Performance optimization!
Hi Guys!
I'm currently working with a group on creating a game, and I've been assigned with the task of figuring out how to optimize the performance of the game, specifically concerning 3D...
So as you may have guessed my question is how to go about this...
Don't worry though.. I've read enough posts inhere not to ask about how many tris I can use or stuff like that. Instead Id like to ask for any reference you guys know of concerning this issue.. Stuff like minimizing tri level, or draw calls, etc...
Are there any smart features which can be used to create cheap effects (I know of Normal mapping and pixel effects of course), but what of effects like camera blur?, Is that worth looking into?
The game is a Diablo or Titan Quest style, with the whole top-down view and interchangeable equipment theme going on.. So what is better a lot of small textures for each piece (torso, arm, etc) thus creating many draw calls. or big collected textures and then try to figure out a programming related solution?
Ambient occlusion, Is this something I should be looking into?
I'm sorry there are a lot of questions in there but In general my question is if any of you guys know any great articles, tips, tutorials or what not of ways to really bump up the performance level..
best regards,
Alex
I'm currently working with a group on creating a game, and I've been assigned with the task of figuring out how to optimize the performance of the game, specifically concerning 3D...
So as you may have guessed my question is how to go about this...
Don't worry though.. I've read enough posts inhere not to ask about how many tris I can use or stuff like that. Instead Id like to ask for any reference you guys know of concerning this issue.. Stuff like minimizing tri level, or draw calls, etc...
Are there any smart features which can be used to create cheap effects (I know of Normal mapping and pixel effects of course), but what of effects like camera blur?, Is that worth looking into?
The game is a Diablo or Titan Quest style, with the whole top-down view and interchangeable equipment theme going on.. So what is better a lot of small textures for each piece (torso, arm, etc) thus creating many draw calls. or big collected textures and then try to figure out a programming related solution?
Ambient occlusion, Is this something I should be looking into?
I'm sorry there are a lot of questions in there but In general my question is if any of you guys know any great articles, tips, tutorials or what not of ways to really bump up the performance level..
best regards,
Alex
Replies
If it´s only singleplayer there won´t be much heroes with different equip going around so that many textures are not a big problem?
Can you turn around the camera or is it a fixed view?
Do you want to make different areals where you have to load to get into the next one or no loading involved at all?
Can you zoom in or not?
Many things like that can give you different answers depending on what you want.
you should use as few small textures/materials/shaders as possible.
pretty much everything static in the environment should be on one big atlas map if you have to have 2 materiasl for your env make sure they are at least the same kind of shader !
id recommand you put all your weapons and character armor pieces and monsters on one big atlas map too but depending on the total amount memory might prohibit this ! but in the case you have to make them seperate make sure you only use one material on your entire model and its the same kind of shader as all the other monsters/weapons/characters
in general i would like to shamelessly self pimp my last framerate rant:
http://wiki.polycount.com/Framerate%20Optimization%20Tips
Beautiful, Yet Friendly Part 1: Stop Hitting the Bottleneck
and
Beautiful, Yet Friendly Part 2: Maximizing Efficiency
by Guillaume Provost
I can see your point!
It's a coop multiplayer game, so there will be up to four heroes.. (at least to start with)
camera should have some wiggle room but mainly fixed, I'm not sure about the zoom part... But to be safe I think we can assume that zoom is available yes..
The areas will be seperated with load time and all of that.. so I guess that should save us some performance.. ?!
I think it may also be important to mention that we also want the monsters to have interchangeable body parts.. so that if we you have two different zombies, you can make a unique zombie by using the head of one and body of the other and so on..
Thanks for the reply!
When you talk about a few small textures/materials/shaders, which do you think is more important?.. few or small?.. I mean if I have a two items, is it then better to have 2x512x512 or 1x1024x1024??
@Ben Apuna
Thx.. Very helpful links indeed!
Do any of you guys know what amount of tris games of this type have been using per character?..
I.e. Games like, Heroes of Newerth, Titan Quest, Warcraft III, etc.. I mean I realize that these are altogether different games and also from different times, but I could help to get a better understanding of how much I have to work with in this relation.
If you want to be able to zoom in to the character it´s a whole different story, because you don´t want to end up seeing some low poly soup which isn´t meant to be looked at from a near distance.
if you hit some memory cap for a target platform : 2x512x512
@warby: Great, thats the kind of relation I was looking for!
Thanks for your replies guys, very helpful indeed!.