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Flare Usage

Posted: Sat Apr 15, 2006 7:58 pm
by Techx
Anyone know a reasonable number of flares that can be used in different room sizes without negatively effecting performance? For instance I have a ctf map, in one rahter long hallway several small flares, each covering a repeating strip of light texture. If there are say, 16 flares, in a hallway thats properly vis'd is that ok or will it start dropping frames for people? The same goes for the mid area where I might have even more than that covering the various light textures. Just want to know how to gauge what's acceptable in regard to performance. I could always run a gamut of tests with increasing amounts of flares but I figured I'd ask if someone already knew.

Thanks

Posted: Sat Apr 15, 2006 11:41 pm
by Hipshot
Screenshot?

Posted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 1:09 am
by obsidian
Depends on the situation. Generally speaking, it's not so much a matter of the number of flares as opposed to number of overlapping flares, each requiring an additional rendering pass.

Posted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 2:41 am
by Techx
Hipshot wrote:Screenshot?
Wish I could, but I can't post ss's, the map is for an upcoming mod.
obsidian wrote:Depends on the situation. Generally speaking, it's not so much a matter of the number of flares as opposed to number of overlapping flares, each requiring an additional rendering pass.
Ahh, good info., helpful... I didn't think of that. I doubht many would overlap much.

Thanks!

Posted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 8:52 pm
by CheapAlert
you'll only have to render about overlapping flares if you have a voodoo2 or some other card with a poor fillrate like an fx5200.

What engine are you referring to, if q3a, then you'll notice the flares have been long disabled because someone broke them by q3test 1.06.

Posted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 8:53 pm
by Techx
sorry its q4