I want to programm a little isometric RTS game... But my big problem is, should I use 3D or 2D graphics? what would be faster? Please can anyone give me an advice? thanks, Michael

Here''s an idea, why not try to do a engine like Age of Empires II, with the 3D terrain (it was 3D right?) and 2D sprites, this game looked awesome .

I think if you use 3D for the units and want to have lots of units there might be performance problems. In Total Annihilation, performance dropped fast as the number of units started to go over 150. However, if you support 3D hardware this might not be too big of a concern.

Anyway, just a suggestion, because I think AOE II looked awesome.

+AA_970+

My suggestion -> if you want to make a "little" isometric RTS then go for 2D, the amount of time you spend on the artwork will be way less than the extra amount of time you''ll spend on a 3D graphics engine. Cause you still have to do artwork for a 3D graphics engine!

make your first game 2d and then, if you think you''re ready, make your second game 3d. Don''t worry about speed. It will probably take you a long time to finish your game. By then computers will be stronger. If you still can''t run your game go back and optimize it until you buy a new computer. Then it should run fine.

Thr33d here, (not above)
are you speaking of 2d graphics nonetheless but chooseing to use
prerendered 3d sprites or hand drawn sprites. or is the choice
between 2d or 3d engine.

thanx,
Thr33d

Make it 2d. There are lots of resources/tutorials for 2d isometric engines and they are easier to understand than 3d. Also it should make it easier on your graphics artist.

Later,
Eck

I wanted to do it in 3D because, when I have 3D engine, I don''t need us prerendered units and object (it''s more work for my graphics artist as doing only lowpolygon models, I think).

The first anonymous writer is right, I will do my first RTS game in 2D and then I can redo it in 3D if I seems to be good idea.

One word to Total Annihilation (which was(is) one of the greates RTS games ever created, I think):
Why is the 3D engine to be to blame for the slowless with increasing number of units?

Thank you all for your help!
Michael