diff --git a/polymer/eduke32/build/src/polymer.c b/polymer/eduke32/build/src/polymer.c
index a768cfc64..fa0de9ce0 100644
--- a/polymer/eduke32/build/src/polymer.c
+++ b/polymer/eduke32/build/src/polymer.c
@@ -2206,24 +2206,26 @@ static void         polymer_emptybuckets(void)
     prcanbucket = 0;
 }
 
+static hashtable_t h_buckets      ={ 2048, NULL };
+
 static _prbucket*   polymer_findbucket(int16_t tilenum, char pal)
 {
-    _prbucket *bucketptr = prbuckethead;
+    char propstr[16];
+
+    Bsprintf(propstr, "%d_%d", tilenum, pal);
+
+    _prbucket *bucketptr = prbuckethead ? (_prbucket *)hash_find(&h_buckets, propstr) : NULL;
 
     // find bucket
-    while (bucketptr != NULL)
-    {
-        if (bucketptr->tilenum == tilenum && bucketptr->pal == pal)
-            break;
-
-        bucketptr = bucketptr->next;
-    }
 
     // no buckets or no bucket found, create one
-    if (bucketptr == NULL)
+    if (bucketptr == NULL || (intptr_t)bucketptr == -1)
     {
         bucketptr = (_prbucket *)Xmalloc(sizeof (_prbucket));
 
+        if (h_buckets.items == NULL)
+            hash_init(&h_buckets);
+
         // insert, since most likely to use same pattern next frame
         // will need to reorder by MRU first every once in a while
         // or move to hashing lookup
@@ -2238,6 +2240,8 @@ static _prbucket*   polymer_findbucket(int16_t tilenum, char pal)
         bucketptr->count = 0;
         bucketptr->buffersize = 1024;
         bucketptr->indices = (GLuint *)Xmalloc(bucketptr->buffersize * sizeof(GLuint));
+
+        hash_add(&h_buckets, propstr, (intptr_t)bucketptr, 1);
     }
 
     return bucketptr;
diff --git a/polymer/eduke32/build/src/polymost.c b/polymer/eduke32/build/src/polymost.c
index 52a539c8c..41829aa3f 100644
--- a/polymer/eduke32/build/src/polymost.c
+++ b/polymer/eduke32/build/src/polymost.c
@@ -5778,7 +5778,7 @@ void polymost_initosdfuncs(void)
         { "r_pr_verbosity", "verbosity level of the polymer renderer", (void *) &pr_verbosity, CVAR_INT, 0, 3 },
         { "r_pr_wireframe", "toggles wireframe mode", (void *) &pr_wireframe, CVAR_INT | CVAR_NOSAVE, 0, 1 },
         { "r_pr_vbos", "contols Vertex Buffer Object usage. 0: no VBOs. 1: VBOs for map data. 2: VBOs for model data.", (void *) &pr_vbos, CVAR_INT | CVAR_RESTARTVID, 0, 2 },
-        { "r_pr_buckets", "controls batching of primitives. 0: no batching. 1: buckets of materials.", (void *)&pr_buckets, CVAR_BOOL | CVAR_NOSAVE, 0, 1 },
+        { "r_pr_buckets", "controls batching of primitives. 0: no batching. 1: buckets of materials.", (void *)&pr_buckets, CVAR_BOOL | CVAR_NOSAVE | CVAR_RESTARTVID, 0, 1 },
         { "r_pr_gpusmoothing", "toggles model animation interpolation", (void *)&pr_gpusmoothing, CVAR_INT, 0, 1 },
         { "r_pr_overrideparallax", "overrides parallax mapping scale and bias values with values from the pr_parallaxscale and pr_parallaxbias cvars; use it to fine-tune DEF tokens", (void *) &pr_overrideparallax, CVAR_BOOL | CVAR_NOSAVE, 0, 1 },
         { "r_pr_parallaxscale", "overriden parallax mapping offset scale", (void *) &pr_parallaxscale, CVAR_FLOAT | CVAR_NOSAVE, -10, 10 },