Best Display mode setting for speed?

[QM3423]

So this may be an easy one.  What is generally considered the fastest display method for a forest pro object with hundreds of high plants? Proxy: Box? Proxy: Plane? Some other choice?

As i start adding 100's of plants using Forest, i want to minimize viewport slowdown from trying to display the plants.

TIA

[iToo]

Points-cloud is probably the fastest mode, because the total count of drawn points is constant for each Forest object, regardless of the number of items.
 
I also suggest that you try disabling Camera clipping. Some scenes may benefit of using this feature (specially those with large areas of trees), but it introduces a hit performance because the Forest object must be rebuilt when camera moves. To disable it, turn off "Auto assign to camera view" and click the Clear button (in the Camera rollout).

[QM3423]

Thank you Carlos.  Point cloud works pretty well.  Camera clipping works well for my needs too. Particularly if i have a base ground mesh that is large enough to extend outwards from my model.

I guess a feature request would be to be able to tell Forest Pro which material ID numbers to use on a mesh with a multi-sub object material.  Seems like it would be very useful.  For example.  I have one large mesh.  Many faces of it are mat ID 1 (for grass) and the other faces are mat ID 2 (for groundcover).  It would be nice to assign two different FOrest objects to this surface. One for grass and one for groundcover.

For now I use Select Mat ID and clone those faces for Forest Pro to use.

[iToo]

I think it can be done easily. Added to the wishlist.