Framerate question

[Rambo]

I have a map and as long as im on the ground its not bad..but when I get up higher in the map the frame rate drops alot. I just have a few question.
1. Does too many lights decrease FrameRate?
2. Does it make a difference if the lights are closer to the ground or closer to the roof of the map?
3. Does making the light properties Brighter make framerate drop?
4. Any tips on lowering the framerate?
I looked and I think it said 500 polys.

6. How does the Scale Lights tool work? Thanks for any answers.

Oh btw, Im running a Thunderbird 900mhz with 256 Ram.

 

[Bean[FuzzMod]]

1. yes
2. depends if the lights/lightmaps are in you view
3. technically yes, because of the larger light maps that needs to be created
4. do a forum search

 

[DRT-Maverick]

Well, 500 polys is a bit too extreme, thats why.

And whats your videocard? You could be running at 2ghz and get ****ty FPS because your vcard sucks.

 

[Mind Maze]

500 polygons at the same time means large areas, outdoor areas or indoor high-detailed areas. And generally more and more polygons you add the more nodes you get, and too much nodes will hit the fps of any GF3 2Ghz PC.

IF 500 is too high? Hm... Maybe yes maybe not, since most players tends to upgrade they´re PCs if they really like a game, many will be able to play large maps smooth and many others with not that fast PCs wouldn´t be able to get decent fps.

 

[LoTekK]

500 polys on-screen is a little high... angelheart makes absolutely beautiful maps for UT, but some of them can get up to 400+ polys onscreen, and that already gets pretty choppy unless you have a ninja computer... and remember, not everyone has one of those...

now, for your question in particular, i noticed you mentioned that it gets choppy when you "get up higher in the map"... if you're simply flying around the map and you're going someplace that's not normally accessible by the player, then it shouldn't be a problem gameplaywise... so you should be safe (the only people who would get the choppy framerates in this case would be end-of-round ghosts, or cheaters who fly)... if you mean that you have some areas that are high up and still accessible to th players, then you have a problem...

so to cut a long story short, if the low-fps areas aren't accessible by players under normal circumstances, then you're fine...

 

[Rambo]

hmmmmmmmmm

actually...yeah they have access to the high section of the map cause they can go to the roof of both bases...I originally had about 30 trees on the bottom of the map and even with them I still had decent framerate(low). Im running a GeForce 2mmx 32mb card for video.

 

[LoTekK]

the 30 trees could be contributing to the problem... unless they're of the "two intersecting sheets" type, they'll be adding plenty of polys... supposing each tree was a 40-poly brush... 30 trees is a whopping 120 polys that can be used somewhere else... with a 2 or 3 sheet tree you save plenty of polys, and thus, framerate improves...

[edit] oh yeah, here's a link:
http://www.planetunreal.com/nalicity/reviews/inf_blairwoods.html
[/edit]

 

[Euphoric Beaver]

It's not the polyies that cause bad fps it's all that occluding done to them.

I did an experiment once involving terregen.
I made a stonking brush about 1000 polyies at places and because I used no light just ambient lighting it ran perfectly fine.

And because it's an outside map map perhaps you could give it a bit of ambient lighting instead of lot's of lights.

 

[LoTekK]

true, but mesh-based trees are bad whichever way you put it if you have them in high enough numbers... if they're semi-solids they don't occlude, which means all of 'em are being drawn... if they're solid i don't even wanna think about the bsp cuts...

i agree about the ambient lighting, though, that'll definitely help tons, instead of putting a bunch of lights... to an extent, of course...

 

[Euphoric Beaver]

Yep trees are deffently hard to use.
Even if you use meshs they dont stop it.
Because the engine thinks that you can see through meshs so anything behind is getting occluded as well.

Perhaps if you make it extremly hilly with low height pyramids.

 

[ChrisToth.hu]

500 polys?? THat's damn high...try to stay between 200-400 that gives you plenty of elbow room and won't kill the slower comps. If you don't necessary need the 400 polys for a scene then don't use that much. Nice lighting and low-poly architecture looks better than 500-poly curvy rooms/terrains with uniform lighting.

If you are sticking to the upper limits then don't use meshes and dynamic/volumetric lighting.

Try blocking the player's view...that's the best solution. Lowers polycount and Occ. times.

 

[Rambo]

map specs

I found it once but I cant remember where I seen it at. Where is it that you can see how many polys are in your map?

 

[LoTekK]

you can check these under build->build options->stats

however, the important thing is not so much how many polys are in the level total, but rather how many polys are in the players' view at one time... i'm not sure how to do this within the editor itself, but in the game, open up the console (tab, or tilde "~" by default), and type "stat fps" without the quotes... it'll show your framerate and number of visible polys at the bottom of the screen...

 

[Voodoo_180]

as long as you cant get up high then it dont matter. when ure on the ground you have stuff blocking your view so you cant see all the polys. when ure up in the air v. little blocks your view so you see most polys so framerate goes down.

 

[DRT-Maverick]

Originally posted by Shimmering wings
500 polygons at the same time means large areas, outdoor areas or indoor high-detailed areas. And generally more and more polygons you add the more nodes you get, and too much nodes will hit the fps of any GF3 2Ghz PC.

IF 500 is too high? Hm... Maybe yes maybe not, since most players tends to upgrade they´re PCs if they really like a game, many will be able to play large maps smooth and many others with not that fast PCs wouldn´t be able to get decent fps.

Ask yourself this question: How many people have a GeForce3 at the moment?

Also: Why would anyone want to have that many polys in one area, taking up all the bsp cuts and crap when they could spread it out and have good FPS?

 

[common]

ahhhh

in the editor 2.0

thats view/log
type .. stat fps
press enter and close window
now u fly around at the worst possible spot a player can see and watch the bottom of the screen for your counts.


oh
the total in the build options menu ( after your last build )
i dont think matter as long as the worst possible spot a player can see flying around counts are not too high.

 

[fallonme]

Re: ahhhh

Originally posted by common
oh
the total in the build options menu ( after your last build )
i dont think matter as long as the worst possible spot a player can see flying around counts are not too high. [/B]

Almost right you need to watch the ratio between nodes and polys making sure it doesn't go above a 1:2 ratio or the entire map will be hard on computers and polys don't affect fps as much as nodes do but you do need to watch both

 

[common]

clarification please

what if the poly/node exceed 1:2 ??




and what happens when the nodes are too high??

 

[ChrisToth.hu]

It means that the average nodecount of your level is high. THat causes slowdowns, bigger slowdowns than high polycounts. It indicates that your the level geometry is complex.

An average of 2,3 nodes/1 poly is still good but don't let it go higher because it makes your map slower and it increases the possibility of getting BSP holes.

 

[Machismo]

anyone know at what point the editor spews out the "Warning: Node Side Limit Reached" line