See that building with all the red lines half way to the right from the center? That's the problem. Avoid using blocks - look how long it takes to render geometry. Level geometry is *extremely slow*. Without using LOD, and applying my latest knowledge, my level shown here:



There are at least 800 buildings visible here (but actually renders as all 2388 as it takes just one visible polygon of a model for the entire thing to be rendered). Despite lacking the roof tops, I'm getting 28 fps in this. Theoretically, I should be able to get over 120 fps with this same view. The water shown uses about 8000 polygons or so, there are 50 separate entities for the platforms visible, the beach (an MDL terrain) is about 3000 polygons, and the clouds flowing overhead use about 8000 polygons (of which could be reduced to just 2 with tiled textures, of which wasn't directly possible in 6.31). This doesn't use LOD at all and the level is poorly designed. My video card's drivers aren't updated (and still aren't), and I'm still getting over 20 fps, of which is still bearable (30 fps is the recommended absolute minimum). All this, and only one block is present, of which is invisible. The level needs to be redesigned and combined with LOD, getting 150 fps with the whole level in view is theoretically possible. If only MED would get straighted out and included the two features I despirately need, I could get going on it.

In short, avoid level geometry - it's painfully slow. Plus, model-only levels have near-instant build times (like 1/2 second of actual building). I have more experiments in order to fully process benchmarking tests to greatly optimize the game.