[Davros]

In a games options there is an option
managed textures yes/no

what should I select and whats the difference

[Sc4freak]

"Managed" is a pretty general term. In the context of DX9, it means that a copy of the texture will be kept in system RAM, and reuploaded to the GPU whenever a lost device event occurs. This can happen if you change resolutions, alt-tab, minimise, etc.

The other option would be "Default", which means that only a copy is kept in video RAM. When a lost device event occurs, and you don't have the texture in system RAM, it means the game will have to reload all textures from disk.

I'm assuming that the game is letting you save some system RAM in exchange for excruciatingly slow (or non-functional) alt-tab. It can be a concern if it's a 32-bit executable and you're hitting the 2GB limit.

[Davros]

thanks

[sebbbi]

Additionally you can create any amount of managed textures even if your graphics hardware has not enough memory to store them all simultaneously. DirectX automatically swaps the textures in/out of the graphics memory (least recently used are swapped out when graphics memory gets full). When using "default" (unmanaged) textures, you have to manage the graphics card memory usage yourself, and create your own texture swapping system if you application uses more textures than the graphics card memory can store.

Entry level chips with Ati Hypermemory, NVidia Turbocache or Intel UMA technologies cannot load more unmanaged ("default") textures than their physical (or preallocated) memory capability. To "access" the whole marketed memory amount, you have to use managed textures. For example 1 GB (1024 MB) Hypermemory cards have only 128 megabytes of physical memory, and you cannot load more than 128 megabytes of unmanaged textures to these cards.