SFML 2.0 Slow loading textures from file

[snoozer87]

Dear community,

I'm writing an application that has to load a lot of 'HI-RES' textures in (1280x800), 35 of them at the moment. This is an application that has to work on a windows 7 tablet and I have noticed it takes a quite a long time to load in all of them (aprox. 30 to 60 seconds).

I just want to know if this is normal and if not, what is the best way to load in textures (at the moment I am loading all of them in a separate thread while showing a loading screen in the main one). At the end I place all textures into a Vector, which allocated to the right size (maybe this is slowing things down, but I don't think so as I tried putting the vector code in comments);

An example:

void ThreadLoading::loadGame(){
        t_All_Textures.clear();
        s_All_Sprites.clear();
        t_All_Textures.reserve(35);
        s_All_Sprites.reserve(2);
       
        //TEXTURES
        //Global background
        t_pPlayBackground.loadFromFile(".//Resources//PlayScreen//background.png");

        //Status ribbons (Available,owned and sold)
        t_pStatusAvailable.loadFromFile(".//Resources//PlayScreen//available.png");
        t_pStatusOwned.loadFromFile(".//Resources//PlayScreen//owned.png");
        t_pStatusSold.loadFromFile(".//Resources//PlayScreen//sold.png");
        t_pStatusFree.loadFromFile(".//Resources//PlayScreen//available.png");

        //Normal property/chance/community chest backgrounds
        t_pProperty0.loadFromFile(".//Resources//PlayScreen//0.png");
        t_pProperty1.loadFromFile(".//Resources//PlayScreen//1.png");
        t_pProperty2.loadFromFile(".//Resources//PlayScreen//2.png");
        t_pProperty3.loadFromFile(".//Resources//PlayScreen//3.png");
        t_pProperty4.loadFromFile(".//Resources//PlayScreen//4.png");
        t_pProperty5.loadFromFile(".//Resources//PlayScreen//5.png");
        t_pProperty6.loadFromFile(".//Resources//PlayScreen//6.png");
        t_pProperty7.loadFromFile(".//Resources//PlayScreen//7.png");
        t_pProperty8.loadFromFile(".//Resources//PlayScreen//8.png");
        t_pProperty9.loadFromFile(".//Resources//PlayScreen//9.png");
        t_pProperty10.loadFromFile(".//Resources//PlayScreen//10.png");
       
        //Buy backgrounds
        t_pProperty1_buy.loadFromFile(".//Resources//PlayScreen//1b.png");
        t_pProperty3_buy.loadFromFile(".//Resources//PlayScreen//3b.png");
        t_pProperty5_buy.loadFromFile(".//Resources//PlayScreen//5b.png");
        t_pProperty6_buy.loadFromFile(".//Resources//PlayScreen//6b.png");
        t_pProperty8_buy.loadFromFile(".//Resources//PlayScreen//8b.png");
        t_pProperty9_buy.loadFromFile(".//Resources//PlayScreen//9b.png");

        //Buyerror backgrounds
        t_pProperty1_buyError.loadFromFile(".//Resources//PlayScreen//1eb.png");
        t_pProperty3_buyError.loadFromFile(".//Resources//PlayScreen//3eb.png");
        t_pProperty5_buyError.loadFromFile(".//Resources//PlayScreen//5eb.png");
        t_pProperty6_buyError.loadFromFile(".//Resources//PlayScreen//6eb.png");
        t_pProperty8_buyError.loadFromFile(".//Resources//PlayScreen//8eb.png");
        t_pProperty9_buyError.loadFromFile(".//Resources//PlayScreen//9eb.png");

        //Playermenu background, different colours for each player
        t_pPlayerMenu1.loadFromFile(".//Resources//PlayScreen//playermenu1.png");
        t_pPlayerMenu2.loadFromFile(".//Resources//PlayScreen//playermenu2.png");
        t_pPlayerMenu3.loadFromFile(".//Resources//PlayScreen//playermenu3.png");
        t_pPlayerMenu4.loadFromFile(".//Resources//PlayScreen//playermenu4.png");

        //Player pawns
        t_pPlayerPawnCar.loadFromFile(".//Resources//PlayScreen//car.png");
        t_pPlayerPawnIron.loadFromFile(".//Resources//PlayScreen//iron.png");
        t_pPlayerPawnHat.loadFromFile(".//Resources//PlayScreen//hat.png");
        t_pPlayerPawnBarrow.loadFromFile(".//Resources//PlayScreen//barrow.png");
....
 

Best regards
Yannick

[Laurent]

I just want to know if this is normal

It is.

At the end I place all textures into a Vector

So you duplicate all the textures at the end? Why don't you load directly the final instances (ie. the ones that are in the vector)?

You can also try the .jpg format: since files are smaller, it might be faster to load.

[snoozer87]

Unless vector.push_back creates a copy, I'm not copying the textures. the reason I'm doing is this is so I can easily pass all textures to my main thread .

In my main thread I put all textures in local variables, so I can use them and then I clean up the passed vector (freeing memory).

Example

Loadingthread

Code: [Select]

....
//Player pawns
t_pPlayerPawnCar.loadFromFile(".//Resources//PlayScreen//car.png");
t_pPlayerPawnIron.loadFromFile(".//Resources//PlayScreen//iron.png");
t_pPlayerPawnHat.loadFromFile(".//Resources//PlayScreen//hat.png");
t_pPlayerPawnBarrow.loadFromFile(".//Resources//PlayScreen//barrow.png");
.....
t_All_Textures.push_back(t_pPlayerPawnCar);
t_All_Textures.push_back(t_pPlayerPawnIron);
t_All_Textures.push_back(t_pPlayerPawnHat);
t_All_Textures.push_back(t_pPlayerPawnBarrow);
....
m_pScreen->setResources(t_All_Textures);

Main thread

Code: [Select]

void PlayScreen::setResources(std::vector<sf::Texture> AllTextures){
....
m_carPawn=AllTextures[15];
m_ironPawn=AllTextures[16];
m_hatPawn=AllTextures[17];
m_barrowPawn=AllTextures[18];
....
//CLEANUP AND FREE MEMORY
AllTextures.clear();
std::vector<sf::Texture>().swap(AllTextures);
}


[Laurent]

Unless vector.push_back creates a copy

It does.

[snoozer87]

I see, so doing this would be better practice?

AllTextures.push_back(t_pPlayerPawnBarrow.loadFromFile(".//Resources//PlayScreen//barrow.png"));

*EDIT*
Wait, now that I see the code it looks wrong. Either it won't work, or it'll be exactly the same as before probably

*EDIT2*
Nvm that would never work ...

[snoozer87]

K I'm using pointers now, so the vector will copy the pointer, but not the whole object

[Laurent]

You don't have to use pointers

vector.push_back(sf::Texture());
vector.back().loadFromFile(...);