Question about Source: Large Areas Thread

I have searched the Developer.valvesoftware.com and have not found the awnser to my question: can and/or how well can the Source Engine render large areas?

If anyone would happen to know, help would be appreciated.

Depends what you mean by large.

Do you mean like, end of Episode 2 large? Or larger?

It also depends on the amount of detail, though I also heard that Source runs slower if there's more open space, regardless of what is in that open space...

Yeah, because the map system is still based around manual placement of portals and that kinda stuff, you're going to struggle to get large areas and maintain good performance. A much better engine to do that would be Unreal or CryEngine 2. Source is no where near as good for outdoor areas as those two, though it was improved a bit for Episode 2

I agree with Wraiyth, Source isn't the best engine for large outdoor areas but it is definitely capable of rendering large and detailed areas at decent (and playable) framerates without problems so while it's not as efficient as newer engines it should be able to do whatever you want it to do.

You say that like you know what he wants to do with it :p

For large open areas, CryEngine or UnrealEngine tend to be far better suited to the task. For a combination of indoor and outdoor areas, Unreal is probably the best route. For foliage packed areas, with little in the way of indoor areas, CryEngine is probably more suitable.

All I was saying, is while Source may not be the most optimized engine for modern graphics cards and PCs it can still handle pretty much anything Crysis and Unreal can, it just won't look as pretty. I have some very large areas in my maps in Source and they render just fine.

Since the original question was specifically asking whether Source could support large areas, that's all I was answering, rather than suggesting other engines since it sounds like he's wanting to use the Source engine for whatever he's thinking up.

Wraiyth wrote: Yeah, because the map system is still based around manual placement of portals and that kinda stuff, you're going to struggle to get large areas and maintain good performance...

How well off is source with close quarter areas?

=]

You won't find much difference between engines when it comes to small areas, except possibly CryEngine? I don't precisely recall.

Edited by: Varsity

Performance wise CryEngine 2 does indoor areas fine because of the culling. The problem with CryEngine 2 is that its entirely prefab based, so its not as easy to make indoor areas