Props vs Brush

[The Asylum]

So it's like this:

Nearly finished the first beta of cp_cagematch, and I was about to add those folding chairs that you see in stadiums to the- well, stadium. I made them out of 5 or so small brushes, so I figured a lot of them wouldn't eat up too much system resources

Then in TF2, I get a message something like "CCRenderalesoverflow7" or some shit. so I go back and delete a row or two. Same thing. So then I just decided to use the prop of the intel chair that's found in 2Fort.

I don't get that same message again but HOLY SHIT MY FRAMERATE. It was like I could hear my processor beg for mercy.

So then I tried to immitate the chairs in a skybox w/brush-made chairs. I mean, if everything in the stands are 1/16th their displayed size, shouldn't be that much of a strain, right?

Well I was wrong again. "CCRenderablesoverflow7" again.

So my question is: Since brushwork isn't cutting it, what if I had skybox-sized prop chairs? Would that kill my framerate again?

 

[YM]

its the poly count of the models that kills your frame rate not the size, if you can make a chair model with <300 polygons in then you could probably have several hundred before your framerate really turned to sludge

 

[Spacemonkeynz]

How many chairs are you having?

If the player only see them from far away, it could be a good idea just to make each rows out of a single brush or two, then place a texture on it which looks like a row of chairs.

 

[The Asylum]

Quite a lot of them, and they'll be fairly close (like ringside seats)

 

[Bonafide]

please tell me that you change the brushes into func_detail. If you dont then you must. The CCRenderablesoverflow7 will probably disappear after you change all the brushes to func_detail.

 

[R3dRuM]

func_lod might help too, make it so that when there far away from them, they disappear and save FPS and recourses because lod acts just like detail.

 

[Lord Ned]

Your all wrong, muahahah.

The polycount on a model doesn't effect it so much as the texture size. If you have like 300 chairs with a 2048^2 texture, your video card probably loaded that 2048^2 300 times.

So yeah use a prop chair and half the texture size. (And make it tf2 style)

 

[Jive Turkey]

That can't be right. Even a modest graphics engine would perform intelligent resource management and only load the texture once. Was this a joke post because it's only going to spread confusion.

 

[VelvetFistIronGlove]

Yeah, that's complete nonsense. In fact, rendering lots of the same model will be much faster than rendering lots of brushes (for a similar polygon count) with the same texture.

 

[Earl]

please tell me that you change the brushes into func_detail. If you dont then you must. The CCRenderablesoverflow7 will probably disappear after you change all the brushes to func_detail.

I'm guessing this is the real problem.

 

[The Asylum]

Now I don't know what to do ;_;

Alright, so I guess I'm going with building the chairs out of bruses and making them all func_detail. Right?

 

[YM]

if they are brushes they should DEFINATLY be func_detail, if they are models they should be low poly and probably have a smallish texture.
I'd try it both ways and see which is best for FPS

 

[Snipergen]

Your all wrong, muahahah.

The polycount on a model doesn't effect it so much as the texture size. If you have like 300 chairs with a 2048^2 texture, your video card probably loaded that 2048^2 300 times.

So yeah use a prop chair and half the texture size. (And make it tf2 style)

That is very wrong, I program in direct x, and one of the basic rules is that 1 texture doesn't get loaded twice for the same model. That would be stupid too wouldn't it

 

[Lord Ned]

That is very wrong, I program in direct x, and one of the basic rules is that 1 texture doesn't get loaded twice for the same model. That would be stupid too wouldn't it

Quiet You. >: (

Have you ever seen valve you know... be smart with their developing? Can't release a game without a bug or two, or some other problem.

But why do we run into problems with loading low poly models with a high resolution texture, and having a bunch of them on the screen at once?

 

[The Asylum]

So I put the seats as func_detail, and they won't show up. At all.

 

[Lord Ned]

Uh.

Did you make each seat (or row of seats) a func_detail? Post the compile log too.

 

[YM]

Post the compile log too.

ONLY after putting it though this - http://www.interlopers.net/index.php?page=errors

 

[AWESOME-O]

ONLY after putting it though this - http://www.interlopers.net/index.php?page=errors

/facepalm

 

[Lord Ned]

ONLY after putting it though this - http://www.interlopers.net/index.php?page=errors

Too many people don't know about the Error checker. It's usually easier to say post it, and then run it through yourself. (Makes you sound smarter too when you copy paste the errors and solutions. )

'Least on facepunch.

 

[YM]

Too many people don't know about the Error checker.

Now I've said it in this thread, the likelyhood is that one more person knows about it than before. The way I see it is its always better to make people indipendant than to make them rely on the forum, to have a website that you can quietly go to and it tells you whats wrong is much better than sheepishly going to a forum to say 'why isn't this working...<massive post with compile log that I havent even read>' only to have someone copy and paste your own post back to you.

Its just stupid to do the latter, think about it, why ask a forum of people to do what a website, an automated script, will do for you in a tiny fraction of the time and effort?

Once someone knows about the error checker they will know to check there every time they get a problem, if you don't tell them about it, they don't know, and have to come back to the forum every time they've got an error.
One of these senarios creates a person who is efficient at finding errors and the other creates a person who is hopeless at spotting problems and bug people time and time again to give them the solution.
Take a moment to think about it. Which do you want? Which do they want?

To reitterate my point: Interlopers Error Checker