why would you use textures that are not a power of 2?

Posted by Will on Game Development See other posts from Game Development or by Will
Published on 2011-01-31T19:33:39Z Indexed on 2011/01/31 23:34 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 271

Filed under:

opengl

|

textures

|

Performance

In the early days of OpenGL and DirectX, it was required that textures were powers of two. This meant that interpolation of float values could be done very quickly using shifting and such.

Since OpenGL 2.0, and preceding that via an extension, non-power-of-two texture dimensions has been supported.

Are there performance advantages to sticking to power-of-two textures on modern integrated and discrete GPUs?

What advantages do non-power-of-two textures have, if any?

Are there large populations of desktop users who don't have cards that support non-power-of-two textures?

© Game Development or respective owner

Related posts about opengl

Unity completely broken after upgrade to 12.10?

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
I am facing a very frustrating issue with my computer right now. I successfully upgraded to Ubuntu 12.10 this afternoon, but after the upgrade, the graphical user interface seems completely broken. To be more specific, I can not get the Unity bar to appear on the right. I have tried many things,… >>> More
OpenGL or OpenGL ES

as seen on Game Development - Search for 'Game Development'
What should I learn? OpenGL 4.1 or OpenGL ES 2.0? I will be developing desktop applications using Qt but I may start developing mobile applications in a few months, too. I don't know anything about 3D, 3D math, etc and I'd rather spend 100 bucks in a good book than 1 week digging websites and going… >>> More
OpenGL extension vs OpenGL core

as seen on Programmers - Search for 'Programmers'
I was doubting: I'm writing a cross-platform engine OpenGL C++, I figured out windows forces the developers to access OpenGL features above 1.1 through extensions. Now the thing is, on Linux, I know that I can directly access functions if the version supports it through glext.h and opengl version… >>> More
OpenGL ES 2/3 vs OpenGL 3 (and 4)

as seen on Game Development - Search for 'Game Development'
I have migrated my code from OpenGL ES 2/3 to OpenGL 3 (I added bunch of defines and abstract classes to encapsulate both versions, so I have both in one project and compile only one or another). All I need to change was context initialization and glClearDepth. I dont have any errors. This was kind… >>> More
LWJGL - Eclipse error [on hold]

as seen on Game Development - Search for 'Game Development'
When I try to run my lwjgl project, an error pops . Here is the log file: # A fatal error has been detected by the Java Runtime Environment: # EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION (0xc0000005) at pc=0x6d8fcc0a, pid=5612, tid=900 # JRE version: 6.0_16-b01 Java VM: Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (14.2-b01 mixed… >>> More

Related posts about textures

Textures on top of other textures when using VBOs

as seen on Game Development - Search for 'Game Development'
I'm currently making a cube style game. With chunks being drawn with VBOs. I'd like to know if there is a way to create an overlay texture on top of the existing texture without the need to rebuild the VBO. This is required to show activity in a cube (think of Minecraft when destroying a block and… >>> More
Texture switching with a entity system

as seen on Game Development - Search for 'Game Development'
I'm using thinking of using an entity system in my game. So far I've been using Artemis with success. However, I have a question about texture switching. I read that switching textures too often is bad. So I load all the textures when the game loads like so: import org.newdawn.slick.opengl.TextureLoader; … >>> More
SFML: Generate a background image

as seen on Game Development - Search for 'Game Development'
I want to generate a background, which is used in the game, on every instance of the game based on certain conditions. To do so, I'm using a sf::RenderTexture and a sf::Texture like this: sf::RenderTexture image; std::vector<sf::Texture> textures; sf::Texture texture; // instantiating the vector… >>> More
Unity: how to apply programmatical changes to the Terrain SplatPrototype?

as seen on Game Development - Search for 'Game Development'
I have a script to which I add a Terrain object (I drag and drop the terrain in the public Terrain field). The Terrain is already setup in Unity to have 2 PaintTextures: 1 is a Square (set up with a tile size so that it forms a checkered pattern) and the 2nd one is a grass image: Also the Target… >>> More
SDL2 sprite batching and texture atlases

as seen on Game Development - Search for 'Game Development'
I have been programming a 2D game in C++, using the SDL2 graphics API for rendering. My game concept currently features effects that could result in even tens of thousands of sprites being drawn simultaneously to the screen. I'd like to know what can be done for increasing rendering efficiency if… >>> More