Reflections and FPS

[Clueless Newbie]

I have a map that's pretty much ready for upload (two, actually), but there's one thing I'm a bit uncertain of:

The map has a few ponds with reflective water. When standing on a high point overlooking the map, I get about 22 fps. If I turn off the reflections I get about 80 fps in the same spot (and a lot more everywhere else).

The ponds have zero impact on the gameplay, but they look really good and the reflections can be turned off. Should I lose the ponds and recompile, or should players be expected to turn off reflections if they get poor fps?

[Samual]

The ponds have zero impact on the gameplay, but they look really good and the reflections can be turned off. Should I lose the ponds and recompile, or should players be expected to turn off reflections if they get poor fps?

Mostly, the player should turn down reflections if they have poor FPS. IIRC it should have a default water texture which would be displayed there if reflections are off anyway, so should be fine.

[Sepelio]

On maps with reflections/detailed water I tend to just set r_water 0 which sorts it.

[Ed]

Are all of the ponds in the same plane? Any reflective surfaces out of plane could greatly slow things down. I've not tried it but opposing mirrors should really break things!

[Irritant]

Reflections are FPS killers because they have to re-render the entire scene at least twice. Usually the render from the reflection's POV is done at a lower level, but even then, it's still a framerate killer. I don't know if it's possible in Darkplaces, but the Unreal engines always did this fake reflection thing with water that works pretty well, and has pretty much zero impact on performance.

[FruitieX]

Are all of the ponds in the same plane? Any reflective surfaces out of plane could greatly slow things down. I've not tried it but opposing mirrors should really break things!

Opposing mirrors do not break anything else than visuals, since reflections-in-reflections are not rendered (just black iirc). If they aren't on the same plane I guess that two extra renders are needed, but I'm not sure whether one huge reflecting surface covering the entire map would be faster.

[Mizu Kitsune]

i say leave them and when people have low fps they can just change settings, cause some people, i included, can still hit 400fps with maximum settings.

[FruitieX]

cause some people, i included, can still hit 400fps with maximum settings.

Yeah, me too.

Guess we need more expensive effects for people who have rigs as good as ours.

[Lee_Stricklin]

cause some people, i included, can still hit 400fps with maximum settings.

Yeah, me too.

Guess we need more expensive effects for people who have rigs as good as ours.

What the hell do you have in that thing? Seriously, I can only do 30 frames with everything maxed.

[giuseppe]

In Ruiner at 1024x768 and effects at max value (no offset mapping) have 7-8 fps. And no plaiers inside

I think reflective water is ok: Sure needs a powerfull system to run that