Posted by CogKing on January 23, 1998 at 18:15:53:
In Reply to: Any refresh rate guidelines? posted by Smo on January 23, 1998 at 10:15:06:
> We all know that refresh rate is the most important statistic to keep an eye on when building. I am wondering, what refresh rate should we keep above for a multiplayer level (3d accelerated and non-3d)?
> I know that too many 3dos can really drop the refresh rate...any other influences? Similiar texture types? Etc...?
> Thanks for any thoughts...
1) Try to introduce the 3DOs one at a time (mostly for enemies in single player)
but even in multiplayer try not to drop the player in a rom with 20 different 3DOs.
2) Too many textures visible at the same time will cause texture cache misses. If you wanna change the mood in your level do so gradually, and use some coherent texturing approach. Patchwork levels are ugly anyway.
3) Textured translucent surfaces are expensive. Single color force field are way more efficient than textured force fields, for instance.
4) Try to limit the visible geometry to about 250-300 faces.
5) Do not go crazy with particle effects. Tho only one game object is created for a series of particles each particle in itself is a face that has to be rendered...
Numbers:
15+ fps on a P166 software 320x200
12+ fps on a PPro 200 software 512x384
25+ fps with a 3dfx (whatever the machine... :-))
Finally, in multiplayer one of the MOST important things is to watch what is synched over the network if you write your own cogs. Suppose you write a cog that randomly flickers a sector extralight, if you write it the wrong way that sector is gonna be synched over and over again, in effect flooding the network (and a 28.8 modem's bandwidth is quite low to begin with). There are ways in cog to ensure that some effects are only made locally (mostly through the use of the flags=0x240 line before symbols). Actually the breaking glass cog script (CTF) introduces a very neat technique to to really complex things in a network friendly manner : SendTrigger() and trigger: handler that makes all things local instead of trying to sync 50 glass shards over the network.
Hope this helps.
-CogKing