Packed or unpacked?

[Deleted65079696User]

I'm just wondering what's the difference between having packed textures vs unpacked? Why does it matter?

[icestormng]

If you mean BA2 packed or loose, then it's simple:

 

BA2 (packed): These textures are packed together in one Archive which is usually compressed (and therefore much smaller than the loose files). The BA2 format is optimized for the game to stream in the textures in different resolutions. It results in faster loading times, less stuttering, less memory usage (esp. RAM but also VRAM) and faster texture upgrading. Moreover it's cleaner as there is only one file in your data directory instead of a whole folder.

 

Loose (unpacked): The files are just put in some folders in your data directory. Whenever they're needed, the game needs to open the file, load it completely into memory, decode it, and then load the wanted MipMap (resolution) into VRAM to show it in your game. This has to be done for every texture on its own. Results in increased load, more stuttering (esp. on HDDs), higher memory usage and slower texture upgrading.

 

 

A texture file usually contains the same texture in different resolutions because the full resolutions is not needed when objects are far away in your game. This increases performance and saves memory. Whenever you that objects comes close enough, the next higher resolution is loaded until at some point the highest resolution gets loaded so you can see all the details. This process works MUCH better with BA2 archives (=packed textures).

 

 

In 99% of the cases you want packed textures. Whenever you have the choice, go for packed. Go for unpacked if you have too much memory, you like stuttering or want to get some coffee whenever there is a loading screen :laugh:

 

 

I hope this wasn't too complicated and answered your question... ;)

[sinday]

I have an additional question, fits to this topic:

When I have a big collection of "other" textures, make it sense to extract the original Texture BA2 files, replace with 2k or 4k textures.

Then only 1 BA2 is loaded for the required texture. Would this work?

 

Can this work with the mesh BA2 files and so on also?