DDS vs Ace

[twpol]

I have created the dds from an ace and I have created the dds from the original picture and saving direct to a dds using dxtbmp.

Have you tried not generating mipmaps or using other tools to create the DDS? Paint.NET is known to generate bad mipmap data in our own testing of this option, and your first picture looks kinda similar to the corruption/effect caused by Paint.NET's issue.

[James Collins]

Have you tried not generating mipmaps or using other tools to create the DDS? Paint.NET is known to generate bad mipmap data in our own testing of this option, and your first picture looks kinda similar to the corruption/effect caused by Paint.NET's issue.

I use paint shop pro and have only used dxtbmp to create dds files so far. Something is off for sure, but it could be a fault with dxtbmp, I will try other tools as well and see if that changes anything.

In dxtbmp what compression method did you use? If the original .ace is not using a 1 bit alpha channel (which is what it looks like in your screen caps) using DXT3 instead of DXT5 will make a difference in the result. The thinning out will most likely be certain levels of alpha being tossed out during the compression with dxtbmp.

I have been saving them as DXT5. I will try DXT3 and get back with the results.

[seagoon]

.dds? .ace?
The only matter of consequence is which one uses the least computing power?

[James Collins]

Ok, so after trying a few tools and compression methods, it seems DXT1 works just fine in DXTBmp and convimx. DXT3 and DXT5, both looking the same as my previous post, no matter which program I used.

Here are both programs using DXT1. All tree textures are dds in all shots.









There are differences between the two programs and the shots above and I guess it comes down to preference at this point, but the main issue of corruption as James put it is gone.

[rdamurphy]

Great research and documentation. Definitely going to be helpful going forward with questions about moving away from the .ace format!

Thanks for your hard work: I'm going to bookmark this thread...

Perhaps we should make it a sticky? Mods?

Robert

[eric]

stuck.

[seagoon]

So which one requires the most processing power.... .ace or .dds?

[geepster775]

The thinner stuff is going to require more proper terrtex transitions to hide the glaring seams.

[twpol]

So which one requires the most processing power.... .ace or .dds?

There shouldn't be any real differences once loaded; both ACE and DDS support the RGBA (uncompressed so takes the most GPU RAM), DXT1, DXT3 and DXT5 (varying styles of compression that support different levels of alpha, all stored compressed in GPU RAM) formats.

When it comes to loading, ACE files using RGBA data have the additional option of being compressed (with zlib). This makes the file on disk smaller at the cost of some CPU time to decompress it during loading. The zlib compression has no effect on the GPU RAM usage or performance.

[seagoon]

Thanks, James.