mobility radeon x1900 with M2tw

**avesta** · May 01, 2007, 09:37 AM

My cousin just got a new laptop with an x1900 video card in it. It is a pretty fast card but it only has 256MB of memory. Which setting in M2tw eats up a lot of video memory?

**Erik** · May 01, 2007, 10:03 AM

Textures consume the most memory.
So you want to look for something like "texture size" or "texture quality".

But 256MB is actually quite decent.

**avesta** · May 01, 2007, 05:01 PM

Ok I turned textures down to medium but it didn't make a huge difference.
I think textures usually relates to system memory (RAM) not video memory but I'm not sure.

Anyway is there anything else that is heavy on video memory?

**Freddie** · May 01, 2007, 05:45 PM

Originally Posted by avesta

Ok I turned textures down to medium but it didn't make a huge difference.
I think textures usually relates to system memory (RAM) not video memory but I'm not sure.

Anyway is there anything else that is heavy on video memory?

Trying running it a 1024x768.

**Erik** · May 01, 2007, 06:29 PM

Originally Posted by avesta

Ok I turned textures down to medium but it didn't make a huge difference.
I think textures usually relates to system memory (RAM) not video memory but I'm not sure. Anyway is there anything else that is heavy on video memory?

No, whenever possible the textures are stored on video memory.
If the video memory is full the remaining textures are stored on system memory and the graphics card has to use the AGP/PCIe interface to access them (which is slower, but still reasonably fast in most cases).

AFAIK the video memory stores the following components:
-vertex data ("xyz"), which is very small.
-output buffers, a few MB per buffer and you have several.
-z buffers, usually compressed to save space and bandwith but still larger than output buffers.
-texture data: pictures, lightmaps and bumpmaps that get projected on the surfaces of objects, can get very large (in excess of 500MB).

Anyway is there anything else that is heavy on video memory?

I think anti-aliasing takes up extra z-buffers. (4 for nVidia's regular AA settings and 8 for the "Q" settings).
But the impact is minor.

Reducing the screen resolution reduces the size of all output and z buffers.
Again minor gains.

But what makes you so sure that the video RAM is limiting performance?
256MB is quite a lot.

**Incinerate_IV** · May 01, 2007, 08:15 PM

Originally Posted by avesta

Ok I turned textures down to medium but it didn't make a huge difference.
I think textures usually relates to system memory (RAM) not video memory but I'm not sure.

Anyway is there anything else that is heavy on video memory?

I think it's more like, you have too much texture memory, and the system isn't using it all.

A Radeon X1900 should be more than enough to run M2TW, even if it is the mobility version.

**avesta** · May 02, 2007, 04:43 PM

i'm not sure that the 256mb is limiting memory, I just assumed since the card seems pretty powerful for a 256mb card.

the x1900 doesn't run m2tw too well. Resolution was set at 1280x1024, 4xAA, 8xAF, medium textures, low shadows, medium grass, huge unit size, and everything else max. It doesn't run it terribly bad but not as well as I expected either.

**Garnier** · May 02, 2007, 05:30 PM

Try running large unit size, or even normal. Huge on my machine is laggy even with all settings on low, but on normal I can run medium and high on some things.

**Incinerate_IV** · May 02, 2007, 06:37 PM

Originally Posted by avesta

the x1900 doesn't run m2tw too well. Resolution was set at 1280x1024, 4xAA, 8xAF, medium textures, low shadows, medium grass, huge unit size, and everything else max. It doesn't run it terribly bad but not as well as I expected either.

That's probably because you have 4x AA on, turn it down to 2x or just turn it off completely.