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Textures are not compressed for size on disk, they are compressed to the format that can be directly loaded into the GPU.

sudosysgen 4y ago
Yes, that's the problem. You can compress them for size at download time, and recompress them to a GPU-optimal format at the time of installation. You may even be able to do it at runtime with modern hardware, shortening loadtimes and sometimes even improving performance indirectly.
- coffeebeqn 4y ago
  Then you have to have the game reprocess all the assets on the users machine which could easily take an hour
  - sudosysgen 4y ago
    Essentially any modern image compression format is going to be limited, or close to, by storage speed (for decompression). So unless the user has insanely fast internet (and the servers are also able to saturate their connection), it will be faster in the end.
  - xboxnolifes 4y ago
    With the size of games nowadays, that's likely a net time save for many people from the discounted download time.
    - jon-wood 4y ago
      Gamers being gamers though they’re not going to say “well, we on reflection I’ve not had to wait so long”, they’re going to slam you with one star reviews for the fact there’s an hour long loading screen on first start.
      - xboxnolifes 4y ago
        The recompression/decompression logic could (and I would argue, should) be packaged separately for distribution platform instead of being embedded as part of the game's logic. In the case of using Steam, it would be no different than how it shows separation of time spent downloading vs time spent installing. This allows it to be ran automatically after download without having the user need to launch the game.
- lpghatguy 4y ago
  You can combine the approaches! KTX2, for example, supports "supercompressing" GPU block compressed formats with LZ4 or Zstandard. The project I have been working on ships BCn textures compressed with zstd and it has been pretty dang good.
terafo 4y ago
You can add lossless compression, like Kraken, on top of that. PS5 has hardware accelerated Kraken decompression. And you can encode textures for GPU in a way that is better compressable with lossless algorithms.
- midnightclubbed 4y ago
  Hardware accelerated is still not zero cost. Plus if you are publishing for the other console and/or PC there is a question as to whether you want to do the extra work for one platform.
  - maccard 4y ago
    This is where using something like unreal shines. You get the correct default for all the platforms.

sudosysgen 4y ago

Yes, that's the problem. You can compress them for size at download time, and recompress them to a GPU-optimal format at the time of installation. You may even be able to do it at runtime with modern hardware, shortening loadtimes and sometimes even improving performance indirectly.

coffeebeqn 4y ago
Then you have to have the game reprocess all the assets on the users machine which could easily take an hour
- sudosysgen 4y ago
  Essentially any modern image compression format is going to be limited, or close to, by storage speed (for decompression). So unless the user has insanely fast internet (and the servers are also able to saturate their connection), it will be faster in the end.
- xboxnolifes 4y ago
  With the size of games nowadays, that's likely a net time save for many people from the discounted download time.
  - jon-wood 4y ago
    Gamers being gamers though they’re not going to say “well, we on reflection I’ve not had to wait so long”, they’re going to slam you with one star reviews for the fact there’s an hour long loading screen on first start.
    - xboxnolifes 4y ago
      The recompression/decompression logic could (and I would argue, should) be packaged separately for distribution platform instead of being embedded as part of the game's logic. In the case of using Steam, it would be no different than how it shows separation of time spent downloading vs time spent installing. This allows it to be ran automatically after download without having the user need to launch the game.
lpghatguy 4y ago
You can combine the approaches! KTX2, for example, supports "supercompressing" GPU block compressed formats with LZ4 or Zstandard. The project I have been working on ships BCn textures compressed with zstd and it has been pretty dang good.

terafo 4y ago

You can add lossless compression, like Kraken, on top of that. PS5 has hardware accelerated Kraken decompression. And you can encode textures for GPU in a way that is better compressable with lossless algorithms.

midnightclubbed 4y ago
Hardware accelerated is still not zero cost. Plus if you are publishing for the other console and/or PC there is a question as to whether you want to do the extra work for one platform.
- maccard 4y ago
  This is where using something like unreal shines. You get the correct default for all the platforms.