Optimum Triangles: How many for DM?

[DEATH eVADER]

Right Im thinking of making a deathmatch level, but Im unsure how many triangles I should use or can use before the lower-end PC players start to miss out in the fun. Is it around 4-8 million triangles

 

[Tynan]

Not per-frame, that's for sure.

Forget about triangle count. In the modern era of pixel shaders, bumpmapping, refractive and reflective frame-buffer-distorting shaders, triangle count really means much less than it used to in terms of performance.

Just make your level functional, and THEN pump the looks until you hit your performance limit.

 

[OCybrManO]

A better way to judge performance in HL2 maps is to set set yourself an arbitrary minimum framerate to stay above instead of a polycount (for the aforementioned reasons). What exact number you decide on depends on your hardware. If you have fast hardware make the number high so slower computers could do it too. If you have a slow computer just make it so you can keep whatever you consider a decent or playable framerate.