Max poly count for good game speed

[faderide]

I've been keeping the viewable polygon count down below 200 on my current map. Is this acceptable number for mid range systems to have good performance?
Is this the main consideration for performance (# of polys on screen at any one time)?
How does the poly/node ratio tie into this, and is it important as long as you have a reasonably low # of polys on screen?
Wanting this map to perform better than my last map. It was quite demanding.lol
Thanks

 

[Chrysaor]

I think ur fine, that's what i aim for anyway. Like the max polys in my next map is 230ish, but the nodes are only 250 so it runs just fine

 

[Hourences]

it depends on what you call mid range, imo a mid range pc is atm a 800 mhz 128ram geforce2 and that pc will have good fps with 200 polys yes, with 250 too prolly
i always try to stay under 350-400 max, but try to get the average around 200-250 too

and it isnt the only thing that makes the fps fast, the biggest other thing is dynamic light, light that moves or thats animated kills your pc if used everywhere or too big
also too much movers in the same view do the same (as they are spred aroudn the map no prob), with alot of movers i mean 70 or so
and meshes slow down too, stat mesh will give the mesh polys, i thought you had to stay under 3000 mesh polsy but im not sure, as long as you dont make a jungle of a few hundred plant models i dont think your gonna have alot of troubles with the meshcount

the occlusion (zoning and shít) and other factors can slow down too, but i dont know enough about that to give explanation about it,
and in a very rare case textures can slow down, i have this very weird thing that when ever a map uses alot of sgtech1 texture i get very low fps untill i set textures detail to low, then i suddenly get to my normal fps speed wich is playable, ghey, something with the pallettes or so

 

[Ulukai]

Dynamic lights will play havoc with your framerate too i.e. Discolights and Torchwaver lights etc.

 

[StoneViper]

Originally posted by Hourences

...the occlusion ..., but i dont know enough about that to give explanation about it, ...

Occlusion has to do with weather something in view is behind or in front of onother object in view. I've played a map where things in the skybox actually appeared in front of other things that where in the map. This is occlusion.

One of the main fps killers i thought would have been mentioned earlier is the node count. Nodes kill framerate faster than polys.

try to keep the poly:node ratio lower than 1:3, a ration to strive for is 1:2.

 

[Dai]

if you're mapping for UT, stick to 170 polys/340 nodes per frame.

occlusion is what the engine is rendering, but the player doesn't necessarily see... btw, there is a rumor that semi solids don't occlude, but appearntly they do.

If you use too many textures, or the texture files are too big, it'll slow the level down.

 

[Bot_40]

Originally posted by Dai2

occlusion is what the engine is rendering, but the player doesn't necessarily see... btw, there is a rumor that semi solids don't occlude, but appearntly they do.

Yeah that's bollox, even Non-solids and movers block the view

 

[Hourences]

movers block the view to what i know though

can someone explain why i have 4 fps if i play a map with heavy sgtech1 usage with high textures detail, and with low texture detail 40, explain me that
the textures are all 256*256
they are not bigger, they are all like 80 kb or so to what i remeber, and 80 isnt to big
they dont have special things enabled to what i know
...

then why do they slow down my system that hard ? no other textures do, only the sgtech1s

 

[Akuma]

yeah movers in UT are part of the BSP (quite why I don't know)

200 polys/400 nodes is probably about right for a max poly/node count considering the age of the game and how it scales with faster PC's

more lower = more better

 

[faderide]

Awesome feedback. Love this site!
Thanks for all the info....Very helpfull.