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I'm working on a platformer in monogame, that I want to use a large number of sprites for making up items and objects in the background.

The main spritesheet I've created is 4095x3734, when I tried to convert it into xmb using XNA Content Compiler, I received an error that Reach Profile only supports 2048x2048.

I've read that I can use HiDef which will support 4096x4096, which will be sufficient for my requirements, but I am a bit concerned about what the potential pitfalls will be - will less graphics cards support the game? What about Mac/Linux? Does monogame fully support HiDef?

In short, I would like to know if there are any cons of using HiDef and if using multiple 2048x2048 spritesheets would perhaps be better - and how much of a performance hit it would be.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Here is some relevant documentation: msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff604995.aspx \$\endgroup\$
    – John McDonald
    Commented Aug 16, 2013 at 21:29
  • \$\begingroup\$ Thanks, I had seen that but haven't been able to find anything to confirm if that's still valid in monogame? \$\endgroup\$
    – Neophyte
    Commented Aug 16, 2013 at 21:32
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    \$\begingroup\$ I suspect it comes down to the platforms your targeting. At a wild guess I'd probably just go with multiple smaller spritesheets. This might be helpful stackoverflow.com/questions/726921/… \$\endgroup\$
    – craftworkgames
    Commented Aug 17, 2013 at 10:18

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You've pretty much hit on the major cons, I think. Platform availability would be the major one (the documentation describes the kind of hit you'd be taking).

If you need any of the platforms that you'd be losing by using the higher-powered profile, splitting your textures into multiple smaller options is a good way to stay on the lower-end profile.

It will result in more texture state changes, which have a negative performance impact, but it might also result in better use of GPU memory since you aren't loading such massive textures all the time, potentially. It's not very clear cut how the performance changes will fall out, and it's going to depend heavily on the rest of what your game does.

However, it certainly won't be debilitating so I would recommend you split the textures into smaller ones and continue to use the low-end profile, unless you really don't care about the devices you'll lose otherwise.

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