I have a question about how the particle system works. Are you using sprites, or are you moving polygons around in a single mesh with a single surface per emitter? Or are you using entities?
The second may be the fastest method. But as you have all these view modes, I suspect that you are using sprites rather than having implemented all the view modes yourself.
However I recently heard Mark say that sprites in Blitz are sorted by the surface properties or something for maximum rendering speed. I have not really seen this to be the case though. The FPS when you have lots of particles moving around in your system doesn't seem any better than it would be if they were inidividual entities. I wonder if Mark can answer why that is.
Because you're using sprites, there is one thing my old particle system does better than your system. My old system can use any 3D object as a particle. That allows you to do some effects you can't do with this system, like solid expanding rings. But my new entity animation system I realsed a little while ago can do those sorts of effects in a simple manner.
The second may be the fastest method. But as you have all these view modes, I suspect that you are using sprites rather than having implemented all the view modes yourself.
However I recently heard Mark say that sprites in Blitz are sorted by the surface properties or something for maximum rendering speed. I have not really seen this to be the case though. The FPS when you have lots of particles moving around in your system doesn't seem any better than it would be if they were inidividual entities. I wonder if Mark can answer why that is.
Because you're using sprites, there is one thing my old particle system does better than your system. My old system can use any 3D object as a particle. That allows you to do some effects you can't do with this system, like solid expanding rings. But my new entity animation system I realsed a little while ago can do those sorts of effects in a simple manner.