- I’m not sure what the “new texture” thing is, but AO does not use textures for its terrain, it uses custom materials
- Memory increases as you’re in a server due to your client loading more and more textures from items, this is why players with large inventories have more passive memory taken than others because the textures and models are cached on their client
- NPCs and enemies both already unload and are de-humanoided based on distance
- Islands have their details minimized in the distance, and faraway ones are completely unloaded
- NPC ships and player ships are already lower detailed and completely unloaded based on distance
A lot of people are under the impression that AO’s high memory usage is due to an optimization issue, but fail to realize the game has tens of thousands (not an exaggeration) of different item textures and meshes it can potentially load. Every time you see a new item or chestpiece in-game by obtaining it, or seeing it on a player model, thats new meshes and textures being cached on your client in that session. If this were actually a memory leak as people think it was, you’d see your client memory keep increasing until it maxes out and you crash