I'm just speculating here

[CHHAS]

But would it be possible to make an efficient 3D engine that could vary the detaillevel based on the current framerate, turning down the details when the action got hot and turning them back up when it cooled down a bit ?

Maybe you could set a target framerate and let the engine adjust details to try and match that at all times.

 

[Saem]

I believe the Unreal line of engines does this. I know that Shiney's engines do this quite well, expcet for their first attempt at it with Messiah. However, Sacrifice does it well, though it's noticable. Then again, I doubt you'll ever experience a bad frame in the game.

 

[Brent]

But would it be possible to make an efficient 3D engine that could vary the detaillevel based on the current framerate, turning down the details when the action got hot and turning them back up when it cooled down a bit ?

Maybe you could set a target framerate and let the engine adjust details to try and match that at all times.

it's probably possible, but then you'd have to think about which detail level's to vary and by how much depending on the framerate...

 

[Bambers]

I had a demo of sacrifice and it worked very nicely on my gf256 SDR. The only possible problem was the time it took to react which while fine for that game wouldnt be suitable for a fast fps.

Op flashpoint has a target fps slider so I assume its engine can vary the detail too, if it does it works quite nicely as ive not noticed it.

 

[Saem]

Serious Sam does it via static geometric LoD. They basically ahve 16 different poly models of the same thing with varying degree of detail and render the apporpriate one based on distance + action on screen formulae.