UseTriangles preference on client
by Richard Young · in Torque Game Engine · 03/14/2007 (9:42 am) · 9 replies
The default variable $Pref::TS::UseTriangles is set to 0, so I set it to 1 and my frame rates at least doubled.
Can anyone explain why this is and what the engine is doing internally?
To me, it would seem sensible to always use triangles to render anything as video cards are optimized for triangles. Why wouldn't this variable be set to 1 by default?
Also, setting this to 1 makes shadows render incorrectly on the terrain.
Is there a way to keep this performance boost and have shadows render correctly?
Can anyone explain why this is and what the engine is doing internally?
To me, it would seem sensible to always use triangles to render anything as video cards are optimized for triangles. Why wouldn't this variable be set to 1 by default?
Also, setting this to 1 makes shadows render incorrectly on the terrain.
Is there a way to keep this performance boost and have shadows render correctly?
#2
Yes, I'm using a ATI FireGL V5200 512 MB card. My drivers are already up to date, but I still have performance issues in OpenGL when setting UseTriangles to 0. Could you explain exactly what this variable does?
So is it not possible to set UseTriangles to 0 and render shadows correctly?
Thanks!
03/14/2007 (10:50 am)
Hi Stefan:Yes, I'm using a ATI FireGL V5200 512 MB card. My drivers are already up to date, but I still have performance issues in OpenGL when setting UseTriangles to 0. Could you explain exactly what this variable does?
So is it not possible to set UseTriangles to 0 and render shadows correctly?
Thanks!
#3
I have no idea what is up with the shadows, sorry.
03/14/2007 (11:10 am)
By setting UseTriangles you are forcing quads to be rendered as triangles, I believe. Quads were slow on older drivers.I have no idea what is up with the shadows, sorry.
#4
Does anyone know why my models are being rendered using Quads instead of Triangles, even though all my polygons in my model are triangles?
Thanks.
03/14/2007 (11:54 am)
If all my models have been built with triangles, I don't understand why Torque would render them as quads in the first place. I have 3 static DTS models in my scene, each 60000 polygons. With UseTriangles set to 0, I get 10 frames a second. With UseTriangles set to 1, I get around 30 fps.Does anyone know why my models are being rendered using Quads instead of Triangles, even though all my polygons in my model are triangles?
Thanks.
#5
03/14/2007 (12:41 pm)
I think that is what is happening, but I am not 100% sure. 
#8
03/14/2007 (1:16 pm)
Thanks for the information Joseph. I'm not sure if Torque is combining triangles primitives into quads to save state changes, but at least now I know where to start looking. 
Torque Owner Stefan Lundmark
If so, try setting the pref to 0 and update your drivers.