References Per-Cell?

[ashtonlp101]

So in my current project I have some pretty large and clutter-filled dungeons and interiors. One I have right now has roughly 2,800 references, so my question is what is the rough reference count per cell before performance starts to seriously be an issue? I know Obsidian had a limit per cell in Mb but since most of us have the 4gb enabler and are on modern PCs I'm sure the limit has at least doubled.

[dubiousintent]

The GECK used with the Gamebryo game engine is basically that from Oblivion and still 32-bit, so your assumption about larger limits is only true as far as the hardware goes. The software of a ten year old game can't take advantage of those improvements. These days the hardware is constrained by the software whereas the reverse used to be true. Recall that the game was originally trimmed back ("cut content") to fit on a gaming console.

 

A major caution from the "Worldspaces" section of the wiki "Getting started creating mods using GECK" article:

 

Note that there is a 16 MB limit for objects in plugins. (Terrain painting and navmeshes can go above the 16 MB boundary.) If your plugin gets larger than 16 MB and you add an object or an Actor (NPC or Creature), your plugin will be permanently broken without any warning. It will crash the game and will crash the GECK if you try to load it. Since your overhaul is likely going to be a fairly large plugin, you might want to make all of your object/NPC changes first to determine if you need to split things up into multiple files, then add dialog and navmesh changes.

 

"References" is just an indirect way of saying "memory". Placement of an object in the worldspace could be anywhere within the cell limit, so all such references are going to take up the same max coordinate space. Every reference is going to be it's own coordinate (X, Y, and Z axis).

 

-Dubious-

[FiftyTifty]

So in my current project I have some pretty large and clutter-filled dungeons and interiors. One I have right now has roughly 2,800 references, so my question is what is the rough reference count per cell before performance starts to seriously be an issue? I know Obsidian had a limit per cell in Mb but since most of us have the 4gb enabler and are on modern PCs I'm sure the limit has at least doubled.

It's not an issue of memory, but of draw calls. Ideally you shouldn't go over 3,000 draw calls or so. You can check how many are being issued in your cell by installing ENB and looking at the profiler section.

[UnvalidUserName]

If you want the opinion of some with a sewing machine for PC I can give you mine. The game doesn't stutter for me in any particular cell except for the hub section of the Mothership Zeta DLC. There, as the hub gets more and more cluttered with garbage the worse it runs for me. So, I would use it as an example of what NOT to do.

Edit: I confused this with Fallout 3 forum

Edited October 14, 2020 by UnvalidUserName