I'm interested in understanding how the engine handles large numbers of entities with the adaptive binary tree. I assume like an octree, each cell contains the data for all the entities it contains, but here's the question, when is a cell inactive? That is when does it not need to worry about inactive entities?

In a simpler way, what is a reasonable maximum number of entities to place in a very large outdoor level?

i have implemented a GPU-based terrain, and iwant to have large number of entities placed ina huge world, and I'm wondering if the ABT in A7 will handle this well, or I should implement my own quadtree.

Maybe my question wasn't clear...

All I want to really know is what is can I place say, 5000 trees in WED (not all will be on screen at same time) and not have super lag?

Thanks but I understand clipping and so on.

When an entity is created it has some overhead. it needs to be frustum culled, sorted, etc.

In my own engine, I use a quad tree for fast culling of large numbers of entities. Is the adaptive binary tree in A7 suited for the same purpose?

AFAIK, an ABT or a quad tree is only for clipping but not for culling. But I think, you better ask Conitec, they probably know the ABT better than us poor users .

I was talking about frustum culling which the ABT is used for.

you will more likely get an answer in "ask the developers" forum. probably you won't get around doing some performance tests yourself though. from my experience a7 should be able to handle several thousand entities.

why do you consider returning to gamestudio from your own engine?

matt -> which engine u using as ur own ? how many entities does it support ?

Thanks ventilator

About my own engine.. its my own that I wrote from scratch...I can handle thousands (like speedtree) of trees for instance because its set up for that purpose...

I'm going back to Gamestudio because my own engine doesnt have things like collisions and animations.. this is very tough stuff to program.

did you have a look at collision detection and physics libraries like newton or bullet?