Swap Buffers

[Wesley Tack]

Hello,

http://www.wesleytack.com/upload/normalmaptest0000.jpg

http://www.wesleytack.com/upload/normalmaptest0001.jpg

I'm turning to the hard core Source mappers for a quick question.

I was planning to start a new project on source and wanted to do some quick tests. So before making my own textures I took the one posted on Stefan Heinrich's portfolio as a test ( http://www.stefanheinrich.com/ great work btw).

What my question is, with normal map and specular turned on the framerate is very low and the swap buffers are going through the roof. The next screen shows the same material without normals and specular, same result (bit better frames). This is just a box map, I'm looking into the void behind the wall (so there is nothing else). I only use 4 textures on the BSP, 1 skybox, 1 wall, 1 ceiling, 1 floor. No dynamic lights, map compiled normal with HDR and cbuildcubemaps. No leaks in map, everything is "ok". So whats up with the swap buffers? How on earth can one make a full normal mapped environment on source if 1 texture already gives trouble? Anyone got a clue?

Thanks in advance!

[R_Yell]

A full bar in swap buffers usually indicates that the graphic card is running out of fillrate. Well, hope you aren't using integrated graphics Specular + normal maps is an expensive combination if used extensively, even more when HDR is used too. It's a framerate killer.

[Psyshokiller]

That sounds scary to someone who's not used to have no normal and spec map on a texture.

Stefan Heinrich's portfolio is indeed really cool.

[Wesley Tack]

I have used specs and normals in source before, just on a props for a quick test (without looking at the framerate back then). But now I wanna do more with it in source, and now I'm starting to do some tests before starting the real work.

I did some tests without HDR and no specs, that seemed to work a lot better indeed, I'll do some more tests tomorrow, but it looks like I'll need to work without specs/hdr...

anyway, thanks for clearing it up R_yell

[Mr. Happy]

Swapbuffers are just what they sound like, so the more tex memory your using the more full they are gonna get.

Alot of people are gonna tell ya what I'm about to say is wrong, but they don't know anything. Occassionally your memory gets all used up from other processes, kinda the same reason why your computer usually slows down after being on for a week. So, rebooting can help. I've seen my swapbuffers drop from a full bar to almost nothing once from a simple reboot.

Also, your spec and normals are too strong

[Defrag]

Off topic: Wow, that guy's portfolio is amazing.

On topic: http://mapcore.net/forums/viewtopic.php ... wapbuffers

If your PC hasn't changed and you're still playing at high res, then you're still going to have the problem. The more pixels your graphics card has to push and the more complicated the shaders, the slower the framerate. Try reducing AA, AF and HDR if possible. The best thing to do is reduce your resolution to something your graphics card can actually handle.

What is your PC specification & video settings?

The valve wiki now has some more useful info on it, too:

http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki ... ap_buffers

[Wesley Tack]

Oh snap, I forgot about my previous post. Sorry bout that :/

I have a AMD athlon 64 3500+ (2.2GHz) 2 gig ram and an ATI x800pro card.

I play at 1920*1200 everything high with antialiasing "none" filterind mode "bilinear"

But now I have an understanding of what the swap buffer does, thanks for that, the wiki page helped out a lot! I guess it will work with normal maps and specular maps. I wont use HDR though, cause that was a big difference i think.

Thanks for the help again!