Keeping FiveM weapon models light
Aim for a high LOD in the low tens of thousands of triangles for a primary weapon, fewer for pistols and attachments, with medium and low LODs below that. Remove hidden internals, bake small bevels and screws into normal maps, merge materials to keep draw calls low (ideally one to three per weapon), and keep textures within budget. Measure before and after in Blender or CodeWalker.
Weapons converted from other games or high-poly marketplaces can arrive with hundreds of thousands of triangles and a dozen materials. In a firefight with twenty players, that multiplies fast. Most of that geometry is invisible at game distances and can move into a normal map instead.
#Budgets that hold up
| Item | High LOD (triangles) | Materials |
|---|---|---|
| Pistol | ≈ 5,000–15,000 | 1–2 |
| SMG / rifle | ≈ 10,000–30,000 | 1–3 |
| Attachment (scope, suppressor) | ≈ 1,000–5,000 | 1 |
| _hi first-person model | Can be higher; only the holder sees it up close | 1–3 |
Guidelines from common practice, not engine limits.
#Where polygons are wasted
- Internal parts — springs, firing pins, the inside of the barrel beyond a few centimetres.
- Round screws, rivets and text modelled in geometry instead of the normal map.
- Over-subdivided cylinders: 16–24 sides are plenty for a barrel.
- Duplicate or overlapping faces from conversions.
- Separate materials for parts that could share one texture sheet.
#Bake detail instead of modelling it
Keep the high-poly model for baking: project its detail onto the low-poly game model as a normal map. Knurling, engravings and bevels then cost texture memory instead of triangles. See normal and specular maps.
#Measuring
Blender’s statistics overlay shows triangle counts per object; CodeWalker shows model details for .ydr files. Check the whole weapon plus its components, and remember LODs — see weapon LOD models.
#Optimising purchased packs
If a pack is heavy, first cut texture sizes (the biggest win with no modelling), then drop unused variants, then look at geometry. Pack-level budgets are in weapon pack performance. Escrowed packs cannot be edited — ask the creator for optimised versions.
Questions
How many polygons should a FiveM weapon have?
Do weapon models affect FPS?
What is a draw call?
What should I optimise first?
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