The level isn't THAT big, but still it's running slow when much of the geometry is in front of the camera. Ok, it's only a Duron 1200, but I've run games like Vice City, Max Payne and Mafia with no problem. Seems like I have used 427 blocks so far, is that much? Is there a way to optimise the level so it runs smoother, like decreasing view depth?

Yes, view depth, fog, sun, shaders, number of working funcs and more...
Try to search over the forum. This topic (game too slow, optimize fps, etc.) was discussed many times here.

Sorry, I did search, just a bit pressed for time atm. It's hard to find the right stuff in this forum. Well, I think I found a possible solution... edit the display script. Hope that will be enough.

Did you build your level with "Visibility calculations" set to on?
This takes longer but also increase frame rate a bit.

No, it was turned off... Thanks!

I've lowered clip_far... what about clip_factor, if it's set to two, will it clip level geometry at clip_far * 2 and only entities at the range I set? Or do I get this wrong? :S
Edit: found the answer, seems I got it right.

Oops, I have a lot of portals. Guess I'll should convert a many blocks to detail instead. How large blocks should I convert so it doesn't affect frame rate in a negative way? Or does this only apply to blocks in front of other blocks?

Didn't help much. Seems like "visibility calculations" could take weeks. I tried building as map entities and converting to models, as I read that models are much faster... but the model turns out all screwed up, can walk through some parts and other blocks in the wrong places and texture turned black.

Any ideas? Beginning to wish I had simply gone with modding some game, but I figured this would be more flexible... instead it's giving me nothing but a headache. Starting to look like I'm screwed... have to cancel the exhibition... all I wanted was to make a very simple game. Man, my old Quake 2 maps was not very much simpler.

Sorry to be slagging off GS like this, I'm sure it's a good tool once you learn all the secrets that aren't in the tutorials. I'm just getting really depressed by all this failure. And the deadline is way too close.

Hmmm , well , gamestudio isnt really too slow unless ur really doing something wrong , or just making a lot of insanely complex geometry , i've tested it before and it's always been pretty fast with pretty nice looking levels , and i only have a 2 ghz athlonxp processor. Is ur geometry snapped properly or is it intersecting each other ? How big are ur textures ? Whats ur FPS_Max set to ? there's a ton of things that could be causign ur problem , one thing u can do is post a screenshot of ur level , both editor and ingame , that could help people see more what ur problem can be , another thing u can do is try running the map withought any scripts , see if the problem is with the level design or with a script somewhere. As far as models, its common practice(pretty much in all games) to have all details done by models(static meshes) rather than geometry , as geometry renders slow if used this way. Think of geometry like construction , like in real life, only the walls floors and the like require it , everything else (ie. .. tvs ,sofas,beds,kitchen , street lights trees cars and whatnot) is made from models , thats the correct way to build a level , and this is what u would have to follow pretty much with any bsp based engine. Hope this helps , as for the textures on models being wrong or upside down or something , it's pretty much user error , if you make the models properly and texture them the standard way , they'll work perfectly , try maybe reading some more tutorials on the subject , and the manual if u havnt already. Post those screenies so we can have more information on what ur doing wrong.

Thanks for not giving up on me. Sorry, I'm not the one who usually cries out for help in a forum, if I wasn't so pressed for time I'd probably try to figure it out myself.

I've done the WED and the MED tutorial, looked a bit at scripting, a couple of user submitted tutorials on scripting and one on audio since I wanted my game to focus on that. I've come to realize that models is the way to go after looking in this forum, but none of the tutorials mentioned using models for anyting besides characters and stuff like that... besides Map Entities for doors and such... would converting stuff to Map Entities also speed things up? I've done that successfully before, but had some problem with lighting looking different.

I guess I probably do a lot of things wrong. Since deadline was getting closer I had to stop doing tutorials and start working to have a shot at finishing in time.

All textures are 64x64 bmp. I got 27 of them, all only one colour each, so I guess that could be optimized a bit if it has a big impact.

FPS_Max was set to 75 as default, I tried lowering it, but didn't notice any difference.

I just tried to do a quick conversion from level object to model, maybe it would work if I convert smaller bits and also check so the texture is correct. I'm just so pressed for time that it would be an impossible task to remodel everything in MED from scratch.

I transferred the map from blueprint, so usually snapping was only set to 1 to get the proportions right. Here are some screens. I got no light atm, plan to use dynamic lights:







I get a few errors while compiling:
WARNING W071: block 160 - duplicate planes 11 and 9!
WARNING W075: Invalid brush 160 - not a volume !
WARNING W110: block 267 - vertex out of plane!
WARNING W092: Level leaking!

and some data:
Level size 4160 units
14842 vertices
9773 visible surfaces
13 textures
Texture space 341 Kb
1767 regions

Well, I got an idea that might help. I plan to use a lot of dynamic lights, so I thought I'd turn them on/off with invisible blocks as I can have no more than 8 at one time. So I thought I could set clipping really close and have short range on the lights to light up only the area within the clipping range. Would be nice to have further visibility, but I can compromise with that.

But I kinda need to get this working today or I'm screwed. Have to build a podium with the controls tomorrow and get the gear up and running so there won't be much time to finish this. :/

Oh yeah, I guess setting non visible surfaces to "none" would help too.