Acknex Memory Consumption
Copyright George Pirvu 2003

Version 1.1
07/29/2003

Contents
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1. Legal
2. Why would I use it?
3. How to
4. FAQ

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LEGAL:
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You may use this piece of software freely and without any cost now or in the future. 

You may distribute the program and its associated readme.txt file any way you like as 
long as this readme file is distributed with it intact. 

I can't be hold responsible for any problems that might occur using the info gathered 
with this program. 

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WHY WOULD I USE IT?
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If you are a game developer you might want to plan the number and the size of the textures,
model skins and sprites in your game before starting to create it. That's what AMC does. 

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HOW TO:
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1) Run MemComp.exe
2) Fill the "Size in pixels" text boxes (x and y)
3) Click "Texture" or "Sprite" or "Model" or "Model w mipmaps"
4) Press OK to see the result (in Kb)
5) Press Quit to exit the program

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FAQ:
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Q: Do I have to "plan" the video memory for my game?
A: Sure. You have to pick a decent 3d card as a target (16 or 32 mb) and then start subtracting 
video memory used for textures, sprites, models... This way you can be sure that your customers 
will be able to run the game without any problem (if they have that decent card, of course).
Please note that the video memory is allocated only once for all the models and sprites of the same
type, so 2 different models use more memory than 10 identical models placed in the same level.

Q: What's with that "Model w mipmaps"?
A: Newer Acknex versions have added mipmaps to the models too. This makes them look good when you 
are far away from them but eats additional video memory. Open your model in Med -> View -> Skins -> 
-> Edit -> Convert skin -> Add mipmaps.

Q: Are these AMC values "ok"?
A: Yes, most of them are well computed. However, your 3d card might use slightly different values depending
on how "smart" it is. The only value that can't be computed precisely is (sadly) the one used for the textures
because the shadow maps depend on the level geometry, the quantity and the quality of the lights (high res 
or not), etc. The value displayed by AMC should be good enough for everybody: the errors are below 4.7%.