COD MW: wtf is "texture streaming"?

So I impulse bought Call of Duty Modern Warfare and when I load it up I go straight for the campaign, but when I select it, it asks me "are you sure?" in reference to something called texture streaming.

What is that? Is this why my game is stuttering like hell? How do I just download the textures and install them so I don't have to let the game treat me like an idiot that couldn't do this myself?

All I know is that the game seems to install shaders the first time (I've had it installing on multiple occasions though).

If you refuse that, the game will ask you 'are you sure' and it will cause some stuttering in the first 5 minutes of the level.

Off topic, would you say it's a good alternative to BF games? BF4 in particular?

Sounds like a Google Stadia virus.

@mrbojangles25: So the 130GB download didn't contain everything?

@horgen: hah, guess not.

Not really sure what's going on, why they can't just install the game and be done with it.

That would be to easy.

Texture streaming is the process of continuously loading texture data in the background while running an application or playing a game. The streaming process is hidden from the end-user (no loading screens). A texture streaming system allows more textures to be used in a seemingly continuous 3D environment than the amount that would fit into video memory.

*removed offensive content*, except for FireDrakes. goodjob on your research

The textures are not streamed from the internet, they are downloaded to your hard drive / SSD.

As a game developer I know how this stuff works. Asset Streaming is the process of gradually loading in data from the drive as it is being used. Kind of like when you are listening to music off a CD.

The reason game developers do this is so that the game's files dont take up all of the computer's memory. 100 GB of assets is a lot to process and most systems only have 8GB of RAM to work with and usually around 2 to 8 GB of VRAM, depending on your graphics card.

To save memory, you can only load a few textures at once. By slowly loading in assets shortly before they are needed it allows the game to keep running without a loading screen every five seconds interupting the game.

Depending on the priority of the streaming process, it may interfere with gamepaly. Not using texture streaming will require everything to be loaded ahead of time. This results in longer or more frequent loading screens but ultimately makes gameplay much smoother.

Streaming on the other hand allows for lots of things to be swapped in and out of memory without constantly interupting the game. Too much streaming will make the assets load faster but can cause stuttering due to poor VRAM performance. Too little streaming and the assets may take too long to load, causing them to appear muddy or distorted.

I hope this helps you understand things better. I'm not an active Gamespot user so if you need my help contact my discord at Kangang#2560

Lmao