General Rendering/Performance question

Development Rendering
1

I am developing a game and it has a lot of teleports between various large set pieces within the same large map. It is important that the teleports are instant so I am trying to avoid map loads where possible. I was wondering, performance-wise if anything is saved by having meshes/particle systems, lights etc hidden or disabled when they are out of view of the player?.

For example if you are in one room in one part of the map, will it help performance/framerates if I disable rendering/visibility/running of particle systems, assets etc in a room, out of sight on the other side of the map or does the fact that they are out of sight mean they are not being rendered and having no effect anyway? In particular I was wondering if a particle system running elsewhere in my map is having an effect on performance even when it is not being seen.

Thanks in advance

2

Hi Fnordcorps,

The Engine does a pretty good job of optimizing some things as is such as not rendering objects that are occluded. However, this does not mean that you shouldn’t go the extra step and optimize further to help out with performance.

For instance, it may be in your interest to use LODs for your static meshes, if you’re not already. With Particle system, much like static meshs, can use LODs as well and should be setup for your particle systems. Keeping bounds at a modest size should also be considered (Cascade LOD setup).

If you’re experiencing any slow downs or significant drops in FPS you should start profiling your game to see what may be causing the bottleneck in performance. (Performance and Profiling)