does world size affect performance?

Question

Surprisingly I couldn't find any meaty info about this, so here I am.

I understand that 1 unit in the editor = 1 meter, but does large worlds affect performance? I mean, they obviously do in sandbox games and other games packed with content. But what if it's mostly empty? My current project is a 2D Gravity Wars clone game with moving planets. Should I make it as small and condensed as possible, or is there room to scale things up?

Basically, do large distances in a mostly empty world affect in-game performance?

Answer 1

Simple answer ... No.

The only thing you lose with big numbers when we are talking about float based vectors is precision.

So the real question becomes ... how accurate do you want your logic to be?

I tend to build stuff placing verts on round value points then scale for size rather than space vertex info at scaled points ... if that makes sense / helps?