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[Prospekt]

So I've heard a few things on this subject but still haven't really understood it. The levels I am creating are very large. Picture like Turrican large. Of course I have a deactivation agent for all my instances(objects) in the room so really there is no performance impact on that end to the size of the level. However I have heard that if you do individual tiling that it costs much more processing then "big tiling". I have seen some techniques in which level designers design an entire level from scratch using individual tiling techniques and then save it as one big background. So is that a optimized way of doing it? One big background as opposed to a level with many tiles? Please share your comments, I just want to make sure I am making the correct decision going forward with this.

I'm using Game Maker: Professional, with some shader/filtering options (2X and 4X), although these can be turned off on demand.

Thank you for your time! 

[Glyph]

The performance hit from small tiles versus big tiles is almost negligible. Big tiles are generally better, but then again they take up more space and are harder to work with. Anyway, if your performance is dipping, it would probably have a lot more to do with the amount of code being run at any given time. I'd look into segmenting your levels more, if you haven't already (you don't have to load the whole thing at once, that includes tiles).

[Chris Koźmik]

Irrelevant... If you are making a platformer in year 2014 you really have to really mess up to get into optimization problems.

Overall, tiles are better than one big picture (if we talk about sizes above 2048x2048 pixels), pluse more convenient.

[Prospekt]

Irrelevant... If you are making a platformer in year 2014 you really have to really mess up to get into optimization problems.

My concern is reaching all my audience I can. I would like to imagine everyone that owns Windows will be able to play my game. With that in mind I would like to keep performance as stable as possible. It's not irrelevant to me and with high-quality 4X filtering,  optional V-Sync and whatever it can affect performance on lower-end machines, probably not that many but you know I still care.

[Elzy]

I don't really think it would be a problem if it just the art you are talking about. If you are using sprite sheets for your art then those are what will take up the ram, not the placement of them the assets in them. But the engine should optimize it anyway.

Now if it is the collision boxes you are talking about, then yeah. They should be as compressed as possible (meaning if you have 4 smaller squares making 1 bigger square, make that one square). Again, most engines optimize all of that for you in the background anyway.

TL DR;

Your engine will optimize levels/collision. Code/AA/Effects cause FPS drops

[Giovanni]

Bigger costs more, but if the style fits, use it. Use it all over. I'm currently using big backgrounds due to ease and it allows for individual optimization of tiles to look less repeat-y. Remember kids, using bigger backgrounds builds strong bones.