3D Texture Quality & Battle Create/Load times

[Howler]

While trying to determine the soundness of my installation, I discovered that the 3D Texture Quality setting really impacts creation and load time. Creating or loading a save of MG Facade Troop took 7 minutes with my patched(CMBN 4.01), modded, and reshade install. I hadn't played this scenario in years and thought something was off. Figured something might be corrupted given my experience with the wacky evasion pathing that 4.01 brought.

Anyhow, a fresh install (with reshade) but no mods (Z folder) brought the time down to 1:45. Took a little time to isolate the cause to the 3D Texture Quality being set to Best on my 'modded' install while this new 'test' install was at the default Balanced. Changing it to Best brought the time back up to 6:10 which is reasonable as there are no mods to load.

TLDR: 3D Texture Quality impacts create/load times by a factor in excess of 3.

Edited May 19, 2019 by Howler

[Thewood1]

This has been known for a long time and discussed multiple times.  Someone somewhere in time did fairly detailed study on settings relationship to load times.

[Howler]

I wasn't able to find detailed information that you reference but, yes - it's been known for a long time. Not the first time I've discovered something 'new' that might not be...

Anyhow, the closest my search got was a response from @IanL postulating that this setting governs how many textures past two actually get loaded.

I was surprised by the load times in BN as SF2 is always snappy with BS not being far behind on 'Best'.

I'd appreciate your sharing of any details that you may have.

 

EDIT: In retrospect, perhaps I was too hasty to disregard threads relating to Nvidia performance tweaks.

Edited May 19, 2019 by Howler