What is the upper bound for tris for a PC game?

Looking at randomly generated levels for which I am making tiles, I want to focus on detailed characters that easily have hundreds of triangles. I have a good computer, so I don't know how detailed I can make models for an average player before I have to worry about the player lagging.
For mobile devices, the upper polygon limit for an average game that can be rendered in a scene is said to be around 50,000 polygons which for me is terrible from an artistic standpoint because an intrinsic part of the game is the accuracy of the models to real life examples.
I expect the tri limit to be more for a PC, but I don't know how much more. Let's say you have a few extra graphics, like impact waves or dust from hitting something or walking, some materials with different kinds of reflective shaders. What should I expect the maximum number of average tris to be for an average PC/laptop? I would have the level buffer before a player starts.

 

Unfortunately, there is simply no correct answer to that question other than "it depends".

As a thought experiment to demonstrate, here is a game loop:

Code (CSharp):

1. void RenderMyRubbishGame( )
2. {
3.     Sleep( One_Second * 0.99999999f );
4.     DrawOneTri( );
5. }

I have just created a game that renders exactly 1 triangle per frame (ultra low poly, right) with a FPS count of approximately 1.

So the considerations here really are twofold:

1. How efficiently can you write the code to increase the amount of visual content you can render per frame, whilst maintaining a decent FPS.
2. As you have mentioned in your post- you need to be mindful of the target platform and take account of its capabilities. A full spec gaming PC is always going to outperform even the hottest, latest mobile phone.

 

I would like to point out that AAA game models are actually far less detailed than you may think. Studios create ultra high poly models and use them for cutscenes and the like but during gameplay you are a much stripped down version of that where the detail has been baked into the bumpmap. Take any shooter and look very closely at the gun as you move it through lights. Geometry will cast shadows and bump maps will not, you’ll quickly realize that little vents, bolts, lights... aren’t actually polygons but rather really good smoke and mirrors.

 

Yep.

 

Modern desktop? 3,000,000 +

Best thing to do is get your target hardware and do performance benchmarking/profiling. No one can really answer this question accurately for you. It depends on your game.

 

I never disputed that. I am choosing to focus on detail for the purposes of accuracy as it is important to the fabric of the game.

This is starting to get off topic because there are definitely 100% answers if not average statistics, and if one is unavailable than I would imagine out of all the professional programmers here that at least someone knew of at least one example game where they know approximately the number of tris rendered on screen.

 

Thank you for that answer.

Sorry but you fell back into the same pattern that has plagued Unity for years now after just giving a number. It does depend on the game, but that doesn't mean answers are non-existent, it's only that there are multiple possible answers, which means all that should be provided is simply an example as a reference point, that's it, nothing more.

As explained, testing on my end isn't helpful because I am trying to gather is what others can render, and other people have different computers and games.

 

That sounds to me like you are acknowledging that the answer will depend on those different computers and games?

 

I'm working with 3 million at any given time on my current project, so that's the number you're asking about, but I don't think it's particularly helpful to you.

The question is really impossible to answer since more than polycount affects the render time. How many separate meshes are there? Are they batchable? Are LOD's used? Are assets streaming in the background? How many materials are being rendered? Are the textures preloaded? Is there a memory bottleneck? Are any shaders offloading special work to the GPU? Is frustum culling used?

I mean, there's so much going on that you can only really know the answer to this by testing your content on the target hardware and going from there.

 

The question is wrong, not the answers!

How many cow turds does is take to punch a significant hole in the ozone? Who cares, the question has little bearing on reality.

 

I think 42 sounds about right, really.

On a more serious note, the amount of triangles should really just be the most you can manage to create, with suitable LODs. So the game should be designed to be scalable in that sense. You will find there's a point where adding more triangles doesn't really visually help, so aim for just under that + LODs

Performance wise, it's extremely likely other things will lower the framerate first, and as you're still finding your feet, I'll go with the advice I gave

 

3 million does sound reasonable and it's probably above what I am looking to do which is good to know.
But, there's millions of games out there, so there's millions of things to go on too. I'm not the only one who wonders about this, all anyone needs are reference points and they can get a feel themselves. Evolve stage 2 for instance could only handle 5 players, they claimed 6 would be near impossible for them, whereas something like Call of Duty can handle 50. There are differences, but they aren't magical, there are definite explanations players can look into, like the tri count and the number of ray bounces, number of objects or particles, etc, and all of that is useful information.
You name any 3D PC game published in the last 5 years and the number of tris displayed in any non-movie scene, and that will give people a reference people can look at themselves. Like I said, it's not that there isn't an answer, it's quite the opposite as there are millions of answer, and I would expect the answers to be in the range of millions like you said unless the artistic style is simplistic.

Well since either that's somehow your honest experience or your lying, you can't be taken as a credible source now. I was assured by several administrators that your behavior and Big's behavior towards me was unacceptable, obviously you didn't get the memo.

 

42 is a known light hearted gag in geek circles for the "ultimate answer" - I followed that with clear advice to help, but evidently you've taken a hostile tone? I suggest you benchmark your application as like other posters have said, you will find it varies and the answer is practically as good as 42.

TLDR: there is no right answer to your question. Period.

I've closed this thread due to your hostile tone and the fact it can't be answered.