[sldev] Re: [ARCH] Render unto Caesar...

[Argent Stonecutter]

From: Mike Monkowski <monkowsk at watson.ibm.com>
> For the scene polygon count, I assume you mean the added polygons for
> the avatars.  This could be handled with lower LOD for more distant  
> avatars.

This has already been fiddled with and the results were horrible.

> Script load and physics load (except for collision detection)  
> shouldn't
> depend on the number of avatars, just the number of objects.

The number of physical objects.

Avatars require more work from the physics engine than just about any  
common physical objects, except perhaps for dynamic physical machines  
like physical windchimes... and back when the avatar limit was a hard  
"40" you could bring a sim to its knees with more than a handful of  
physical windchimes. These kinds of toys are less common now that  
joints don't work, and sims are faster, but 100 physical and  
dynamically controlled objects (avatars or not) in a sim is still a  
pretty substantial load.