Do graphics slow the game down?

Simple question really, do having extra kit packs, logo packs etc slow the game down and does it matter how big they are?

For instance would a facepack of 320x260px sized faces be slower than one where the faces are 160x160 (with a reduction in filesize as well obviously)?

Not in terms of processing and game performance. People have mentioned it over the years but it's a perceived slowdown that doesn't exist. Initial loading the game from the desktop may be impacted although depends if you cache graphics etc.

This is definetely good to know... since i wasnt so sure about it. Now on the other i would def like to have the Graphics saved NOT on the C: or Documents... how do i do this?

Also, i do have my HD partitioned and thats where i would like to have the Graphics...

thank you

Game preferences allows you to change the location of your user data folder. Your UDF is where all your graphics/save games etc are stored. This will by default be on your main drive within your user documents but you can change ge it to any location, even to another drive.

Cheers radestock I thought that would be the case. However one thing that confuses me is; even if it doesn't effect game speed, do you know if it effects memory usage etc? I notice there's a long loading period when clearing the cache and loading new graphics, but i've no idea how the data is cached. If it's all cached in memory (as I would guess since you said it could effect start up times) surely it would effect performance for those with minimal memory?

Game preferences allows you to change the location of your user data folder. Your UDF is where all your graphics/save games etc are stored. This will by default be on your main drive within your user documents but you can change ge it to any location, even to another drive.

sorry for my ignorance... i did try to move all graphics to another HD but they wouldnt work anymore in the game... is there anything im doing wrong. I did manage to do this in previous FM's...

Cheers radestock I thought that would be the case. However one thing that confuses me is; even if it doesn't effect game speed, do you know if it effects memory usage etc? I notice there's a long loading period when clearing the cache and loading new graphics, but i've no idea how the data is cached. If it's all cached in memory (as I would guess since you said it could effect start up times) surely it would effect performance for those with minimal memory?

It's not caching of the images themselves, FM is creating a central cache of their location.

If you load the game without caching enabled, FM looks through your graphics folder for config.xml files. As you know, these have information that links a graphic file with a particular in game graphic. FM traverses the various files and creates a cache of the information. All of this takes time as anyone with lots of graphics will know. Once the cache file is created however, FM can easily and quickly reference it to load a particular graphic from disk.

Hope this makes sense.

Yeah makes perfect sense, so in conclusion it really won't effect load speed noticeably, especially not in regards to something like using a 160x160 instead of 320x260 facepack just to save a few kb's per image. Thanks for the info.

no it means yea pc is rubbish