I find that surface count can add a up to 15 FPS using about 150,000 polygons. I think mainly though if your game is choking you need to be careful with collision. In Aerial Antics we had one level with around 40,000 polygons but then we used invisible low polygon collision which was 9,000 polygons. We didn't really optimize the surface count as we needed many separate objects for culling purposes with the shadow system. It is my experience that while surface count can a good optimization to a point, that it is far more important to watch collisions and culling. We actually did some experients with reducing the surfaces, the game ran better overall with a higher surface count but more culling.
Surface count dilemma
Blitz3D Forums/Blitz3D Programming/Surface count dilemmaThe forum is locked. These are the original blitzbasic.com forums, kept so they can still be read. No new topics, replies or edits can be made here. To join in, head over to the Blitz3D+ forums.