Limitations?

#1 Torque can handle up to 128 players on the screen at once and with higher polycounts that would tear even your AMD64 to pieces, trust me.

And to answer your question; no, there are no definite limitations on what you can use, it's mostly up to your computer and how you set up the model, with or without LOD meshes for instance.

In the game I work with we had the main character weighting 3800 polygons, for instance.
But there is no way your computer can handle this if you're going massive.

We implemented checking of number of players on the screen and used LOD meshes when a certain amount is exceeded. So if 128 players are at the screen at once, they won't be 3800 polygons each.

It's not THAT effective, so we lowered the polycount after playing around with it.

Try to import a mesh or place a bunch of the already existing meshes to get a feel of what is OK and what is not for the engine.

#2 Simpler is in general faster... :)

Many games using Torque are designed to support fairly low end hardware. There's a bigger market that way. You don't have to support that sort of hardware, though, and if you don't, then higher poly models are appropriate...

#3 Thanks! That answers a lot. Visual component of game is very important to me.
Another question; 128 players, you have in mind multiplayer game, what about NPCs? Do you mean on 128 characters on screen at once? I am in planning phase; I am working on concept and modeling (weapons, trees, furniture, misc items and other small things). So far I've put great effort to learn how to model and to create realistic and small details on most of my models (I've only once exceeded 11k triangles). Can you tell me aproximately what is limit, I mean polygons per screen.

Sorry about spelling, I'm not native English speaker.

#4 I think the default limit for client connections (not AI) is set at 64 or 128. Easily extendible above, but you'll run into problems that needs tinkering.. for instance the ID generator will be outrunned pretty fast. And of course bandwidth issues.

There is no answer on your question. It depends what hardware you're aiming at, and how the resources are used, what else is running at the same time, what settings you use.

What I do when I model is to make the model I want close to the detail I want but a bit higher, then lower it and save the old one or use LOD meshes.
If your game is scheduled next year or whatever you can increase this as hardware gets better and more mainstream.

#5 I haven't bought Torque, yet, but I hope soon. My aim is action/RPG game for 1GHz CPU, 256Mb of Ram and 64Mb Video card or better configuration.