   tech info behind crystal space vs panda3d
  is there any way to find out which engine actually performs better?  i've been researching engines for a little bit now, and i've found a number that, if i go by the written description, perform exactly the same.  but when i go and look for a car, i don't just want to know "yes, this car can drive.  it can stop.  it can go fast or slow", i cant to knowhow fast it can go, how quickly it stops, how many miles i can get on it before i have to take it in....  can anyone help me out/point me in the right direction?  if you know a better engine than one of these (open source), i'd also like to hear about it.thanks   
  While I can't comment on performance specifically, CrystalSpace is god awful from almost every other angle. It's ancient, a pain, and generally not that fun. Besides, (game) engines, like cars, depend a whole lot on their driver. Can you actually put these things through their paces and get the most out of them?   ;  i'm currently working at a start up game company with some extremely talented artists and programmers.  and we need an engine that can handle a lot of stress and still allow us to afford to eat haha   ;  I'm confused. Wouldn't it make more sense to ask the extremely talented programmers what they feel the best choice is?   ;  they are currently working on a project to get some income coming, and have left it up to me to search for an engine for another project   ;  Have you already ruled out Irrlicht?  That and Ogre are usually the best open-source graphics engines recommended.  There are plug-ins available for Ogre that will make it into a full-fledged game engine if you need it to be one.Panda3d is good if you want to program it in Python or C++ but I think those are the only bindings for Panda3D.  The general direction for developing with Panda3D is to use Python to design the prototype and then optimize it by replacing bits of the Python code with C++ to speed it up.   ;  As Promit pointed out above, the most important thing in terms of performance is usually not the engine itself, but the programmer using it.  It's possible to write terrible code in any engine; it's also possible to write code that gives great performance.Fundamentally, all graphics engines do the same thing: they translate from an abstract scene representation into a series of low-level graphics calls to issue vertices and state requests.  It follows that if your needs fit nicely into the engine's particular scene representation, then you will achieve maximum performance from that engine; and if you have to do a lot of fussing to make the engine do what you want, then your performance may be more limited.  So, the question of "which engine gives the best performance" always has the same answer: "it depends."  Sorry, that's just the way it is.Getting your artists and programmers involved in the choice is probably the wisest thing you can do.  The most important things to look for in an engine are suitability to your particular needs, not any hard and fast (and therefore meaningless) performance numbers.That being said, Panda provides excellent tools to help you find your bottlenecks and tune your application for maximum performance.  Of course, I'm a bit biased. :)David   ;  alright, i got ya.  thanks all for the input   