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back to model talk for me ^^

This time, forgetting about polygons and things, how does a model's size effect speed in dbp? does it make any factor at all? example, i could make a cube, nice low poly n everything and whack it in dbp. if i then went back to my model editor and scaled the object up reallly huge (of course, the poly count stays the same), saved it as something different and then whacked it in dbp - would it take a performance loss compared to the other cube despite the fact they share the same amount of polys/triangles/vetices ect, just ones bigger?

I ask because.. well my models are huge. its got to the point where in milkshape, i cant actually zoom out any further to see it all, lol. This is because originally my models were tiny.. but thats because i had the camera 200 units (im getting into the habbit of calling them units) above the object. That in turn is because of my experiance with 2d programming.. i ALWAYS measure thing in pixels out of habbit, and 200pixels isnt alot really :/ Is this a really bad thing? Should i make all my models smaller and simply zoom that camera in? would allow me to have a smaller matrix too i guess... so with that in mind, what IS a good distance to have between a player and camera? Think 3rd person (in this case, a tank).

Thanks in advance ^_^

Heyas ^^ Hope this isnt nagging.. but i realised my post had been here quite some time without any replys, I thought perhaps i waffled too much and put people off replying so im gonna try and basically simplify it drasticly ^_^

If you were making a 3rd person game (things like the tank demo or a racing game also work for this), how far away would you position the camera from the object? If I can find that out then I can just position my camera and see how my object looks which would tell me how much i need to scale it down ^_^

At the moment, my game begins to lag with just a handful of terrain objects like trees (they are only 72 polys each) - i think its more about the amount of matrix viewable than my objects and i must be zoomed out too far with my objects too big. I shouldnt get that kind of slow down (the music stutters on my winamp!) on my system (p4 2.4ghz, 256megs ddr ram and a 64meg GeForce4 MX 440)

On the camera distance value part... I usually use a distance of 300-500. try values of 200-600 to suit your needs.

On the lag part... either don't run Winamp while testing ect. (Uses a LOT of resources from what I've seen) or simply upgrade to 512megs DDR RAM. Either of these MIGHT correct the problem but I'm quite new at DB so DON'T go out buyin RAM unless you KNOW that's it lol.

200-600? wow, thats more than I have it, my models would need to be even bigger at that kind of distance

Guess my models are an ok size then and milkshape just has a really small zoom out factor..

as for buying more ram, well this is how i see it. I have a nice pc. its not top of the range super computer or anything.. but alot of people have worse. I would like my games to be playable by people with a lower spec system than this (2.4ghz with 256megs of ram aint *that* bad) - if things cant even run properly on mine then thers a problem Its also why i dont use most of the nice things like reflection mapping on objects (btw - has anyone noticed how nice of a stealth effect reflection mapping can acheive?!) - alot of people simply dont have the cards to use them :/ I dont know how things like bump mapping work in dbp.. but i know i had bump mapping on serious sam 2 with a geforce2 card (mx) but it seems the same card wont work with dbs bump mapping.. i dunno, must be a much different technique. but im going off topic XD

ok.. so i leave me camera at its 200 distance from player and leave my objects the huge size they are in milkshape (or maybe is it that .x exports things small?) - thankyou for your replys ^_^