Posted by matt on Sat Apr 3rd at 3:54pm 2004
matt
member
1100 posts
190 snarkmarks
Registered: Jun 26th 2002
Location: Edinburgh

Occupation: Student!
Posted by Wild Card on Sat Apr 3rd at 4:02pm 2004
Wild Card
member
2321 posts
339 snarkmarks
Registered: May 20th 2002
Location: Ontario, Canada

Occupation: IT Consultant
Posted by KungFuSquirrel on Sat Apr 3rd at 4:16pm 2004
| ? quote: |
| the halflife engine can ONLY draw 1000 wpolies tops, from that point on, its entirely hardware related, but no matter how much hardware you have, there will always be some noticeable issues. |
Software mode is limited to 800 polys. Once you get into a 3D rendering mode, no such limit exists. There is no set threshold at 1000. Once you get past about 60-75 fps most people can't even tell a difference in refresh rates, and most of those who claim they can are full of s**t anyway.
KungFuSquirrel
member
751 posts
345 snarkmarks
Registered: Aug 22nd 2001
Location: Austin TX

Occupation: Game Design, LightBox Interactive
Posted by Orpheus on Sat Apr 3rd at 4:23pm 2004
then, my pc is s**t, cause i notice choppiness, on almost any map over 1000 r's
you know what, perhaps its my limitations and not the games, cause i can't play much over a half hour anyways.
when i see slideshow, its crap, and most times crap happens at or about 1000.
in all fairness, there are quirks, cause i have seen a couple maps, over 1200, that ran perfectly.. makes me wonder if epolies play a much stronger role than we give credence to.
all-in-all, my line is drawn at 1000, i still say its tolerance to crap, thats the deciding factor.. i have heard people claim to play just fine at 2500 ![]()
Orpheus
member
13860 posts
1547 snarkmarks
Registered: Aug 26th 2001
Location: Long Oklahoma - USA

Occupation: Long Haul Trucking
Posted by fraggard on Sat Apr 3rd at 4:25pm 2004
fraggard
member
1110 posts
201 snarkmarks
Registered: Jul 8th 2002
Location: Bangalore, India

Occupation: Student
Posted by Orpheus on Sat Apr 3rd at 4:30pm 2004
there is always the possibility, that because machines are indeed so powerful now, that the r_speeds command is no longer accurate..
i mean i am positive that anything above 1000 causes choppiness, maybe when people say they are getting 75fps, the engine only says its 75.
i mean seriously, how could a 5 year old engine foresee 3 ghz processors.. wasn't the largest in the 500mhz area?
what if the code, that determines accurate fps readings, cannot handle the new hardware?
i just find it difficult to imagine my 2.6 as unable to cope.
[addsig]Orpheus
member
13860 posts
1547 snarkmarks
Registered: Aug 26th 2001
Location: Long Oklahoma - USA

Occupation: Long Haul Trucking
Posted by KungFuSquirrel on Sat Apr 3rd at 4:32pm 2004
Things such as regular entities can even affect this. While I'm not exactly for sure on performance hits as a result, overdraw could be one concern - overdraw being what happens when faces are drawn over each other, which is more expensive than drawing just individual faces (this would likely be a sufficient explanation as to why a map with 1000 wpoly and with no vis run would perform worse than a map with 1000 wpoly and a full vis - the no vis version would have a ton of stuff overlapping). With texture, additive, and solid render modes this of course is expected, but any brush entity will cause overdraw over whatever is behind it, which can be reduced by nulling not just entity backfaces, but the actual geometry behind brush entities (if it is reasonable to do so) - the way caulk actually was designed to work in the Quake 3 engine.
Intelligent design is still going to make a higher wpoly map better than it would be if it were poorly designed, and the optimizations and general construction techniques used by a more experienced mapper will keep things better in line. The key is being able to use the polys well, however many you're using.
I do really look forward to getting away from the HL engine entirely, though, the set poly limits and guidelines are really annoying
KungFuSquirrel
member
751 posts
345 snarkmarks
Registered: Aug 22nd 2001
Location: Austin TX

Occupation: Game Design, LightBox Interactive
Posted by KungFuSquirrel on Sat Apr 3rd at 4:35pm 2004
| ? quote: |
| I just cannot believe that the engine can scale it's capabilities infinitely with GPU power. It's practically impossible for anyone to code for eventualities that far into the future :/ |
Well, it doesn't scale infinitely, but there's still more than enough power to display some hefty counts with newer hardware. It won't run as efficiently as the same polycount would in a newer game designed for those numbers, but it's still more than enough to get more than was originally designed out of it. [addsig]
KungFuSquirrel
member
751 posts
345 snarkmarks
Registered: Aug 22nd 2001
Location: Austin TX

Occupation: Game Design, LightBox Interactive
Posted by Andrei on Sat Apr 3rd at 4:52pm 2004
Long live VIS blocking
.
Posted by Yak_Fighter on Sat Apr 3rd at 5:42pm 2004
800 is the max. It's not really that hard to make good looking stuff at that liimit people. Anything beyond that and you're probably adding unnecessary details that no one will give a rat's ass about in the middle of a firefight.
Yak_Fighter
member
1832 posts
406 snarkmarks
Registered: Dec 30th 2001
Location: Indianapolis, IN

Occupation: College Student/Slacker
Posted by Campaignjunkie on Sat Apr 3rd at 6:42pm 2004
I look at it this way: If you wanted a lot of detail and polys in your maps, then you wouldn't be mapping for Half-Life (a glorified 4+ year old Quake 1 engine?) R_speeds are always going to be a major part of Half-Life maps, and it's just plain laziness to discard them. I voted for 1000; that's really the absolute limit in my eyes. Believe it or not, I actually somewhat enjoy the challenge of creating as much as possible within the limits.
Campaignjunkie
member
1309 posts
291 snarkmarks
Registered: Feb 12th 2002
Location: West Coast, USA
Occupation: Student
Posted by Adam Hawkins on Sat Apr 3rd at 10:31pm 2004
I try my best to stay below 1000, though inevitably my r_speeds sometimes creep above it a touch. 1000 is definitely my ideal limit though - especially if I want my maps to be played regardless of what system people have ![]()
Adam Hawkins
member
858 posts
333 snarkmarks
Registered: Aug 25th 2002
Location: Chesterfield, UK

Occupation: Specialty Systems Manager
Posted by Orpheus on Sat Apr 3rd at 10:32pm 2004
the fact, that some dingbat (wonders if dingbat is another UK cussword
)wasted a vote, by selecting the 5000 option, tells me we have little real use for a polling system ![]()
seems to me, that if its that unimportant to someone, why bother :/
[addsig]Orpheus
member
13860 posts
1547 snarkmarks
Registered: Aug 26th 2001
Location: Long Oklahoma - USA

Occupation: Long Haul Trucking
Posted by scary_jeff on Sat Apr 3rd at 10:35pm 2004
Posted by Orpheus on Sat Apr 3rd at 10:37pm 2004
| ? posted by scary_jeff |
| Hah, a dingbat just means a fool here. It looks like that's what it means over there too |
isn't it cool in a way, that a word, that is as semi-obscure as dingbat, works on both sides of the pond ![]()
someday, we, all of snarkpit, needs to post words.. not common ones, but words like dingbat, and compare notes.. i think that thread could be very informative ![]()
Orpheus
member
13860 posts
1547 snarkmarks
Registered: Aug 26th 2001
Location: Long Oklahoma - USA

Occupation: Long Haul Trucking
Posted by scary_jeff on Sat Apr 3rd at 10:53pm 2004
I just find the concept of saying 'hey mac, get outa here' really funny for some reason. Here, a mac is a raincoat, but people don't use 'mac' very much any more.
Posted by Orpheus on Sat Apr 3rd at 10:58pm 2004
i do not use the term/word as such, but it is actually used.
"hop in mac" is common enuff
its like dude, or the word dude.. it means "a city person attempting to be western" as in a "dude ranch"
its rarely used that way though, more than likely, it would be used in lieu of mac.. as in "hop in dude"
another term is "buddy" in truckers lingo, it means "homosexual"
[addsig]Orpheus
member
13860 posts
1547 snarkmarks
Registered: Aug 26th 2001
Location: Long Oklahoma - USA

Occupation: Long Haul Trucking
Posted by scary_jeff on Sat Apr 3rd at 11:08pm 2004
That explains a bunch of movie lines. It never seemed to make sense to me that people would agressiveley call somebody 'buddy' - I mean it could be sarcasm, but somehow... no.
A while ago, we were flicking through the TV channels, and there was this awful 70s film about some plane passengers who were stranded on an island. We watched it because it had 'lando' from star wars in it. Lando had a fight with some guy (I'ts probably just me, but the whole idea of a young 'lando' running around a jungle was just hilarious to me... I can't seperate the actor from the carachter lando), then afterwards was arguing with some other guy, and ended with 'yeah, real nice BUDDY' (buddy in caps because he said it with such force). Now it didn't make sense to me that he had such an aggressive tone, but was only calling the guy his 'buddy'. Now it all makes sense
Well, that was a nice post wasn't it, hope it makes some kind of sense.
Posted by Gwil on Sat Apr 3rd at 11:10pm 2004
It really is a grey area - something to celebrate really, there is such a vast range of dialects in the world it makes living unique from counties and towns
Gwil
super admin
2864 posts
293 snarkmarks
Registered: Oct 13th 2001
Location: Derbyshire, UK

Occupation: Student
Posted by Gwil on Sat Apr 3rd at 11:11pm 2004
Gwil
super admin
2864 posts
293 snarkmarks
Registered: Oct 13th 2001
Location: Derbyshire, UK

Occupation: Student
Snarkpit v6.1.0 created this page in 0.0112 seconds.


