which is better?

Cheathem

hello polycount.
Ive had this question for a while but just now decided to find an answer.
So anyways,is it better to have a large object seperated into 2 meshes with two low rez textures.or keep it as one mesh,with one high rez texture?

MikeF

need some specifics here as this is very vague.

-final output? (realtime, pre-rendered)
-limitations of said final output?
-character or prop?
-animated or static?

give as many details as you can for a better response

Cheathem

oh sorry anbout that.
Uhm,a static prop(a house) real time,using unity engine.

Joshua Stubbles

Generally, more textures/objects = more draw calls = worse performance

However, it totally depends on the engine. Some can handle more objects better than others, using frustum culling and things like that.

Xendance

Joshua Stubbles wrote: »

Generally, more textures/objects = more draw calls = worse performance

However, it totally depends on the engine. Some can handle more objects better than others, using frustum culling and things like that.

In UE 3 more textures in a material (shader) don't increase draw calls. They only increase the amount of texture fetches from the memory. But a model having multiple materials does increase draw call amounts.
Personally I'd use bigger texture with a single mesh.

poopipe

Generally its 1 draw call per object per shader pass on a fixed function renderer(eg anything on a mobile device). on a programmable one all bets are off really although its a safe bet to assume 1object 1material is quicker than 2 objects and 2materials