Hi,
I understand the shader part of ev_pro_22 but I 'm not shure the problem is here, the shader is only used to change texture coordinates and do soft-edging. In both cases, ev_pro_22 or ev_pro_22easy, I send a texture ID. So the chain with ev_pro_22 is not the one that does the work from movie to texture (the CPU part), it's done once by another chain.
For what I understand, using the same texture ID for different gem chains avoids using the CPU for each chain, you use CPU only to "transform your image, movie or whatever to a texture (which is stored in the GPU memory), then each chain links to the texture ID which is the position of the texture in the graphic card's memory. Am I wrong ?
For instance, in the same work I do texturing on 200 pmpd masses linked to a gem chain. So 200 independant rendering chains, one texture, and this works without a problem. And there's no shader involved
Moreover, the texture used for masking is a only one black pixel (see the masking example), so how come this could be so heavy ?