Wow... I guess I had forgot!

"Naus;c-17631231" wrote:
Considering the game has to DYNAMICALLY generate every CAS asset and pattern, it makes sense a faster CPU would make CAS and CASt faster.

As you probably know, patterns/object presets/CAS presets do no EXIST as such. They're created by the game reading a dozen or more different values from something akin to an XML document. Then the game assembles everything: colors for each pattern used + tiling + multiplier + mask + specular + normal map + stencils/overlays. And it also has to take into account the MATERIALS / SHADERS used, and a TON of additional information depending on the material. Then once it reads all that and creates the ACTUAL texture an object/CAS asset/pattern uses, it saves that texture in the Cache files so it can retrieve it later (without having to do all those calculations again). This is where having an SSD is also important, as it'll make the loading of textures that were already generated almost instantaneous (no grey objects / texture pop-in).

When you think about it, the game is processing a lot of information and that requires a lot of CPU power.

@Naus No, I don't know anything about all the intricate details of how all the different visuals in TS3 are created. As long as it works the way it's supposed to all's well as far as I'm concerned. But it sounds like you are, or have been, working with these things, maybe you're one of the people at the studio that made TS3? :p Or perhaps some other video game, at some other company?

I happen to have two very similar Asus ROG gaming laptops, with the exact same CPU and GPU, one with SSD and the other with an HDD, and to my disappointment I discovered that CAS and CaSt is not any faster on the one with an SSD. I timed it with a stopwatch, and to my big surprise it was actually a few seconds slower on the SSD. Totally unexpected. Loading the save files takes 3-4 times longer on the HDD though.