Limits of making maps?

Foodstamp · #1 December 31st, 2007, 07:44 PM

I am in need of information!

Does anyone know the maximum map size you can have? I did a search of the PDF and I found suggested map size, but no maximum.

I am also wanting to know what is the maximum number of provinces you can have on a map. Thanks

Zylithan · #2 December 31st, 2007, 08:07 PM

Foostamp - as far as maximum size, you mean for graphics?

I'm not sure is the short answer... I think unlimited, but if the provinces are not sized properly I think castles and units can be too big (or maybe small) and look funny.

As far as provinces, there are some with 1200+ provinces I know of.

My advice would be look at whats out there and see if you plan on making something bigger.. If so.. test with a bad graphcis version. You can see whats out there at:

http://dom3maps.wikidot.com

Foodstamp · #3 December 31st, 2007, 08:19 PM

Gandalf has generated some 1500 province maps I am pretty sure, but I would like to know the absolute maximum limits to the graphic size and the number of provinces if possible. I am fairly certain I would not hit the province cap, but I would hate to put together a graphic and hit the graphic size cap, thus wasting all my work.

Zylithan · #4 January 1st, 2008, 12:39 AM

I just made a map that was 10,000 pixels by 10,000 pixels. It opened up just fine and ran perfectly in dom3. (It was slow...

to be fair, the map was only 3mb because it was basically a green field with red lines and white dots.

I have made tga files that are graphically more intense, tgas were more than 30mb... those also ran with no problem (they were only 3000x3000 pixels... evidently the RLE compression does better with simple graphics).

So... neither one of those is a limit of any sort... I'm not a dev or a code digger, so can't give you an absolute answer. But... 10,000 x 10,000 pixels is pretty big I think pixelwise, (100 million pixels) and 30mb is biggish for a graphical file I think.

I just tiled a few graphically intense maps... the result was 6000x6000 pixels and the tga was 90 mb. It ran fine as a dom 3 map.

Like I said... not hard limits, but these are significantly large and graphically intense tests. you could easily do more vigorous tiling, if you wanted.... of course this still gets you only a practical, not a theoretical limit. (If you want to tile, youre welcome to grab any of my graphically complex maps... .. infinite sands might be best? or eight gates..)

Foodstamp · #5 January 1st, 2008, 12:51 AM

I really appreciate your testing. I don't think the maps I plan to make in the future will be anywhere near the size of the maps you have ran tests on, which is good news for me. I am curious, on the 10k x 10k map, how many provinces did you have?

Ballbarian · #6 January 1st, 2008, 01:20 AM

Quote:

but if the provinces are not sized properly I think castles and units can be too big (or maybe small) and look funny.

Solution is to use #defaultmapzoom.
Play with decimal values to tweak how the map appears in the game. You can actually create maps with large province counts on a really small image with this map command.

Hadrian_II · #7 January 1st, 2008, 07:53 AM

Quote:

Zylithan said:
I just made a map that was 10,000 pixels by 10,000 pixels. It opened up just fine and ran perfectly in dom3. (It was slow...

to be fair, the map was only 3mb because it was basically a green field with red lines and white dots.

I have made tga files that are graphically more intense, tgas were more than 30mb... those also ran with no problem (they were only 3000x3000 pixels... evidently the RLE compression does better with simple graphics).

So... neither one of those is a limit of any sort... I'm not a dev or a code digger, so can't give you an absolute answer. But... 10,000 x 10,000 pixels is pretty big I think pixelwise, (100 million pixels) and 30mb is biggish for a graphical file I think.

I think i might be able to answer that.

For a pic to show on your monitor, it has to be uncompressed in your ram, so its just the pixelcount that decides how much performance a map needs.

So a 10000 x 10000 map would use: 100 million pixels * 32 (or 16) bit color information. = 3,2 or 1,6 GB RAM space. and i suspect this caused your computer to start swapping, while the 3000*3000 map just needs 288MB RAM what i think fits in your ram.

Zylithan · #8 January 1st, 2008, 12:59 PM

my computer has 2 gb ram dual core.... the 10kx10k map did not cause any slow down at all after RLE compression. Before that it did (like, GIMP was prohibitively slow.... took minutes to save or make changes...) ... I don't know much about what that means, but it seems to me like graphical complexity could be important as well as just pixels. but... i'm just making stuff up

Hadrian_II · #9 January 1st, 2008, 03:28 PM

Quote:

Hadrian_II said:
So a 10000 x 10000 map would use: 100 million pixels * 32 (or 16) bit color information. = 3,2 or 1,6 GB RAM space. and i suspect this caused your computer to start swapping, while the 3000*3000 map just needs 288MB RAM what i think fits in your ram.

you need to divide my numbers / 8 that the numbers become megabyte, now my numbers are in mbit. (what would make the numbers a bit less huge)