Dealing with large maps

[Erom]

When creating large maps, does anyone have any cute strategies for saving memory other than mirroring?

I'm working on an only-medium-sized 16x10, and when making the texture I have to wait for 3 minutes or so for every operation to complete, which is too long for me.

This is using GIMP, with 2 gigs of ram.

Thanks.

[FizWizz]

if you draw your maps, I can't help you. If you render them, then here is a suggestion. Use a lamo single-tile-across-the-entire-map texturemap for your map while you edit the other aspects of your map first. Then when you feel the gameplay is good, *then* you take the heightmap and make a render of it. 'course, That's only if you're rendering your map.

[mufdvr222]

Does Gimp have an undo function, if so try reducing the max number of times you can perform an "undo" or turn it off completely, you will save a heap of memory, and how fast is your cpu?

[zorbawic]

At the bottom of your texture window in a white coloured bar there is a value representing memory usage. When its close to exceeding your 2 gigs or to the moment when rendering gets sluggish (don't look at the task manager's memory usage), try saving the file, close it, and open it again. Also if you are using layers, try saving only the required layers into a separate file, and make your texture from that file (ie without metalmap).

I've been working on a map 32x8 and it helped a lot.

[IceXuick]

You could also enlarge the swapfile on your HD. Also installing your image-edit software on anoter physical-drive helps. And indeed the above mentioned.

Maybe you can be more specific on what action you are doing? (brushing/drawing or smudging f.e. where smudging takes much more time)

[aGorm]

Also, check if it has its own Ram distribution and swap space. In photoshop theres a slider for how much ram you want it to use up, possibly gimp has somthing similar.

To be honest, 16 x 10 is less than 400 megs, so it should easily fit in your ram. Even if you had a few layers it would fit.

Also, just so you dont feel hard done by, imaing me and my 1 gig of ram working on a 28 x 28, with 4 layers, taking up over 2 gig of space in edit mode (hence alot of hard disk noise driving me crazy) and any global change (like using fill or the brightness tools) taking about 10 mins to go through. All the while me going nuts cause of the HD noise...

Then 3 mins dont seem so bad right??

aGorm

[IceXuick]

Also, check if it has its own Ram distribution and swap space. In photoshop theres a slider for how much ram you want it to use up, possibly gimp has somthing similar.

To be honest, 16 x 10 is less than 400 megs, so it should easily fit in your ram. Even if you had a few layers it would fit.

Also, just so you dont feel hard done by, imaing me and my 1 gig of ram working on a 28 x 28, with 4 layers, taking up over 2 gig of space in edit mode (hence alot of hard disk noise driving me crazy) and any global change (like using fill or the brightness tools) taking about 10 mins to go through. All the while me going nuts cause of the HD noise...

Then 3 mins dont seem so bad right??

aGorm

damn!! 10 mins!! buy some new ram or better cpu.. so you can be much more productive!! I dislike wait-times while editing (despite from rendering, which i'd like to be faster, but isn't really nesscesary..)

my dual-proc 2 gig system some-times even makes me think it's slow...

[Comp1337]

my dual-proc 2 gig system some-times even makes me think it's slow...

Ooh, you just had to plug yo box.

I have dualcore as well. Pshhh.

[Cheesecan]

Buy Samsung or Seagate the next time if you want to avoid hd-noise.

[aGorm]

Yhe you have to emember that I spent alot on what I got, but its now almost 2 years old. Upgrading now would be pointless... as all the better CPUs are out next year. So i have to wait...

I did get a nice monitor to make up for it though... (24" 1920 x 1200, sooo much work space... and so crisp... ummm )

aGorm

::EDIT:: and the hard disk noise is due to the fact the rest of the PC is silent as well silent. It hardly makes a noise. So the harddisks sound lound in comparison. Id put music on but my bros always trying to sleep when Im editing big files... (IE I Stay up to late...)

[IceXuick]

24" is very suweet!! Well new cpu's/mobo's/ram will remain coming so in that point of view buying new stuff is always 'pointless'.

Whenever i buy a new system i make sure to buy stuff that is expansion-able, or 'future'-aimed. I can still go up to a x2 4800+/FX57-60, expand to 4 gigs of ram, expand with @least 2 more hd's, and add another pci-x vid and some kind of phys-x card. And the new XP that is 64 bit, will still run nicely :D

You could try and do the same, if you have some budget (1250-1500 euros)

Anyway, your screen is nice!! im here @ dual 19" lcd's but bgger is always better

[FireCrack]

Wait for the new map format

[aGorm]

Well technicly I could buy now, as Socket AM" is now out (and tahts what I was holding out for, insted of buying att he start of the year) but then Id have to upgrade my processor when AMD go to the 65fab (which i was also looking forward to.) Hence I figured just make do for now, as the rest of the bits I need will be cheaper next year (like ram, hard disks, graphics)

You Have to bare in mind my computer is now 4 years old... (its just had 3 new mobos, 3 new CPU's, 3 ram upgrades, 4 graphics cards, replaced the hard disks from ATA to SATA, had nice new cooling... yes, well its techinicly the same machien... ish. Oh if Ionly I had not run out of ways to upgrade (though the lake of me breaking parts is good... Half that stuff I got cause i fryed the comp)

aGorm

[Cheesecan]

::EDIT:: and the hard disk noise is due to the fact the rest of the PC is silent as well silent. It hardly makes a noise. So the harddisks sound lound in comparison. Id put music on but my bros always trying to sleep when Im editing big files... (IE I Stay up to late...)

Well my PC doesn't make a noise, harddrive included, even when under heavy rendering. Having it on a mat helps.