Resource loading test - please help test this WAD

[Nash]

How long does it take for your computer to load MAP01 in this WAD? How long does it appear to freeze until the map is fully loaded and you can start moving around? Post your loading time as well as system specs. Thanks!

Download: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/47355875/texture%20test.zip (EDIT: fixed missing textures)

EDIT 2:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/47355875/textur ... %20512.zip (512 version)
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/47355875/textur ... %20256.zip (256 version)

[wildweasel]

Updated times for the updated thing.

ZDoom: 9.7 seconds
GZDoom: 7.2 seconds

Specs:
AMD Phenom II X4 955 at 3.2 GHz
4 GB of Dual-Channel DDR3 RAM
EVGA Geforce GTX 460 SE with 1 GB RAM
Windows 7 Ultimate 64-Bit

[Sgt Dopey]

Gzdoom: approximately 13 seconds missing textures
Zdoom: approximately 17 seconds and missing textures

Specs:
2.1 GHz dual core celeron processor
4.00 GB DDR2 RAM
Mobile Intel GMA 4500M 64 Mb graphics card
Windows 7 home premium 64 bit

[Nash]

Oops. Forgot to change the textures to stock Doom textures. I remember reading that the missing textures output in the console will also slightly affect performance.

Not sure if it makes a difference, but I fixed all of the missing textures. Can you please test again? :D

[wildweasel]

I updated my test results - they're really not all that different.

[Kinsie]

ZDoom: 10 seconds
GZDoom: 8 seconds

CPU: Intel Core i7 930 @ 2.80ghz
RAM: 6gb of DDR3
GPU: ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series with 1GB RAM
OS: Windows 7 Professional 64-bit

[Nash]

Hmmm. These numbers look bad.

How about the following? The textures have been downscaled.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/47355875/textur ... %20512.zip (512 version)
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/47355875/textur ... %20256.zip (256 version)

Thanks for your time everyone, keep those numbers coming. :)

[Blue Shadow]

With the 256 version there isn't a noticable delay with both ZDoom and GZDoom. However, with the 512 version, it took almost three seconds to fullly load the map.

The test was done in windowed mode on a 800x600 resolution.

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Code: Select all

------------------
System Information
------------------
   Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 3
       System Model: Dell DM051                   
          Processor: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.20GHz (2 CPUs)
             Memory: 502MB RAM
    DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c

---------------
Display Devices
---------------
        Card name: Intel(R) 82945G Express Chipset Family
        Chip type: Intel(R) 82945G Express Chipset Family
   Display Memory: 224.0 MB
     Current Mode: 1152 x 864 (32 bit) (75Hz)
      Driver Name: ialmrnt5.dll
   Driver Version: 6.14.0010.4410 (English)
      DDI Version: 9 (or higher)
              VDD: n/a
         Mini VDD: ialmnt5.sys
      Video Accel: 
 Deinterlace Caps: n/a
     DDraw Status: Enabled
       D3D Status: Enabled
       AGP Status: Not Available

[sirjuddington]

Takes about 7 seconds for me in both ZDoom and GZDoom (the original file - haven't tried the reduced versions)

Intel i7 2600k @ 4.4ghz
8gb ddr3 1600
NVidia GTX 260

[jpalomo]

System specs:

Code: Select all

Pentium(R) Dual-Core 35400 @ 2.70GHz
6GB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 Ti
1920x1080 resolution
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

tested with both ZDoom and GZDoom and got very similar results.
orignal file: 11 seconds
512: ~2.5 seconds
256: barely more than a second

In comparison, it takes me about 5 seconds to load the map for Dawn of Reality in GZDoom.

[Nash]

What I'd like to know is... for a mod that you would regularly play (let's imagine that you genuinely enjoy it), would the loading time for, say, the 512 version be acceptable to you? EVERYTIME you play/load a saved game, you'd have to wait for the textures to load.

[Sgt Dopey]

I dont care how long it takes as long as its worth it

[Enjay]

Interesting.

The original test takes a full 11 seconds to start on my machine but there is a significant improvement for the 512 version which takes less than 3 seconds. The 256 takes less than one second.

The 11 second delay might be a pain in the ass for repeated save loading but, to be fair, it's still quicker than many modern games. If I was getting delays similar to the <3 (no, not a heart) seconds that I got with the 512 version, I probably wouldn't have even noticed it that much if you hadn't drawn my attention to it. So the delays involved with the 512 version would indeed be acceptable to me.

[CommanderZ]

Wow, 28 seconds (the original file) for me, measured from selection of skill level to free movement.

Core i7 2630QM (quad core @ 2 GHz, laptop version)
6 GB RAM
NVidia GeForce 540M GT
OCZ Vertex 3 SSD drive
Windows 7 64bit

That baffles me. Why does this rig perform so badly in this? It eats pretty much any computational and file moving task for breakfast.

I will try it later again without music and gazillion other programs running.

[Nash]

Time to spill the details on what this actually is. :D

The textures being loaded are what is used for my real-time weather engine. The engine uses 100+ textures to transition from a clear sky to a overcast/rainy sky since there is no way to blend 2 textures smoothly during runtime in GZDoom.

In the WAD, only 2 textures are included (100% clear, 100% overcast) and the inbetween frames are generated with TEXTURES (you can have a look at the massive TEXTURES lump - which is autogenerated BTW, no way in hell would I type those in manually :P).

The annoying loading has to be done when a map is first loaded because otherwise, the game would stutter horribly as the sky is making its transition (presumably they are only loaded into RAM as needed). To solve the stuttering problem, I force the textures to be loaded at map start.

Since this is done by GZDoom only once per session, there won't be the "repeated save/load" issue that Enjay mentioned. Once it's loaded, it stays in memory.

The annoyance is that everytime the WAD is ran (the precaching is done on the TITLEMAP, and as well as the regular play maps via an off-screen camera texture pointing into a sector that has all these 100 textures in view), the user will have to wait for it to load the textures into memory.

Based on the numbers I am seeing here, I conclude that I should include the "512 version" - as well as 256 - as a mod for my mod (heh) for users who don't mind a blockier-looking sky and want faster loading times. For those with beefier systems, the mod defaults to 1024x1024 textures for the sky.

For my system, it takes about 5 seconds to load the 1024x1024 - i7 920 @ 2.4 GHz, 3 GB DDR3 @ 1066 MHz, nvidia GTX 460.

The precaching is necessary IMO, I'd rather have the user wait once per session when the game starts, than experiencing horrible stutter during gameplay...