Viewer, so I won't be able to test it myself

[MirceaKitsune]

That sounds awesome! Can we have a reminder of what the cvar is to test the new implementation? Though I assume all existing normal maps in the assets need to be converted, so I take it the next dev snapshot might not benefit just by enabling the setting unless someone batch-converts every normal texture as well.

[nbohr1more]

I am guessing that this change would remove the image_mipmapMode cvar ?

[stgatilov]

I have committed all my changes to source code repo.
New software RGTC compressor is enabled for everyone. I did not provide a way to disable it, but you can easily find it if you want.

There is nothing like image_mipmapMode in the code already, maybe @duzenko removed it later.

[duzenko]

Compression on, 0.7GB VRAM used

[url=https://postimg.cc/jnK3Mz6F][img]https://i.postimg.cc/hv7FPsXc/image.png[/img][/url]

Compression off, 0.9GB VRAM used

[url=https://postimg.cc/pmhNhJsf][img]https://i.postimg.cc/13MydW6j/image.png[/img][/url]

Spoiler

FFS what's going on with image hosting links?

 

[duzenko]

@stgatilovI think we want to ignore image_useCompression here

It has been only affecting non-normal textures before AFAIR

[stgatilov]

27 minutes ago, duzenko said:

@stgatilovI think we want to ignore image_useCompression here

It has been only affecting non-normal textures before AFAIR

Yes, it makes sense.
But make sure to disable it woth in HandleCompression and in SelectInternalFormat.

I'd say we can probably refactor SelectInternalFormat into two parts: the one which is O(1) and return format without any analysis, and the one which can additionally check the image data for final internal format. In this case I'd call the first function in HandleCompression instead of writing the same conditions again.

[OrbWeaver]

If I understand correctly, the advantage of doing RGTC compression in software is performance, because it can be done in parallel rather than image-by-image on the GPU?

If so, I guess any testing should focus on performance (particularly the time to load a new mission from scratch), rather than GPU memory usage which should be the same whether RGTC compression is done in software or by OpenGL.

[duzenko]

7 minutes ago, OrbWeaver said:

If I understand correctly, the advantage of doing RGTC compression in software is performance, because it can be done in parallel rather than image-by-image on the GPU?

If so, I guess any testing should focus on performance (particularly the time to load a new mission from scratch), rather than GPU memory usage which should be the same whether RGTC compression is done in software or by OpenGL.

With dynamic image loading driver-side compression is just too slow and results in stuttering

Even if not used widely ATM it's already technologically superior

[duzenko]

39 minutes ago, stgatilov said:

Yes, it makes sense.
But make sure to disable it woth in HandleCompression and in SelectInternalFormat.

Huh, it seems I was wrong about that

Completed: At revision: 9563 

Quote

I'd say we can probably refactor SelectInternalFormat into two parts: the one which is O(1) and return format without any analysis, and the one which can additionally check the image data for final internal format. In this case I'd call the first function in HandleCompression instead of writing the same conditions again.

Also a good idea

[MirceaKitsune]

This is really great! Any noticeable difference in loading time too? That's one of the main aspects I was interested in, TDM still has some really long load times compared to many other engines.

[duzenko]

2 hours ago, MirceaKitsune said:

This is really great! Any noticeable difference in loading time too? That's one of the main aspects I was interested in, TDM still has some really long load times compared to many other engines.

Try image_preload 0

[MirceaKitsune]

47 minutes ago, duzenko said:

Try image_preload 0

Will keep it in mind. IIRC though that means the game will stutter whenever an object with a previously unloaded texture comes into view, so I'd likely get slowdowns during the game instead.

[duzenko]

1 hour ago, MirceaKitsune said:

Will keep it in mind. IIRC though that means the game will stutter whenever an object with a previously unloaded texture comes into view, so I'd likely get slowdowns during the game instead.

The current svn performs quite well actually

[nbohr1more]

Faster conversion is definitely welcome but I still think we should consider pre-compressing some of these:

1) Detailed wood textures. It is unlikely anyone will fiddle with image program functions on these

2) Normals baked from models ( on model assets such as bellows )

Of course, as soon as I say this some mission author will make an exotic material which requires the uncompressed images... We can still handle those rare exceptions on a case by case basis

[HMart]

I bet you guys already know this but if you don't, just for kicks I set image_preload 0 and image_useCompression 0 and the missions I tried load way quicker! Is obvious why but I underestimated how impactful this options were!

And I didn't felt any performance loss from it. I hope this is true for all! 

It seems I will play with those off going forward.  

Btw I also found that using preload 0 and compression ON, causes the game to start with no textures for a few micro seconds, similar to some UE3 games! TDM is now among the big league engines! ;D kd

Is not a big problem and the same happens with compression off but for a lower time, unfortunately, the game has visible pauses, when opening doors and the game as to load and compress the textures on the fly. 

 

edit: I didn't played the latest version with stgatilov new RGTC compressor in SIMD, so things could be different on it. 

Edited August 19, 2021 by HMart

[nbohr1more]

I tried loading a number of larger missions last night. I definitely saw shorter load times. The candle animation for A Score to Settle never completed so quickly. I'll need to use a timer to get definitive results.

[duzenko]

On 8/20/2021 at 2:13 AM, HMart said:

I bet you guys already know this but if you don't, just for kicks I set image_preload 0 and image_useCompression 0 and the missions I tried load way quicker! Is obvious why but I underestimated how impactful this options were!

And I didn't felt any performance loss from it. I hope this is true for all! 

It seems I will play with those off going forward.  

Btw I also found that using preload 0 and compression ON, causes the game to start with no textures for a few micro seconds, similar to some UE3 games! TDM is now among the big league engines! ;D kd

Is not a big problem and the same happens with compression off but for a lower time, unfortunately, the game has visible pauses, when opening doors and the game as to load and compress the textures on the fly. 

 

edit: I didn't played the latest version with stgatilov new RGTC compressor in SIMD, so things could be different on it. 

With uncompressed assets on ssd it's quite fast but then again full preload is not too slow either

[HMart]

8 hours ago, duzenko said:

With uncompressed assets on ssd it's quite fast but then again full preload is not too slow either

oh yes a good internal ssd or even a nvem/M.2 ssd can be fast even with preload on, but I have the game in a external USB 3.0 2.5 HDD, so preload may impact me more I assume. 

[duzenko]

17 hours ago, HMart said:

oh yes a good internal ssd or even a nvem/M.2 ssd can be fast even with preload on, but I have the game in a external USB 3.0 2.5 HDD, so preload may impact me more I assume. 

Preload is definitely preferred for HDDs

[stgatilov]

The new dev build is available, so now everyone can test the new approach.

To be honest, I forgot to add a cvar to enable/disable the new RGTC code, so on the new dev build it is always on.
I'm afraid you'll have to install old/new versions side-by-side if you want to make a comparison.

And if you decide to compare, note that OS has a very large cache.
Basically, all the unused physical RAM is used as cache for the recently loaded files, so the whole TDM easily fits into it.
So if you load TDM second time without reboot, then the data will be loaded from RAM instead of HDD/SSD.
Make sure to not compare cold and hot loading times to each other!

[duzenko]

23 minutes ago, stgatilov said:

The new dev build is available, so now everyone can test the new approach.

To be honest, I forgot to add a cvar to enable/disable the new RGTC code, so on the new dev build it is always on.
I'm afraid you'll have to install old/new versions side-by-side if you want to make a comparison.

image_useNormalCompression does that?

You mean there's no more driver compression, only ours or none