Limits of Source?

[Para]

Has anyone tested yet how many polies (I'm talking 'bout world geometry here, not meshes) at decent framerate Source is able to handle without choking?

 

[-Psy-]

An engines max poly count doesn't mean that it won't lag when until it reaches it...

You have to bear in mind cubemaps, lightmaps, textures, lights and all sorts aswell.

 

[polly-pocket]

An engines max poly count doesn't mean that it won't lag when until it reaches it...

You have to bear in mind cubemaps, lightmaps, textures, lights and all sorts aswell.

yep, PsychoFreak knows what he's on about. All teh things he listed do make a major difference to the frame rate of the engine. but You could do no draw on everything with full bright and no cubemaps but that would just be tard and would still add effect the framerate and it would be confusing so. Just ask valve and they will reply "try it" haha! :dozey:

 

[Para]

An engines max poly count doesn't mean that it won't lag when until it reaches it...

You have to bear in mind cubemaps, lightmaps, textures, lights and all sorts aswell.

I very well know that, all I want is numbers and/or estimates.

 

[FreemanHL2]

The source engine wont be able to render anymore then 20,000 polygons on a single model.

 

[Dario D.]

I think what he means is how some engines have a polygon limit, or at least a maximum recommended polygon limit (for BSP in this case).

I guess there's the possibility that Source can render infinite polygons, with the hardware being the only limit... but to give you a good, rough estimate, you might want to load a slower-running Half-Life 2 Singleplayer map, and see if there's some console command to show you the polycount.

If you're just trying to figure out engine limitations vs. other engines, I can tell you that Source is definitely limited to smaller spaces (when lots of detail is present), versus the likes of Unreal Engine, Cry Engine, and other more outdoor-oriented engines. Source Engine's limits are right about what you see in the HL2 Singleplayer maps... which are extremely, painstakingly optimized, or they'd run too slow.

 

[Unarmed]

in the case of my machine Anything above 2 polys lag

Although i doubt the fault is with source there.

 

[Para]

Dario D, thanks for your very thorough answer

I guess I just have to try the limits myself then...this is/was to a project of mine which I'm not going to talk about yet...I want to see if it actually works first.

Kinda OT but anyone else having problems running Hammer/Source SDK on WinXP x64?