Texture Scale applied to
large objects - The effect on r-speeds is
dramatic. Increasing texture scale to greater
than 1.00 is beneficial to r-speeds. Decreasing
texture scale to less than 1.00 is harmful to
r-speeds.
Texture Scale applied to
small objects - Texture scale can be reduced to
much less than 1.00 without effecting r-speeds, providing
that the texture can still cover the brush face
with a single tile. This allows greater
detail to be visable on the small objects.
Texture Alignment - Misaligned textures
look terrible, but they don't seem to effect
r-speeds.
Mitered Joints - Contrary to commonly
offered advice, this technique had no effect on
r-speeds at all.
Brush Contact - Leaving a small gap
between brushes does indeed reduce r-speeds some.
Not a lot, but it definitely helps.
Func_Wall - When two brushes are
in contact it does help r-speeds to make one of
them a Func_Wall. The more complex the brush is,
the greater the effect. This must be done with
care, however; Func_Wall entities do not block
vis, so they should never be applied to something
being used as a view block - or else it could
actually increase the r-speeds!
Epoly - Each 1 wpoly is worth
about 12 epoly. On the assumption that my PC is
close to the least powerful that one might be
playing Half-Life on, and given the observation
that serious problems start to occur when FPS
gets down to about 7, I would propose a formula
for calculating maximum acceptable overall
r-speeds:
(12 * wpoly) + epoly should not exceed 10,000
By they way - remember that the animation for the
player's hands and gun is worth about 900 epoly
by itself.
More on Texture Scales - Reducing texture scale
effects FPS much more adversely than it does
WPOLY. On the other hand, small textures at a
scale of 1.00 don't effect either FPS or wpoly
any differently than a large texture at 1.00,
even though they might have to tile many more
times to cover a surface.
Floors an Ceilings in a
Round Room - In Rounded rooms the floors and
ceilings should be fit inside the walls. Placing
these brushes above/below the walls will cause
increased wpoly.
Texture Scale on Small
Objects
- FPS is not effected by reduced texture scales
if the texture does not have to tile to cover the
face (although textures should never be scaled to
less than 0.10 or it will cause compile errors).
Conversely, increasing texture scale provides no
benefit to FPS or WPOLY if it makes the texture
larger than the face it is covering.
