Game Development Community

TGB: Number of static sprites relative to system requirements?

by Brandon Alter · in Torque Game Engine · 11/26/2008 (3:11 pm) · 4 replies

Does anyone have a rough idea how many static sprites games made with TGB can render while still keeping system requirements accessible to casual audiences?



I thought I'd share the current low end Windows requirements for Real Arcade:

Real Arcade
Windows XP, 2000, Vista (XP and Vista support required)
800Mhz processor
256MB RAM
On-board video (Intel-based)
DirectX 7
OEM drivers (original equipment manufacturer)



That's compared with the requirements Garage Games gives for TGB games:

TGB games
Minimum

500 MHz processor
256 MB RAM
Windows 98
OpenGL or DirectX compatible accelerated 3D video card

Recommended

1.0 GHz processor
512 MB RAM
Windows XP
nVidia or ATI accelerated 3D video card

#1
11/30/2008 (11:40 pm)
In my opinion, those system requirements are fairly meaningless for both packages.

The answer would be a "gawdawful huge number of them" even with the minimum hardware outlined above.

Really your question is also meaningless, as the real answer is "it depends" on what you're doing. You should do some benchmark testing with something resembling what you want to do.
#2
11/30/2008 (11:49 pm)
This won't be of much help, but it is one example:
www.garagegames.com/blogs/38694/14752

That's on:
3GHz Core 2 Duo
2GB Ram
Win XP
nVidia 8800 GT

The reason that link isn't accurate, is that there is a known performance bottleneck with the creation/destruction model I used rather than a reset-to-start model where I moved the sprites back to the beginning rather than destruction after they ran off screen. I need to go finish the last phase of that project...
#3
12/01/2008 (12:36 am)
That totally rocks, Brian!

But I have to think that there is some big bottleneck going on. That's a dam fast machine you have there.

My game (TGE) does polysoup collision detection of a couple dozen objects with physics applied to them and I get 50fps or so--no credit to me, but to the engine and the hardware. I have to think that you should be able to get literally millions of sprites animating with a high framerate.

Unless I'm wrong, of course.

But your demo/test has got me interested in making 2d games for the first time :-). I can think of some interesting things to do with even hundreds of sprites and maybe a little AI thrown in for good measure.
#4
12/02/2008 (6:05 am)
Thanks for the advice, Lee and Brian.

I found that to be an entertaining demo, Brian. I've subscribed to the RSS feed for whenever you finish the last phase.