Light sources

[Schattengaenger]

Hello there fellow Hearthlings,

I think there was a limit to how many light sources are beeing calculated in terms of where shadows will be and stuff like that.
So the Questions I have are:
how many light sources are simulated at once? And,
is there a way to alter that number?

[MagicManICT]

2, and no. At least, not unless you're really good at modding OpenGL and Java code. The client is open source, so feel free to check out the Client Source Code information

[vatas]

Light and shadow effects are one of the more complicated/resource-intensive parts of video game graphics. Or at least according to this article.

[MagicManICT]

10 year old article... nothing like a fluff piece for the next gen games of 2007.

There are some more modern, in-depth articles on the matter if anyone cares to read. Lighting calculations are still done mainly in CPU, not GPU. All though PhysX, OpenCL and other standards allow for them to be done in GPU, the GPU is usually busy enough calculating the rest of the rendering pipeline, such as vertex calculations and texture mapping, and physics for various things.