3/21/08 update from Oleg

[Roy]

Originally Posted by LEXX

Avimus::
In the working sim it may look better, but you are touching on something very interesting -- the possibility of seeing logarithmic return of higher and higher polygon numbers in aircraft modelling. In flight simmer words, that means we may reach a time when piling on more polygons fails to visibly increase gaming immersion. Once you reach so many polygons, a high polygon Bf-110 at 100 meters looks the same as an infinite or "ideal/perfect" polygon Bf-110 at 100 meters.

As for static screenshot competition between The Sims developers and their 3D artists, aircraft polygons and the development resources they devour can go to infinity and beyond.

This is true, and it will eventually reach that point (unless they hop from polygons to something else), although screen res will lessen that effect. I'm sure that IL2's bf110 and bob:sow's bf110 would look almost the same at 100m at 640x480, save the effects each game can add to them of course; at 1920x1200 that's a different story though.

[ElAurens]

Just as it's always been, the limiting factor is the PC, not the game engine.