Over sized file

[Forrest]

I noticed that I have 46 meg TGA file on a 1500 province map. This seems way bigger than the other map files near that size. Anybody know why it would be so big?

[Foodstamp]

It may have to do the with the compression options? When you create a TGA, you can select 2-3 different compression options. I think this would change the file size, but I am not sure.

[Endoperez]

Is it a random map? It could be that the randomly generated maps aren't as size-conservative as other maps.

Also, number of provinces doesn't affect size of the file, but the resolution does. 800x600 and 1600x1200 maps might look about the same unless you soom really close, but the higher resolution will take much more space. I'm not sure if it'd take 2x or 4x the space, or something else entirely.

[lch]

The image dimensions are directly translating into file size. The game only uses Targa images with the very inefficient "runtime length" encoding. Using big dimensions on map images instead of increasing the zoom factor of the maps (it's not like higher resolution would make the image look any better) will result in quite large image sizes.

[Forrest]

It is a "RanDom" file. It has 1500 provinces and is 4800 x 3600 pixels large.

OOPS, I meant RGB file.

[lch]

Exactly. 4800 x 3600 pixels is quite oversized, don't you think? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Forrest]

Yeah I guess so. I made the map a few months ago when I playing was around and figuring out I didn't have what it takes to spend the time editing maps.