Do intersecting meshes affect FPS?
by Scottie Sirius · in Torque 3D Professional · 11/14/2012 (8:49 am) · 5 replies
In an older engine I used to work in we were told to avoid allowing models to intersect and also told to avoid pushing models into the terrain because it caused the engine or GPU to do more calculations which had an adverse affect on the Frames Per Second. Is this true in T3D as well? I noticed in the Pacific Demo that there are lots of rocks piled on top of each other and also the forest editor offers a setting to sink trees and rocks into the terrain a certain amount. So...I'm guessing it's not a consideration in T3d.
Does anyone with expertise in the engine know?
Thanks!
Does anyone with expertise in the engine know?
Thanks!
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#2
11/14/2012 (12:13 pm)
I'm using rock meshes to flesh out a terrain extensively (think Skyrim), and so far I haven't noticed any hit at all. Although I don't have any numbers for you I'm afraid. I can tell you that with a plain old cube that's been duplicated around 100 times and sunk into the terrain, which is a big one, I get around 75 fps while driving around in the Cheetah. This is a very big terrain as well. Also worth noting is the fact that collision isn't active on the cubes, and I'm willing to bet that performance will drop a fair bit if it were. I also have shadows cast by the sun disabled. 
#3
11/15/2012 (1:32 pm)
There's no reason static meshes will decrease FPS as these do not collide with anything. Players work differently, and their physics implementation can early out if not touching anything. So in that case you can decrease FPS by having lots of Players touching other objects. 
#4
11/16/2012 (1:08 pm)
Regardless of whether they intersect or not, polys must be sorted and culled. 
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