Hi guys

Im looking for a way to figure out how I should calculate maximum polygon counts for my new game. Is there a chart or a calculation method I can use to plot system specs against polygon counts? Any help will be appreciated.

cheers!

Depending on the VideoCard.

Some VideoCard only allows 32000 pols per model.
^^^^^
Read it carefully.

very few, and 32000 is more than you need for any model. plus dx will just add the others through software.

As far as guidlines go, it has a lot to do with texture size, the target framerate/resolution, types of shaders, and what all calculations you have going in the scene at once. If i were making a game, I'd shoot for about 150k - 250k polys visible at once. but that would be for a semi decent machine.

(I assume you dont want the game only to run on your PC)

Better use LOD where the user can change the LOD distances
by themself.
There is no perfect Polycount for PCs, as the systems have too
different performances.
The best is to give each user the option to tune
the graphics themself in the options.

You could also offer an option to adjust the LOD and other
effects, so that the game runs on a minimum Framerate automatically. (where the game changes the LOD dynamically
given the current FPS)

Thanks for the pointers. The target market won't necessarily have a good pc, so I really need to work on an economic level. Im keeping textures at 256. Im going to try and make the game run-able on the minimum requirements of GS, at least 32mb video, 256mb ram, etc.

Here's a quick list of items on the screen.
1. A small to medium sized terrain
2. max 8 human characters (I made a test character who clocks in at just under 2000 polys. Im going to try to keep those as low as possible.)
3. Scene decorations (trees, houses, etc.)

The graphic style is cartoon, so I should be able to get away with low poly objects. Im going to add a simple normal map shader that can be disabled on lower end pc's. This should add a bit more detail for those with better rigs.

I hope this gives you a better idea of what I need. How many polys then? 20k? 50k?

you should be able to get 50k fine if your game isnt too cpu intesive (lots of traces/constant moves)

Ok I'll use that as a maximum. Thanks.