Is A3d performance only affected by visual geometry

Question

I think the answer to this is yes, but just confirming... 
 Is the performance (color of triangle) affected only by 3D geometry which is visible? Which is to say, if I have lots of 3D scenery in my model, but it's off 95% of the time, does the mere existence of that geometry in the file, and I assume the larger file size, cause my A3d to be sluggish or does the geometry only contribute to performance when it's visible? 
 thanks Cory

starksk · Accepted Answer

Hi Cory Pattak , 
 The answer here is a definite maybe. Having complex models and higher triangle counts will still mean a larger show file and longer load times as the system reads them. Despite being invisible, we still maintain and update the hierarchy for those objects as well as know when you click and drag on screen to select, the objects are there but we have to ignore them if invisible. Those things do affect processing and performance to some degree. 
 Lighting is obviously the biggest performance bottleneck. We have to calculate which object geometry is within any light beam and what all of those beam contributions do to the geometry. Here, those calculations are only performed on visible geometry so there is no performance impact to lighting calculations when objects are not visible. 
 The performance triangle is based on the objects in the show file, regardless of if they are visible. It is still the best practice to reduce the model complexity as much as easily possible.

Is A3d performance only affected by visual geometry

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