What is more ressource consuming? Polygons or texture?

Blond

Hey just a quick question for you guys. I'm no techy so I'm ignorant about a lot of stuff when it comes to game optimization.
AS I was thinking about a game prototype and got influenced by some art style I've just seen, I was wondering what's more hard on the Ressources (CPU/GPU/RAM,etc.) ?

Polygons or Textures? When I talk about polys, I'm talking bout a scene with fairly high numbers like a scene built with 2-3 millions polys and no texture vs a scene built with 40-50k poly's with a dozen of 1k textures?

I know this kinds of stuff depends but maybe a quick insights or answers on this could help. Of course, in said scenes, poly would be static(no bones or rigging), let's also add that they would be UV less (so one thing less to handle in the engine).

Zack Maxwell

I don't like saying it, but I think there really are too many variables involved in that sort of thing to really say. How many texture maps you're using, the nature and complexity of your shader, postprocessing/lighting settings, etc. I believe any of those could independently influence the performance impact of textures versus polygons, among other things...
For example, I'm pretty sure ambient occlusion and dynamic lighting have a stronger performance hit on denser meshes.

Meloncov

To massively oversimplify a very complex issue, textures consume far more memory, while polygons require more processing power to display.

JordanN

It's an old example but if you look at the specs for the PS1 or Gamecube, they pushed more polygons when there was next to no textures or lighting. When you added them, the performance was rated at half. It's definitely noticeable in some games where when they wanted to free up their frame rate, they went minimal on the background detail or they vertex painted all their lighting/surface detail.

Although from my POV, I don't think it matters. There's no real consistency other than the frame rate in a lot of games. If anything, only a perfectly solid running 60fps should be priority. Nothing less. 

pior

"What is more resource consuming? Polygons or texture?"

"As I was thinking about a game prototype and got influenced by some art style I've just seen, I was wondering what's more hard on the Ressources (CPU/GPU/RAM,etc.) ?"

There is zero point wondering about "what's harder on resources" when the actual, practical context here is that of a game prototype.

The answer is simple : use as little resources as possible. Very low poly models for everything, and very low resolutions for everything. Problem solved, you can now move on and get started on your game prototype !
(not trying to sound like a smartass here - it really is that straightforward, and a bit of a non-issue really.)

sacboi

...it depends

Seriously though as clearly outlined above, it really is that simple on a fundamental level. In my humble opinion by working within tight budget constraints initially enables a more thorough approach where and/or how to optimise performance gains early in development irrespective I might add of complexity, at the same time mitigating any potential losses (...one would hope) as well. Which at the end of the day only half the fun when it comes to prototyping the thing in the first place.

Have a good one. 

Chimp

textures can cost quite a bit, in terms of bandwidth especially given the numbers of maps PBR shaders shunts around. Polygons can indeed be expensive still, turn shadows on and your 20k tree is now effectively 40k. So maybe you decide you want shadows to actually appear further than 1m away and you need to start thinking less about 100k portfolio tree and more like a 5k warcraft tree haha.

In general its pixels that tend to cost a lot though these days. spensive shaders, and post fx. SSAO for example can be a really costly bastard up close.

Blond

pior said:

"What is more resource consuming? Polygons or texture?"

"As I was thinking about a game prototype and got influenced by some art style I've just seen, I was wondering what's more hard on the Ressources (CPU/GPU/RAM,etc.) ?"

There is zero point wondering about "what's harder on resources" when the actual, practical context here is that of a game prototype.

The answer is simple : use as little resources as possible. Very low poly models for everything, and very low resolutions for everything. Problem solved, you can now move on and get started on your game prototype !
(not trying to sound like a smartass here - it really is that straightforward, and a bit of a non-issue really.)

I understand what you mean. I was wrong with the terms I used. I meant a game ''design''/ art direction.

I was looking at astroneer and was charmed by the hard edges/ textureless look of the whole thing. I wondered how far one could go with even higher graphical ambitions if he decided to make a game with lots of poly's but no texture.

leilei

Polygons being hard really depends.  Modern video hardware post-2003 could use VBOs and handle transformation of vertices pretty quickly with vertex shaders and the skinning with them so the CPU isn't choked that much as it used to be (skeletally animated, anyway). 

On the PS2 , the emotion engine(TM)(R) was a pretty powerful vector processor though the VU had poor texture cache so relying on sharp edges for detail was a common tactic for character detail while keeping the framerate high and smooth.  To a common CRT TV then, and factoring in the blurry 'flicker reduction' most ps2 games had (as well as the bloom in the later games), it didn't look too practically different than a typical normal-mapped rendering path.

Textures also depends.  Texture switching penalties are harsher on modern and mobile/embedded (especially those) video hardware so you'd generally have to save up on texture usage and use instancing a lot more.  Some modern engines (UnrealEngine3 onward etc) have conveniences just for that

pior

"I was looking at astroneer and was charmed by the hard edges/ textureless look of the whole thing. I wondered how far one could go with even higher graphical ambitions if he decided to make a game with lots of poly's but no texture."

Then indeed you could have asked that directly And the answer would have probably been : One could go at least as far as Astroner ; and maybe further, but, it depends.

Bottom line : none of that prevents you from working on your prototype. There's no real point wondering without trying really !

Chimp

Yeah as pior says, just make a prototype - do it with no regard for technical limitations, it's effectively playable concept art. Realise your scope with this prototype, try to figure out the full extents of the game and put them to the test in terms of whether they're fun. Then when that's all said and done, start afresh doing it performantly because at that point, you actually know what you're dealing with instead of hypothetically thinking about performance abstractly and can now plan for expensive things and balance everything to allow for them.