How many polygons for a RTS characters like Company of Heroes?

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Hi, I am now developing a RTS game aiming at character details of similar level with , and really wondering about how many polygons have been, and should be used for an RTS at such level.

I can’t get the model for COH directly and can only estimated around 1k to 2k for a single infantry(if drag the camera to extremely close). I have also searched around the internet and get various answers for number of polygons of characters ranging from 1k to 5k or so, but RTS should be lesser.
So does COH really uses like 1 to 2k polygons for a single infantry and get completely no problem on handling like 30 to 40 units on the screen simultaneously? As current-gen PC can to run COH with that much units fluently. Or There is some special way to handle the issue, such as using low-poly/detail model when the camera is far away?

I know that polygon-count is not the only reason that cause frame-rate issue, but generally, how many polygons are expected for a unit in a RTS like Company of Heroes, focusing battle for at maximum 40 or 50 units?
And besides polygon-counts issue, for modelling and rendering, what should also be aware on developing a RTS game?

Thnaks

2 Answers

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I would like to know this as well, as I am currently working on an RTS in unity. So far, I am testing with a 3d model that has 1444 triangles. I can run about 120 units, textured, and animated, with no lag at all.

After 120, it lags unless I turn off animations. One model I have with no textures and no animations, I can have 400+ units on screen (and moving) and not have any lag…but that’s without textures and animations.

I am having the hardest time right now trying to get 250 units at the same time on screen with no screen lag/jittering…I have been unsuccessful thus far. I’m not sure why my models that are rigged and textured hurt performance so badly.

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Make a level of detail manager that scales down quality of the models at great distances. Using that my team was able to have 1000’s of asteroids on screen at 20 polys for long distance and 2000 for close ups.
The trick is setting the swap distances correctly given different resolutions and screen sizes. People playing on 1080p big screen tv’s will almost always be able to spot switches that were set up for 1080p on a laptop.