Poly count - how many is too many?

Question

Per the Q title, how high of a poly count is too high? I presume the answer depends on what it is that someone is modelling - but regardless of the scene, is something like 1,400,000 verts too many? Asking for a friend who is working on a walking vending machine that sells noodles, but is experiencing somewhat occasional blender crashes

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Reply
  • Martin Bergwerf replied

    Hi Harris,

    That doesn't sound like too much, but it depends on the hardware that is being used. If it's a 'halfway decent machine', it should easily handle a few million Polygons.

    But with a computer that is close to the minimum requirements (as in: https://www.blender.org/download/requirements/  ), Blender might struggle.

    Of course, crashes might also be caused by something else (maybe even a Bug...)

    Maybe have a look at: https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/4.1/troubleshooting/crash.html 

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  • Harris Clook(Yeehawcowboyletsgo) replied

    Cheers Martin,

    I suppose over time I'll gain an understanding from experience in regards to appropriate poly count. 

    In terms of the crashes and my computer, I've got more than what's needed for the recommended specs. I'll have a look through the blender manual link tomo morning while I've got a hot cup of coffee!

    Thanks again!

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  • Dwayne Savage(dillenbata3) replied

    First, Blender's Undo system has been inproved, but still has some problems. Blender uses RAM for a lot of it's undo steps. It use to use only RAM. So when you're working with high poly count objects this would crash Blender after doing a few things, because of running out of memory. 

    Second, if this is the case for you then you can fix this by going to preferences system and set the undo memory limits. By setting this Blender won't use more than that. This means that you may not get as many undo steps(The option above memory limit) because you hit the memory cap. 

    Third, This causes me problems and I don't know if this will effect you, but you can try it. Under preferences viewport, Turn off GPU for Selection and/or Subdivision. Note: Technically speaking by computer doesn't meet the minimum requirements for Blender since 3.3. I'm sure the only reason that it still works is because I'm using Linux. 

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  • Omar Domenech replied
    Looks like Harris is getting the hang of the answer to a question in Blender always is.... it depends. 
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