How big can be a 3D model without slowing down GameEx?

[u-man]

Hello again guys ,

I recently tried to use the 3D models for the emulator section, instead of the logos in .png we have. i modified the 3d models a bit... i.e. i added joysticks or exchanged the whole model with a better one. problem is that it takes some time before its showing up, too much time for my taste.

The rather big playstation model loads faster than the atari 2600 model (which is smaller) for example, but it has only 80 games and the atari has over 1000. can this be a problem or where is the relationship for faster 3D loading?

what can i do for acceleration without reducing the games?

my rig is a fast quadcore pc with 32gb ram on windows7 64bit and a graphic card with 4gb ram, this should be fast enough for sure, to load the 3d models all at once in no time.

if someone will try my new models, i attached them here. I also altered the angle of the models, to look far more interesting. more models coming soon, but i need to know, if this is interesting for someone and if it make sense, because at the moment its not fast enough.

thx in advance

3D_Consoles.zip

[DazzleHP]

Hi helpman, i am by no means a 3d guru, but if you are talking about the "3d cabs" option, showing a 3d model of selected system/arcade then there are a few things to consider which will have an effect/impact on load/display time:

Faces/vertices/polygons:

The less there are the faster your model will display, and less likely to make others freeze/crash

Textures:

Make sure your textures aren't too hi-res, this can impact greatly on memory and frankly GE doesn't need hi-res textures to look good

What will look good comes down to your skill as an artist - there is a reason game artists are sought after, because they know how to make things look good within restrictions

[u-man]

thanks for the tips, i allready reduced the polygons and textures used. As i allready said, my playstation 3D model and the atari 2600 3D model are near the same size... 1,1MB-1,3MB and the playstation model loads much, much faster, than the atari model.

so i think it must have to do with the Assets/ Images/ Artwork stuff, as there a lot more for Atari than for the playstation and maybe thats the reason, why the atari model needs longer to load. really bad is the snes model as it is both... huge in database and a over 3MB sized 3D-model.

but maybe i am doing something wrong... who knows.

[Draco1962]

I m not sure if you read through this topic. Some of the information may still be pertinent to your project while some may be deprecated due to newer Sketchup versions and plugins.

[u-man]

ooh, i read this topic often .

Headkaze should update his first post, with the models of user SKIDLID in post 63 of this thread. They are much more useable, because of the tilted models.

if you try out my models in my first post in this thread here, you will see that they are much more detailed and more beautiful than all the stuff we have before.

but like i said, the emulator section need to much time to load them, to be useful, even if i use just the models from the Headkaze-thread, it takes way to long to show up, if you jump from one emu to another in the list.

if you wanna try out my models, you will need to put them into the LOGO folder of your theme and give it some time to load. they will show up, just give them the same name like the logo you use for the emulator.

it would be good, if all the available 3D models from the logo section, would be loaded at once into memory and they should be loaded first, prior database especially.

cant be too much memory, especially these days with lots of ram on both graphic-cards and pc, but i dont know how configurable the 3D engine in GameEx is.

it would be so cool, if it would load faster or at least the "data loading" window should show up, so that someone is aware that something is happening . i will contribute more 3D models, if i know that it is useful to do so.

[Tempest]

What is your setting for 'Snap Best Match'?

[u-man]

Hello, it was "Yes Extra search (Slow)", i changed that, but with no luck. Tried it witch Snap/Video Delay also... no luck.

Looks like the models are to detailed... i dont know. This Stuff can only tell Tom himself, as he is the only one, who knows how GameEx works internally and if there is hope for a better solution.

[headkaze]

While GameEx does cache models there will be an improvement in that area in an upcoming release.

Also adding rotation should be possible without the need to rotate the actual model.

[u-man]

sounds like big, great news. thats what i wanted to hear .

ok, i found out that the models exported with ZbylsXExporter are faster loaded. this plug-in takes a lot of time to export, i used the 3d-rads exporter the times before, because it was way faster than Zybls, but the resulting models take longer to load, dont know why.

cannot wait to see that upcoming release... thank you headkaze, i will keep an eye on it