What is texture memory and texture mapping, and are they important?
Texture memory on the graphics card is used to store 3D textures, such as imagery or facades. Texture mapping handles imagery in hardware. Images, such as those from satellites, orthophotos, scanned maps, and raster-based symbols, can be rendered in real time when texture mapping is supported in hardware on the card. Texture memory controls the total amount of imagery that can be used at one time. If you intend to use imagery or raster-based symbols in your 3D GIS applications, you should consider a card that supports this feature. The card should have at least 16 MB of RAM that can be dedicated to the task. This means the total memory of the card needs to be more than 16 MB. Texture memory is particularly important for ArcGlobe, and 32 MB of texture memory is recommended as a minimum.
