"unable to allocate texture" - workaround possible

[valentyn]

While running Heli-X under Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron (linux), with a 945G Intel on-board card, I get recurring "unable to allocate texture" errors. lshw says: 945G Integrated Graphics Controller / size: 256MB (so that should be enough).

Is there anything I could try to fix this? This system has 1Gb of memory, so I don't think that is the problem. A colleague with an Intel 965G and 1Gb of memory has no problems running Heli-X. Is this a serious chipset limitation, or is there a simple workaround?

[MichaelS]

Hello,

what do you see in the program? Are the scenes loaded and visible? What about the helicopters? How many FPS are displayed in the title bar?

Greetings,

Michael

[valentyn]

what do you see in the program?

The scenes are loaded; I can see the helicopter, but FPS is around 0 - 2 (yes, that's null bis zwei).

When I switch to lwjgl, it's a bit better - with 800x600, framerates can be around 5-50, but response feels a bit choppy. It feels like there's really some sort of issue with the texture memory, and when it's full, a drop in framerates occurs. But that's just a feeling - I'm not sure.

If I use driconf to limit memory to existing memory (no overcommitting for 3D, at least that's what I understand from it), then the background dissapears completely, and only the helicopter is visible. However, framerates are OK now and response feels good too.

I tried the Alvier environment, judging from ls -lh, that's the smallest one; however, it doesn't help. (And yes, the "small" environment does work correctly, without rendering problems).

If I can do anything to give you more clues, please let me know.

As a sidenote, at http://valentijn.sessink.nl I'm writing about getting a Walkera sim working with Heli-X. One of the things that are to be fixed is that HELI-X/libs/lwjgl/ contains a "linux" directory that should be called "linux-i586". Also, you might want to add the LWJGL-switches to the FAQ, as it took me a couple of hours to find them back (there's only one posting where you refer to them, but they could be useful for other people, too

If I can be of help with this documentation, please let me know.

[MichaelS]

Hello,

since the small scene runs well, it looks as all your problems will go, if you use scenes with a lower memory consumption. You can do this by yourself: Each scene consists out of 6 pictures with a resolution of 2024x2048. Open the pictures with a graphics program and safe them with a lower resolution. Since in older graphics cards 2^n sizes are preferred for textures, try 1024x1024. If this works for you, you can mix the sizes. You can give each picture a different resolution. Also 2048x1024 is possible. The picture will then be streched to the right appearance.

The memory consumption inside the graphics adapter does not depend on a compression in the jpg-file. It depends only on the size of the pictures. So the Alvier scene is not better (though it is a nice place to fly

lwjgl is not really a preferred solution: I do not know any windows system, where it runs better than jogl in HELI-X. The xith developers feel it might be better on Linux, but my own experience shows that the simulation does not run smooth with lwjgl.

Hope this helps,

Michael

[valentyn]

it looks as all your problems will go, if you use scenes with a lower memory consumption.

And yes: this helps. I get some 25+ FPS, and some 35+ FPS under lwjgl, but the latter is jerky and sometimes seems to render wrong. But no more texture errors and a good response.

BTW what I did was a mass conversion; for those who are interested:
sudo aptitude install imagemagick
find -type f -name '*.jpg'|xargs -i mogrify -geometry 1024x1024'>' -verbose {}

(So write in your notebook: 945G chipset works OK, but has lower memory available and you need to decrease the airport texture sizes). Thanks!

[MichaelS]

Hi,

I would give the resolution 2048x1024 a try. Some use it succesfully and you might get sharper scenes ...

Have fun.

Michael

[-andi-]

Hi!

Response time: 1h 6 min
time till solution: 5h 18 min

this is PLATIN Support Level!

remember - this is a FREE Sim! I'm not sure if a commercial sim can deliver that quality of support!

Michael - you ROCK!

cu
Andi