Question

I think that using many “little” cells is a better idea then rendering one big world because I tried that and it lagged and the graphics card crashed from too many vertices. So I split the heightmap into cells and loaded it that way and when you move far away enough from a cell that you will no longer see it, it will be unloaded. Will there be any future problems using this method?

Answer 1

Yes, that would be the way to do it. That lets you have as large an ‘area’ as you need, regardless of how large the ‘world’ is, if it’s limited at all. The extra book keeping you’ll need to consider though is making sure you always load the surrounding chunks around the viewer, and to ensure there’s a depth of field or “fog” effect so folks can’t look past the furthest loaded area and see the unloaded border. Beyond that though, there’s no pitfall I can see.