Larger Battles With 1.4

[Marching Thru Georgia]

The new sprite packing has an extra benefit, it allows for larger battles. Last night I played a game the used the entire Antietam OOB ~117,000. Although the fps dropped to 7-8, I didn't notice any real degradation. It was a very enjoyable battle. Previously, I could have no more than 80-90,000 troops on the map. Well done!

[Little Powell]

Yeah during Antietam development, we kept going back and forth about sprite ratios for the scenarios, sprite ratio mods for Sandbox etc., and Norb just came up with the idea "heck why don't we just make part of the Options menu?". It's a great new feature and now gigantic battles are possible while keeping an acceptable framerate.

[Marching Thru Georgia]

I think you misunderstand. I was playing with the normal 1:4 ratio. The new sprites are taking up less cpu cycles, allowing larger armies to be fielded. Or maybe Norb did some tweaking that increased the game engine's efficiency. Whichever it is, larger battles are now possible with the optimum ratio.

[Little Powell]

Ah, even better! I saw sprite and misread your post.. Time for another cup of coffee I guess.

That is great news that you're able to play those large battles on the default ratio. Sounds like the texture packing is paying off, as I hoped it would. I could see the benefits when we first started testing it.