1000+ r_speeds? oh dear

r_speeds are basically the number of wploys on screen at one time, or the amount of r_speeds drawn by the game engine if you wanna get technical.

keeping the r_speeds to less than 600 is best, although less than 800 is fine as well, for instance cs_italy mostly has r_speeds of 800.

The more detailed you get the higher the r_speeds will be really, I mean if you make a house with everything possible, milk bottles, doormats etc and its all being viewed at the same time then your r_speeds will not be good. If you have large areas in your map, keep the amount of blocks to a reasonable amount, lets not go mad and build an exact replica of mount Everest. The more blocks you have, the more faces there is, and therefore the more r_speeds there will be.

e_poly is also a factor, you dont want 8000 e_polys on your map, now these polys rise when you have complicated shapes, often when you have shaped some block into a cliff or something. Again dont go mad with it, dont have all sorts in view at one time, add things to your maps, like if your e_poly is getting high in one area, try adding a wall to block lessen the view of the player etc.

Dont forget about the fps in your map either, the more faces in view the lower the fps will be, adding entities such as the fire sprite will destroy most peoples fps if you place too many or enlarge them in a action area on your map.

EyeRoniK's Map Tips

keep large visible areas less detailed

small areas can have more detail as less is being viewed (sort of)

Use vertex manipulation, making certain walls join at a triangle at the corners is sometimes a good idea, same with floors.

Use vis blockers, ( a vis blockers is anything that blocks other areas of a map which would be visible without it)

Turn some things into func_walls, if you have say some crates stacked up or in a funky crate formation, then make them into func_walls to relieve the game engine a bit

Dont use millions of textures, if you ever played cs_arabstreets you may of wondered why it was so laggy, although the r_speeds were ok there were too many textures used I think, (judging by the 5mb size of the bsp, compared to the much smaller other maps) not really a r_speeds issue, but a lag one, in turn the same thing.

Simple things are often very good if done in the right way, look at 2fort and dust, very popular maps, quite simple designs really, this doesn't mean to say they were easy to make, far from it. but having a big complex map is probably going to take ages to compile and be confusing for the player.

Glass and water - the more transparent either is the less fps you will get, so try to get a happy medium.

Scaling, - making certain textures larger can be a good idea, say for a large wall, this can improve fps somewhat.

Dont try to do everything super curved - the hl engine prefers more square designs really, as it uses triangle style stuff ( I could explain this better if I knew more about it, but you get what I mean hopefully)

Big massive open spaces - as you should know by now the hl engine doesn't like massive open spaces, so work around that by stretching textures in large areas to twice the size, or more if it looks ok, and dont decrease any texture sizes in open areas as it lags the player.

Dont overlap objects into other objects, the game engine will not like this and have troubles rendering them and spilt all sorts. Keep it neat and keep it clean!

Compile on a regular basis, this way you know what your maps looking like, and where its going and if you have any problems.

Try out new textures, theres plenty of custom textures out there, see the links page to find out where to get them

Check the size of your map, by that i mean the proportions, try using bots to see if everything is the right size, such as your houses, walls anything you have made.