I am not so concerned with super smooth edges or 10,000 polygon guns for first person view. Also if I sacrifice them in one model I can add more models for added detail. I figure the less polygons/vertex's there are the better. I am attempting the idea to use as few as possible. I personally have not done the complex math or tried to figure out how to perfectly optimize my detail by figuring out where everything will go when levels are finished as the article linked in this thread tells you to do. so what does these generally accepted default values find base their value on? I sincerely doubt that anyone will speak about 'next-gen graphics for ' so I am assuming they are speaking about consoles and far more powerful computers.

but I am curious to know where the rest of the people get their figures from when they speak of next-gen and current-gen polygon limits.

So between my personal goal of 3-5k and the witnessed 10-30k, I have decided to be generous in my model count and allow for 5-7k as an 'average polycount'

so I think they must have a clue what they are doing. Huge franchise, available on the XBox, well known company, lots of titles behind their name, big in the gaming world. I have decided, based on everything I have read thus far that 3-5k is a decent polygon count, but I have seen 10-30k used by people who know. So when someone speaks of 'optimal' or 'non excessive' polygon counts, what is that based on? A common denominator between average PC hardware specs or lowest-still-considered-modernish-PC hardware specs, target console specs, hearsay, guess, needs, artistic skill? What?

even though the 30k ones I mentioned above were on the Original XBox, so that was nearly 10 years ago last-gen games that used 30k models. Certain people say 5k is decent enough, others say anything over 3k is too much while others argue that anything up to 7k is what is used in current commercial games like. With game studios using between 10k and 30k models for realtime games I get a tad confused when people say that 10k is pushing the limits for current gen real time applications. but still, one model I saw had 90k as each hair style and head type belonging to that particular model was contained within the same file. Heck, one Volleyball game by a very reputable company I am not going to name spent over 10k just on the one girl's braided hair! Granted, the scene consists of a single static environment and only 4 characters, a net and a ball so I am sure they must have had extra processing power available but still. Every now and then I come across a 3D model extracted from one or other commercial game and when I check out the source I notice polygon counts in the 13k to 30k for a single character model.

How much is dayz for pc