newbie question: how to make a high fps map

[some god]

well i'm curently working on my first map, and i am wondering if you experiansed mapers could give me some hints and tricks about making a good map with good speed, so that my map won't lag older mashines and such please post even if it seams obvius to you that this and that makes a map slower or faster

 

also some other smal questions like,

how big can a normal map be? some of the curent mp maps are smal.

 

limit of entitys? brushes?

[yrean]

i hear that cuking makes FPS higher....not sure though...i have a few maps i put up on my server that i didnt worry about that and everything works fine....

2nd...a map can be about as big as you want it to be...the only problem is filling the map so players meat each other....you dont wanna play a map that takes you 5 minutes to get from the spawn poiint to the action do you?...

and theres one more thing that comes into play when your making your map....the more brushes and entities you use the longer it takes to compile.. For instance I made a pretty detailed Duel map and i just made a change or a fix rather...im bsp'ing it now...and its been about 2 hours...so if you want to make a huge map expect about a day or so to compile...Y

[B0rG]

There are lots of tips and tricks one can use to make an efficient map, regardless of how large the level is. Extensive use of things like hints, caulks and area portals can help a lot if you know when to use them and more specifically, if you plan your map out properly before you even begin. Extensive use of shaders can dramatically lower your FPS, so be careful about which shaders you use, and where.

 

I've seen links to SPOGs guide on how the Q3 engine works around here, and it's essential reading for the first-time mapper - especially if you plan on making an ambitious project.

 

The best way to find out how to use any of the optimizing tricks is to research them, then go and put it into practice - using practice maps. Don't expect your first level to be an epic playing field, expect it to be a great big learning lesson.

[[Dom_Pmd]]

Let's not be too misleading here okay...

 

Compile times differ system to system... If you have a nice rig, it will crank that .bsp out for ya in no time! So nOObs, don't freak out when you read stuff like "2 days to compile!"

 

 

[yrean]

not being misleading the more detail..the longer the time.... and just so you know...my system is an athlon xp 1800+ with 1 gb pc2100 DDR ram....it all depends on how many brushes you use...if you group brushes and how much detail you put into the map...and yes....size does matter!