Loading and Unloading of Assets Into Ram and Vram

[phantomlance]

I'm not good at giving titles, but what assets exactly get loaded into RAM and VRAM? Loose files into vram? Archives into ram? And then loose files get swapped into ram in time of need? I'm just very curious to find out how it all works :tongue:

[Crosstieger]

Ehhh yea... no...

 

A very quick and dirty explanation. It works something like this:

 

• The CPU loads the required files into system RAM
  The required files a defined by the games source code
  Not every file is loaded at the same time - only the one that are required
• The CPU processes the files according to the source code. If the code determines that an image needs to be drawn:
• The CPU will send a signal to the GPU to render the image. The files that are required to draw the image will be loaded into VRAM
  Again the source code will determine which files are required to draw the image
• The GPU will now create the image and store it into a buffer
• Once the monitor is ready to receive a new image the GPU will send the image to the monitor
• If done the GPU sends a signal to the CPU that the image has been drawn
• The CPU will then decide according to the sour code if the files are still needed in RAM
• If done files that are no longer required will be deleted from VRAM and or RAM

Rinse and repeat

 

The CPU will always decide according to the source code of the game what's going to happen next and which device should do what task. The GPU only executes the given task. Every information that needs to be processed or has already been processed will be stored inside RAM. The VRAM only assists the GPU in its tasks because it's much MUCH faster than RAM. But it will never store information which is not required by the GPU.

[phantomlance]

Very informative and it makes more sense now. Thanks for the reply!

Edited January 10, 2018 by phantomlance