R_speeds And You Created 18 years ago2006-03-17 08:06:30 UTC by rowleybob

wpolys: below 1000
epolys: no idea
fps: no idea

List your perception of what are acceptable r_speeds for MP maps.

Also, I've noticed for SP maps, for the heck of it, I'll run a map without VIS and watch the wpolys rise to unbelievable levels--as expected--, however my fps stays steady at 72.

So, am I correct in assuming for SP maps, you have much greater flexiblilty in terms of wpolys?

Anything relevant you want to add pertaining to r_speeds here.

wpolys: <1500
fps: >60

@Salty lol how can you accept such low fps?

w_polys: below 900, preferably 800
e_polys: 10,000 maybe? I don't know.
fps: no idea

These standards are probably pretty high these days, but I get a certain feeling of accomplishment from being able to keep the r_speeds this low.

Also, with multiplayer maps, you have to keep in mind that many of the people who are still playing half-life and its mods online are using older systems. At least that's what I think.

I mosty look at fps. 30+ or so is usually acceptable for me.
r_speeds are a bit usefull to predict how a map will run on older systems (800 for really old stuff, but I find 1000-1200 or so acceptable) but that's it. I'm no r_speed fanatic anymore, as it's just a tool to measure fps, and that is what really counts.

And yes, SP maps are a bit more flexible, because there's no network speeds and such to worry about.
But, I assume the level was fullbright, correct? Try doing the same while getting RAD to run on it - you'll notice the difference between plain textured faces and those that use an extra (lightmap) layer.

Well, I can't really tell about w_polys/e_polys. I guess around 1000 is good, atleast, that is what most poeple seem to say..

About fps, I think anything above 40/50 is just fine.

When i map i try to keep wpolys below 1000. But 1500~ are acceptable if i play other maps.

- you'll notice the difference between plain textured faces and those that use an extra (lightmap) layer.

Cap P: Would you mind elaborating on that one? "Lightmap" is a totally foreign term for me

Also, I don't feel comfortable using fps as a benchmark for performance, becuase stuff that other people have told me runs at "4 fps" runs full or "72 fps" on my machine.

It seems everyone agrees +-1000 is good for wpolys...

How about epolys? Anyone...anyone...

Lightmaps are the colored images generated by RAD that get put over the maps faces to simulate lighting. Obviously, blending two textures for every face that's being rendered takes some more time than just covering them with one texture (ak. fullbright).

Yes, maps will run differently on different machines. Poly counts are a usefull guide to make predicting the fps on other machines easier. They're no strict guidelines that every mapper should abide, though.
For Source, many more factors impact fps. The budget panel shows you where the engine spends it's time which makes it easier to pinpoint problems (like cutting down on dynamic lighting, or ragdolls/physics objects, or indeed cutting down on sheer polycount).

As for epoly's, these are easier to handle (exactly because they don't have an additional texture (lightmap)). The average ratio between epoly and wpoly seems to be 10:1 or 12:1 or so.
If you set yourself a polybudget of 1200, you could put in 1000 wpoly and 2000 epoly.

lol!! My epolys for dm_lars were +8000 in some areas!

(And that's after I removed half of the vaporator props )

No problem, because nowadays mostly everyone runs a system that can handle that amount. Go with the time and take the freedom you get.

As for other factors, a guy on my mapping forum once found out that older systems find long visibility distances not so funny. In a map where some faces were 3000+ units away, one of his systems would choke, even though the wpoly's and such were within fair limits. Strange thing, but it shows that there's a lot more to performance than just polygons.
And I recently read in a game programmers book that handling resources has a big impact on performance. Since most games nowadays have such a large amount of art, they can't keep it all in memory at the same time, so they have whole managing systems for that. If you badly manage stuff, it results in longer and more frequent loading times - taking fps down. I think HL avoided this somewhat by linking .bps's to each other and keeping these .bsp's somewhat small and easy for the system to handle.

I think the main problem with optimization is not that "there are too many visible polygons because the map is too detailed".
The problem is when those polygons are not seen by the player but the engine can see them. For example, I dont care if a map such as Carbaseus has a huge amount of wpolys, because I can actually see them most of the time and they serve a purpose.
Let me use another example. When I walk around my "Kaufmann House" map in HL2, it runs rather slowly. But I understand that I'm getting a huge and pretty enviroment in return.
Bad performance hurts when there's no apparent reason for it, as is the case in several levels of F.E.A.R. You are in a small hallway, but the engine seems to be rendering a whole map at once.

I try to stay lower than 500 polygons in my HLDM maps, even though that's a very low limit. The thing is, I dont think I really need more polygons (I dont usually spend too much time with the same HLDM map)
In source maps, I just check the budget now and then.