Texture Streaming

[Jason]

I just stumbled across this blog post by fourzerotwo which talks about some of the visual enhancements we can expect to see in Modern Warfare 2, thanks to a brand new hi-res Texture Streaming functionality.

Texture streaming allows our designers the freedom to make much larger environments, like the scene below, while also increasing the amount of detail on the characters, and environments in the vicinity of the player.

Take this screenshot that we released at GamesCom this week for example. Enlarge the screenshots to really see what I’m talking about here.

You'll see how much difference you can see between the textures of the fabrics on his clothes, radio and other accessories in the two pictures.
I think you could almost be forgiven for mistaking his head as real, it looks so life like and detailed.

Here are two more screenshots where the difference is clear:

Hi-res Texture Streaming (Enabled) (Click the picture to see full size)

Without Hi-res Texture Streaming (Disabled) (Click the picture to see full size)

You can see how this new feature allows to us to further push the amount of detail we can add to our characters, their gear, and especially the environment thanks to the memory allotment improvements it provides. Allowing more space for weather effects, dynamic destructible objects, and other details that are just as crucial to the total immersion of the game.

 

[creepypoo117]

Shows how much graphics in the CoD series have improved.