This is very much a beginner question, but I thought I’d just ask for my own information. To my knowledge, when you duplicate a static mesh inside of a level, it doesn’t cost the computer anything to generate this object. However, when I duplicate certain items in my levels multiple times, there is considerable slowdown on my machine. Is this because I misunderstand the “free static mesh”? Or is the computer slowing down due to the shadows, collision, etc.?
I’d appreciate any help.
Thank you very much for the information, Tim! I’ll have to look into my static meshes/ lighting and see if I can streamline/ optimize them.
Depending on the complexity of your mesh the computer is still having to render all those triangles along with calculating shadows and anything else it may be doing as well.
Let’s take for instance a Foliage mesh for a tree. If you have one in your scene the FPS will be good. As soon as you start to multiply this these have to be rendered along with their materials. Each material will get a a draw call along with the mesh getting a draw call. Then factor in the lighting information that has to be baked into a lightmap or calculated dynamically for shadows if you’re using a dynamic light.
This is where optimizing your game comes into place. Having multiple LODs of your mesh so that it’s not rendering as many triangles the further it is away from your player camera. This is a big way to get frames and performance back.
There are many things that can factor into your FPS and what is causing a hitch, but having good LODs, cull distances for meshes, and static lighting to bake shadows can really help!
Tim
If you have more questions or need help feel free to ask! 