Post

can someone smarter than me tell me if the "polygon counts aren't really a performance bottleneck anymore" thing is true. how banban-esque am i allowed to get with my models

3/10/26, 8:01 pm0 reposts9 likes

cronchlike bunbuilder

@cronchspam.bsky.social

I think overdraw and too many draw calls are the real killers nowadays

Kitsyfluff

@kitsyfluff.bsky.social

Or depends on how much is onscreen at once. A single high def model doesnt matter, but if EVERYTHING is, it's bad. Only ever use exactly what you need, and try for less.

Micky

@mickeon.bsky.social

Other people have answered the way I would have. As with all manners of optimizations you shouldn't obsess over it too much unless it is a genuine bottleneck. However. What really brings a GPU to its knees is "overdraw". And lots of small (relative to the screen) polygons will do that more often.

Shroomius

@shroomius.itch.io

i assume there's a specific context where that was said that im missing but with the small 3d render knowledge i got, it still matters to an decent extent, a few 50k tri models arent going to instantly break the budget for most machines when using vulkan or dx9/10/11, but its still good to optimize-

Shroomius

@shroomius.itch.io

since, depending on how many times that model may need to be drawn, the costs start stacking pretty quickly. but usually frustum & backface culling, lod, mipmaps etc can do a good bulk of the work now when it comes to getting 3d stuff to not run like ass.

Shroomius

@shroomius.itch.io

but also as a someone with of knowledge in actually making 3d models, avoiding unnecessary topology, especially on textured/rigged models or something meant to have raytraced lighting can avoid a headache down the line

Shroomius

@shroomius.itch.io

*but also as someone with knowledge