The first set of constraints are during development - the assets that are created. It won’t actually matter if the game can potentially display 4K, 8K, 16K, or 128K textures if there aren’t 4K, 8K, 16K, or 128K texture assets to load. Somebody actually has to take the time to create those assets for the game to load them at the appropriate times. We typically don’t put in code to upscale textures, they need to be added to the assets and loaded at the appropriate time in-game.
The second set of constraints are at run time - the system resources of the machine it is on. If the system has little memory or a slow CPU/GPU, there are fewer overall system resources to work with compared to a system with a faster CPU/GPU and more system memory. The other potential technical bottleneck is the [architecture of the game]. If the game was built using 32 bit architecture, it will only be able to use up to approximately 4 gigabytes of memory. If the game was built with 64 bit architecture, it can use up to approximately 2300 petabytes of memory. As long as the game can run within 2300 petabytes of memory, it’s fine.
Thus, if the game is built on 64-bit architecture on a beefy machine and has 8k texture packs and code to know when to load those 8k textures, it should be able to run those even if the original game never had such high res textures to begin with.
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