I dont know thats why I asked
Why in the world would they have to do such a silly thing when they could replace just a chunk of it. You can replace parts of a JPEG, PNG, BMP etc... why would you think you cannot replace just a part of the megatexture?
Rage data on disk used lossy compression and it was not a fixed size like DXT, right?
Basiaclly where I'm trying to arrive is if increasing the texture pixel density by X would the install/download size also increase by X or less/more.
Of course, BF2 used diff patching to get away with smaller patches. What tends to happen though is that this process complicates cumulative patching later on where you either give up universal patches that work on any given game version or you end up having to create patches to support all permutations possible (e.g. different versions, languages, w/ DLC, etc.) which blows up the patch file size anyway.
That's even assuming the new MT would be exactly the same as the old one except for that one changed tile which, when you throw in the lossy compression and the visibility compression determination they used could very likely mean every single pixel could be off by a single bit and the diffpatch would generate a 100% diff file anyway! Realistically, they could probably blindly crop and live with a, hopefully not noticeable to the naked eye, seam around the replaced tile.
If you're unwilling to believe me, you could always go over to Beyond3D where plenty of experts are, and ask them.
Didn't think AnandTech forums were that bad... makes Beyond3D look like a safe heaven, even the dreaded console forums...
;p
It kinda depends how it is done too. It is quite possible that they do not compress the entire thing at once but in sections to begin with. I don't really see why it would matter much with megatexture though if you have the issues you are discussing. Lets say they skip a patch so they don't change one area of the megatexture, big whoopty doo. It still loads up fine, just looks slightly different. It isn't as if it is calling ME_wall_block3_scuffed_ivy. So if it isn't updated no problem.
They could still have offered an optional patch as a (torrent) download. People that care are generally big enough enthusiasts to be capable of downloading tens or even hundreds of GBs without problems. I know I could and would if it was possibleThere's a very simple reason that the texture resolution in Rage isn't 4x higher, and it has nothing to do with the amount of graphics memory. Here's a picture to illustrate
They could still have offered an optional patch as a (torrent) download. People that care are generally big enough enthusiasts to be capable of downloading tens or even hundreds of GBs without problems. I know I could and would if it was possible
And the original game disk you can buy from (e)shop with the data doesn't qualify as "assets out in the wild"? Interesting.there are probably business people saying "hey wait a minute here we don't want the assets out in the wild"
Yes, I do remember it.Does anyone remember fractal compression ?
what happened to that
from wiki
"An inherent feature of fractal compression is that images become resolution independent[7] after being converted to fractal code. This is because the iterated function systems in the compressed file scale indefinitely. This indefinite scaling property of a fractal is known as "fractal scaling"."
the link takes you to a date of birth check then 400 bad requestRAGE HD 2.0 update.