Texture Streaming

September 18, 2019 · View on GitHub

A summarised guide on the concepts of texture streaming, increasing the texture streaming pool size and disabling texture streaming.

This denotes the detail of the textures which are to be viewed.
Texture streaming is responsible for handling the transition between different mipmaps as the camera distance is changed.
As the camera moves closer to the texture, the texture streaming pool will become more full due to the larger mipmaps being streamed.

Increasing Texture Streaming Pool Size

Warnings may arise when attempting to render extremely high detail textures within the scene. This is typically common in ArchViz projects.
This can be mitigated by increasing the texture streaming pool size in two ways.
The first method entails using the Console, which can be opened with the tilde key, with the command:
```
r.Streaming.PoolSize = [DesiredSizeInMB]
```
The second method entails editing the DefaultEngine.ini file which is a more permanent solution if the issue is reoccurring. Within the file locate the [/Script/Engine.RendererSettings] section and add the line:
```
r.Streaming.PoolSize = [DesiredSizeInMB]
```

This is useful when the highest resolution texture is desired at any given camera distance.
This will severely impact performance if applied to all project textures.
Applicable cases generally include UI elements and text containing textures which the user is required to read with clarity.
Within the texture viewer window, enable the Never Stream parameter under the Texture section of the Details pane.