So recently, for our game project, we talked to our professor about the issues we have with FPS concerning the amount of AI pawns on the map at one time, each with their own collisions and calculations for moving. He believes that Unreal Engine currently isn’t optimized for such performance, hence we get all-around low FPS running the game with AI pawns; without them the game runs much smoother. Pawns have their own collision detection for being able to be picked up and thrown against destructible meshes.
So what we were suggested to do was to reduce rendering of the AI pawns, or reduce the number of AI pawns visible based on where the player is currently located, like a radius check around the player. The AI pawns not visible aren’t despawned, although we are considering it, but they are still doing their own calculations on the map and moving, just without being visible. How would this, if any, increase smoother FPS and smoother runtime in general.
Any other advice please throw them out there. We want to keep using Unreal Engine’s built in AI system with Behavior Trees and NavMesh, but optimization is a really important factor for our game. Thanks.