Does the number of objects matter?

[Keith W. <kw...@cs...>]

Say I have a scene with some number of objects in it.  Say this scene can be represented in two different ways.  One is a single huge object, and another is a bunch of little objects that visually appear identical to the large object (think a single tree vs a trunk and a bunch of branches, and a bunch of leaves, all separate objects by placed in logical spatial correspondance to one another so as to build a tree.

Assume the number of vertices, edges, what not is absolutely identical.

Assume for the moment that I figure out how to make objects with the same texture share that texture in RAM and/or VRAM instead of each having their own individual copies (I'm not sure how to do this yet, but assume this is how it's done).

The question is, is either of these scenes more or less complex to render...in terms of speed of course?  Which would yield a higher framerate, if there is a difference?

Just wondering if I need to take this sort of thing into account when designing my system or if I can go either way without too much worry one way or the other.

Thanks.

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Keith Wiley                                kw...@cs...
http://www.unm.edu/~keithw                 http://www.mp3.com/KeithWiley

"Yet mark his perfect self-contentment, and hence learn his lesson,
that to be self-contented is to be vile and ignorant, and that to
aspire is better than to be blindly and impotently happy."
                                           --  Edwin A. Abbott, Flatland
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