I am building a complex cave/dungeon and I am starting to get concerned about the number of objects (walls, floors, etc...) in the interior cell. Is there a rule of thumb for the max number for either performance or crashing considerations??? If there is a limit, I can refactor the cave into multiple interior cells and have "doors" between the segments, but I would rather not if I don't have to.

TIA,

Frank

While I believe there is a max size, it can be quite large (as seen with some of the large dungeons already in game). Performance problems begin when you do not use room bounds and portals, thus increasing the amount of rendering the engine has to do at any one time (see optimization in the wiki about this). I would still look at some of the larger dungeons and try not to go much larger than them with out making an additional new cell ( maybe see some of the dwemer dungeons in Markath as an example).

Thanks, I have looked at the optimization tutorials, and will definitely be testing my build for lag. I was more concerned with hitting some wall/limit while building. I will be significantly larger than the dwemer dungeons.

Thanks,

Frank

You can control visibility between rooms (and limiting how many polygons are ever drawn) by connecting them with small/narrow hallways that turn 90 degrees or so. As long as you have an ample amount of this, I think you can make your dungeon as big as you want.

Often, you can make a space seem much larger than it is, too. See the "Forced Perspective" link in my siggie...though it won't work if the player actually CAN reach all the areas he can see, it's good for giving an impression of a larger space with fewer polygons.

Other than that, be sure to use portals and room bounds. For really really big areas, take a look at blackreach. Now they cheated a bit by making it count as an "outdoor" area, but areas can, in fact, be quite large.

Occlusion planes might help reduce load too.