Question regarding texture size and performance

[Chris_with_a_Gun]

Hi,

I've three grey-scale maps for a material, what is (in theory) faster: The three individual textures stored as a grey-scale PNG or one colored PNG where each map is stored in a sperate channel (R, G & B). I've tested it, but couldn't get much of a difference. Although this may change the time content grows - what whould be the better way based on grapics memory usage and texture lookup time. Or doesn't really make any difference?

thanks

[sinbad]

Combining them is better, especially for shaders since it only requires one texture unit to be accessed.