Aug
27

Yes, but how many polygons?

Previously, I’ve explained that it is very difficult to answer the question “How many polygons should I be using in a character/vehicle/environment?” This doesn’t stop the question being asked however, so I thought I’d approach it in a different way - how many polygons have other games used?

By listing the game, the hardware it runs on, and any art information I could find, I hope that this will be a good starting point as to suitable polygon counts and texture sizes. Ideally I’d like to list as many games as possible, from different genres and platforms.

This is very much a work in progress, and if you haven’t read my previous thoughts on the “How many polygons?”, I suggest you do check it out.

So, I’ll warn casual readers again - the number of polygons used don’t matter if they are not used well. This is simply a technical markerpost to try and identify what certain games used on certain hardware at a certain time. Supposedly Halo 2 used less polygons for Masterchief than Halo 1, and I’ve heard that Call of Duty 4 used less polygons for the character models that CoD2 did - I suspect this will due to relying more heavily on normal mapping to create the details.

Gears of War, Xbox 360, 2006 (according to D’Artiste book)
Wretch - 10,000 polygons with diffuse, specular and normal maps
Boomer - 11,000 polygons with diffuse, specular and normal maps
Marcus - 15,000 polygons with diffuse, specular and normal maps
GTA San Andreas, PS2, 2004
Characters - 2,000 polygons with 1 256×256 8bit texture
NPCs - 1,200 polygons with 1 256×128 8bit texture
Half-Life, PC, 1998
Zombie - 844 polygons
High Definition pack Zombie- 1700 polygons
Halflife 2, PC, 2004
Alyx Vance - 8323 polygons
Barney - 5922 polygons
Combine Soldier - 4682 polygons
Buggy (without mounted gun) - 5824 polygons
Classic Headcrab - 1690 polygons
SMG - 2854 polygons (with arms)
Pistol - 2268 polygons (with arms)
Halo, Xbox, 2001
Masterchief - 2,000 polygons
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, GC, 2002
Link - 2800 polygons
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, GC/Wii, 2006
Link - 6900 polygons
Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, PS2, 2005
Snake - 4,000 polygons
Project Gotham Racing 2, Xbox, 2003
Vehicles - 10,000 polygons
Project Gotham Racing 3, Xbox 360, 2006
Vehicles - 80,000-100,000 polygons
Quake, PC, 1996
200 polygons with 1 320×200 8bit texture using predefined palette.
Quake 4, PC, 2006
Player model - 2,500 polygons with multiple diffuse, specular and normal maps
Resident Evil 4, Gamecube, 2005
Leon - 10,000 polygons
Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, PS3, 2007
Main characters - ~20,000-30,000 polygons
Drake - ~30,000 polygons
Pirates - ~12,000-15,000 polygons
Unreal Tournament, PC, 1999
Player model - 800 polygons
Unreal Tournament 2k3, PC, 2003
Player model - 3,000 polygons
Unreal Tournament 3, PC, 2007
Weapon models - 4,500 to 12,000 triangles for the first person view

Please feel free to add QUALIFIED information in the comments, or drop me an email with information that you think deserves to be here..

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This entry was posted on Monday, August 27th, 2007 at 1:03 pm and is filed under Art, Games Industry, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

13 Responses to “Yes, but how many polygons?”

  1. Yes, but how many polygons? - Game Artist Forums Says:
    August 27th, 2007 at 2:04 pm

    [...] Yes, but how many polygons? Yes, but how many polygons? rsart - home of Rick Stirling, games artist, designer, egotist and raconteur Blog Archive Yes, but how many polygons? Previously, Ive explained that it is very difficult to answer the question How many polygons should I be using in a character/vehicle/environment? This doesnt stop the question being asked however, so I thought Id approach it in a different way - how many polygons have other games used? By listing the game, the hardware it runs on, and any art information I could find, I hope that this will be a good starting point as to suitable polygon counts and texture sizes. rsart - home of Rick Stirling, games artist, designer, egotist and raconteur Blog Archive Yes, but how many polygons? [...]

  2. Adam Bromell Says:
    August 27th, 2007 at 8:11 pm

    Rick, it’s about time someone did this! Kudos to you, because now people will have a point of reference when wondering about triangle counts!

    Good job, I’d like to see this done for environments as well.

  3. Rick Says:
    August 27th, 2007 at 10:30 pm

    I’d love to do it for environments also - and props and weapons and everything.

  4. rAVEKN Says:
    November 5th, 2007 at 2:31 am

    Thank you Rick for the info I could not find anywhere else!
    Yes, PLEASE DO one for environments/props ets.
    Blessings!

  5. anngrymann Says:
    November 6th, 2007 at 5:32 pm

    Perfect! Its an odd question but helps us beginners. Please do enviroments, etc

  6. Poly count goals what are they?? - Game Artist Forums Says:
    November 12th, 2007 at 10:32 pm

    [...] Check it. Word. __________________ TF2DEV - A Fresh Community for Team Fortress 2 Players and Developers [...]

  7. Bob Chance Says:
    December 18th, 2007 at 2:32 am

    Actually, your information regarding MGS3 is incorrect.
    1) It’s on the PS2, not GameCube.
    2) Snake is made up of around 8K poly–this is the same amount as a single enemy zombie from the GameCube version’s Resident Evil 4.

  8. Rick Says:
    December 23rd, 2007 at 1:47 pm

    Bob - I’ll have to check out the MGS stats, and change that to the PS2.

  9. Eric Chadwick Says:
    January 15th, 2008 at 11:40 pm

    Thanks for this Rick!

    Here’s a linkback from the Beyond3D forums, in case you haven’t seen it, with more stats in the thread.
    http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=43975

  10. Rick Says:
    January 16th, 2008 at 12:56 am

    Ta! I’ll have to rip off the numbers from that page and put them on here.

  11. Rick Says:
    January 22nd, 2008 at 12:51 am

    I’ve copied in a few new details from the link Mr Chadwick sent. I could really do with some weapon stats.

  12. 60Hertz Says:
    May 30th, 2008 at 5:55 pm

    Umm… Am i the only one wondering where do these numbers come from??? Have you actually grabbed the model off of the media, reverse engineer any proprietary formats? Or are you just winging it? I love the IDEA of the page but I can’t seriously use this as a metric unless these numbers are based on real data. So i guess references would be great.

  13. Rick Says:
    May 30th, 2008 at 6:48 pm

    These numbers are based off personal knowledge of some products. I used to modify some of the older games so the numbers for those are bang on. The old archives at Polycount had exact polycounts for a good number of the Quake/2/3/halflife/unreal models.

    Obviously a lot of the numbers are rounded off for writing sake, but as you can see several have exact polycounts that were lifted from the raw model (PC games makes this so much easier).

    The Gears of War numbers are based on the figures stated in the Art of Gears of War section in D’Artiste Character Modelling 2.

    San Andreas was a game I worked on.

    Some of racing games are based on online interviews with the developers, the Halo model was dissected online (Bungie discussed it and reported that Masterchief in Halo 2 used less polygons than the first Halo). RE4 Leon was posted online, I think half the budget went to his hair.

    Some of the numbers are taken from a thread that picked up on my original post - I then incorporated some of these numbers back into the post. Although I cannot guarantee these numbers, the sources are somewhat credible as the posters on that forum contained several game artists (and coders).

Thoughts on this?