Triangle count

Using the '9' and '0' keys, users may change the rendered triangle count in Sapphire. A lower triangle count gives a higher frame rate, at the cost of a less accurate terrain mesh.

You can see the effect if the increasing mesh accuracy in the series shown below. In the sequence shown at left, the bare triangles are rendered with dot3 lighting. In the sequence shown at right, the same mesh is rendered with an L3DT light map overlaid.

Raw polygons	Polygons with light map overlay
8k triangles
16k triangles
32k triangles
64k triangles
128k triangles
256k triangles

I hope you noticed that the increased mesh accuracy that comes from using more triangles has little effect on the final image when a light map/texture is overlaid. Hence, low triangle counts may be used for pretty pictures when a suitable light map/texture exists.

Just to re-iterate the point, below is side-by-side comparison of the 8k and 256k triangle images. Which is better?

8k triangles	256k triangles
Click on images for larger versions