The Polygon home game! [message #-986451] |
Sun, 12 January 2003 13:11 |
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Is this a good way to go about it, when I make a map I give myself a budget of 10k polys for the map and then I add the buildings.
So I keep the map under 10k + the buildings.
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The Polygon home game! [message #-986447] |
Sun, 12 January 2003 13:25 |
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18,000 is the pretty much dead limit. Try to keep it under 15,000 if you can but no more than 18,000 polys. Any more than that and it will get laggy. Unless you have a high end graphics card. But 10,000... the buildings take up more than that. (I think)
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The Polygon home game! [message #-986446] |
Sun, 12 January 2003 15:13 |
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quote: Originally posted by dead4ayear2: 18,000 is the pretty much dead limit. Try to keep it under 15,000 if you can but no more than 18,000 polys. Any more than that and it will get laggy. Unless you have a high end graphics card. But 10,000... the buildings take up more than that. (I think)
Lag isn't graphical.
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The Polygon home game! [message #-986444] |
Sun, 12 January 2003 22:11 |
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quote: Originally posted by aircraftkiller2001:
Lag isn't graphical.
No, but just try making a 100,000 poly map that's still relatively small and see how it goes
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The Polygon home game! [message #-986443] |
Sun, 12 January 2003 22:17 |
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If the VIS system works well enough, it shouldn't matter how many polys your map is (in theory), and if you keep the number of different textures down, then it reduces rhe amount of memory required - the only real limiting factor is the memory footprint of the map itself.
For instance, you could have several C&C_Under-sized areas in a map, as long as they were totally occluded from each other and VISed accordingly, as the engine wouldn't be attempting to render the areas it couldn't see.
Enormous maps would be interesting to see, but gameplay would inevitably be affected by the large distances you'd have to travel on foot.
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The Polygon home game! [message #-986442] |
Mon, 13 January 2003 04:53 |
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As well as reducing the amount of polygons try using low resolution textures(if your using unofficial ones). using 1024x1024 sized textures will require huge amounts of proccesing power. I use 64x64 resolution textures for smalll insignificant items. These small textures only take up 10-20kb
only use high poly items where players will actually appreciate them.
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The Polygon home game! [message #-986441] |
Mon, 13 January 2003 17:40 |
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High-res textures are only a problem in terms of memory - the only processing done on them is decompression (if they're compressed in the first place), and that's usually handled by your GPU anyway. It's still a valid point in that regard though.
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The Polygon home game! [message #-986439] |
Tue, 14 January 2003 05:12 |
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I made a map to test the game engine that was waaaaaaaaaaaay over that budget.
It's not the polygon total of the map that contributes to host to client latency.....too many polygons is a FPS problemb more than latency issue.
You can make a huge 1,000,000 poly map that would take 15 minutes to cross from one base to the other in a nod buggy at top speed and it would still play in 20 player multiplayer games with verry little effect to fps if you have a good display adapter......i proved that with Afghanistan.
You just have bad FPS if you dont have a top of the line display adapter.
Polygon count does not have a thing to do with "Lag"<---Latency between host and client.
Polygon count Directly effects your animation speed...FPS<---{Frames Per Second}....not your net speed.
Even though i probably will regret saying this.....ACK is right.....
Greg H. went through this with us early last year{around March or April 2002}.
The only reason you should be worried about polygon totals is for those out there who do not have an up to snuff display adapter.
Keep an eye on them all the same......but dont be scared to go over your budget a bit......less polygons per object is a good plan to stick to.....but overall polygon counts are really not a latency problemb.
Static animations like elevators,fly overs,huge amounts of building animations{like the SP ore refinery},too many bots...stuff like that directly effect latency......not polygon counts.
Eric.
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The Polygon home game! [message #-986438] |
Mon, 13 January 2003 21:57 |
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does renegade render only the polygons visible on screen (or just about to be)? or does it render all polygons on the level no matter if they're in your view or not?
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The Polygon home game! [message #-986437] |
Mon, 13 January 2003 22:26 |
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That's where the VIS system comes in - it only renders polygons that are visible from any given point (in theory). In addition to that, it doesn't render anything behind the player's point of view.
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The Polygon home game! [message #-986436] |
Tue, 14 January 2003 13:47 |
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Right.
I havent got the official poop on how the vis panels work but from what i gather.....the vis panels make it possible to turn off the rendering of interior textures when you are on the outside of a building that is in your viewable area and turns off rendering of everything not viewable outside when you are inside a building.
If you set vis and dynamic culling up properly it will greatly reduce the hit on your processor and video adapter which in turn gives you a better FPS rate.
correct me if i'm wrong here guys....
There are tutorials about setting up vis and your dynamic culling system somewhere......i just cant remember where i saw them.....anyone know where these tutorials are?
If anyone can find them post a link to it in this topic so that everyone can find it again.
Eric. [ January 14, 2003, 20:49: Message edited by: SGT.May ]
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