Experienced developers: Tell me about 3D performance of Godot
Hello,
I'm making this post, because I am considering working in Godot for the foreseeable future.
I'm also making this post, because I want to learn about the real state of Godot. I've posted a few questions in the past, and I've always had responses that sounded like marketers or bots.
So, let me get this straight, do NOT say the following:
| Unhelpful statements | Explanations why they're unhelpful |
|---|---|
| First develop your entire game, then profile if you have issues. | Choosing an engine is the most important architectural decision when developing a game. And developing a game takes time, meaning many problems can occur later during development. 1000 hours spent developing a game only for problems -which come embedded into the engine - to show up is a massive waste of time. I want to choose the right engine for the job from the get-go rather than throw all my work out the window. |
| Godot is open-source and developing fast. If you have problems now, they will surely get fixed eventually. | There is no guarantee that will ever happen. If there are problems now and they still weren't fixed, it is likely because they are not easy to fix and may require massive overhauls, which the developers are not ready to make. And even if a fix is developed, there is no guarantee that it will be merged into the engine - slow adoption is something I've seen associated with Godot more often than I'd like. |
| Try all the engines and choose then. | Learning how to use an engine takes time, especially if I want to learn how to use it properly. I'd rather choose the right engine for the job and then learn it, rather than the opposite approach. |
| If you focus on creating well-designed systems, you will never finish your game. | Motivation for (finishing) development and designing quality codebase are two completely separate things. You can design quality systems AND develop your game quickly - it's primarily about identifying the right tools for the job. Something I've learned the hard way in my older projects - you should NEVER make half-baked solutions, because they WILL stack up in the future and will not be reusable, making your progress slower. If you make trash from the get-go, it is wishful thinking to hope it will stop being trash when the project gets big. And sure, you can replace it later, but then you've wasted time by making the initial system, fixing it and everything it touched upon. |
| Use subpar tool X first, because it is easier to learn. You can learn the better tool Y later. | In this way, you will waste time on a solution that was doomed and obsolete from the start, while you could have spent little bit more time and effort to use the tool that will payoff tenfold. And you will save the time learning the useless skill. |
| It is good enough for most use-cases, unless you want to do something complex. | I may want to do something more complex - you never know. I don't want to waste many horus knowing there are guaranteed limits from the get-go. |
| Performance is secondary to good game. | Performance is the currency for your game systems. The better it is, the higher fidelity/simulation accuracy/scale of systems,... you can offer. Essentially, if you have a lot of performance to spare, you can "brute-force" better gameplay. If you lack it, you will need to rely on smokes and mirrors and possibly worse experience. If you take performance into account from the start, you will have more breathing room in the future. And creating the game with good performance habits doesn't costs you only tiny bit more effort in short term, compared to the massive amount of effort when you neglect it in the long run. |
So, I am asking the experienced developers, people who have developed and finished successful (functionally, not necessarily finantially) games. I appreciate that you're a hobbyist trying to help, but I'm afraid your experience is simply lacking. I don't want to hear optimistic phrases from YouTube tutorials: "You can make any game in X engine no problem, it'll all work out no matter the goal you choose in the end!" or "Choosing a programming language/engine is a stylistic choice at the end!".
I'm sorry, but that is simply not how engineering works. There are tools which are better for the job than others. For instance, I don't care that GDScript is easier to learn than C++. If C++ is marginally faster it is ignorant and harmful to recommend GDScript, because you refuse to make the effort to learn the alternative.
This is my mindset for going into Godot. I don't want to ignore the complex problems, because I am too lazy to solve them and instead claim "it won't be a problem". It will be a problem and If I want to make a worthwhile game, I need to face these challenges.
And please, spare the "sarcastic" or "the OP is arrogant" responses, which I'm sure would appear. I'm asking a genuine technical question about the state of the engine for complex projects. Please, do not dismiss it, because you believe questions like these are irrelevant - I don't think it is wrong to strive for higher-quality products that employ the best solutions possible.
So, would you say the engine is truly ready and performant enough for larger scale projects - think games like Half-Life 2/Deus Ex: HR/F.E.A.R/Dishonored. With a similar graphical fidelity, physics, AI, audio,...
Thank you for your insight.
Posted Jul 3, 2026, 6:24 PM UTC