Howdy,
I just tested my game on a desktop which has a 1050 Ti in it and a pentium g4560 (should be similar to i3 for gaming purposes), so budget gaming pc but definitely not bad for gaming and should run all the latest games but not on max settings.
So with that out of the way, I was a bit disappointed when I tested my game on the pc and only got 30 fps (on 1920x1080) on a standard map. I know for sure that one of the culprits is the sun shadow shader that comes with Shade-C Evo package that I use (its really heavy and cuts my fps in ~half). So here are a couple of questions that I hope you guys/gals can answer:
1) What fps should I strive for budget pc's like the one mentioned above with gs3d in 1920x1080 reso, 60 fps?
2) Does anyone know an alternative (shader) for sun shadows when using Shade-C Evo? Or maybe some guesses that could optimize the shader code? (/I could try messing around with fx file even though its a bit complex in shade-c) . GPU-accelerated bones is already on though.
3) Any more optimization tricks? (e.g. I have been thinking of disabling shadows for a few enemy types)
A bit more info on the game itself and the textures/polygons:
its a third person game and use photo realistic textures (so no cartoony style or such). Most textures are 512x512 or 1024x1024, a few 2048x2048 (e.g. terrain), most smaller objects such a props or items can vary from 64x64 to 256x256. Normal maps are cut in half reso to also keep below 32-bit memory limit usage. As for polies, the only notable polies to name are on actors which have around ~10.000 polies each and around ~15 are visible at the same time.
