Does the number of keyframes I give to my character animation affect the speed of the game? Also, is a character with 1000 vertices (decimator count, whatever that is) too much to handle? I have a speedy laptop (Pentuim 4-M 1.6 GHz, 256 MB DDR, 32 MB Geforce4 440, Windows XP Pro) and have not seen any slowdown yet, but I also want to share my games with others :).
the issue of speed is a tricky one. basically the more complex, the slower it will run, and people should try to aim at the 1GHz machines right now with their games to ensure enough people can play them.
The best way to find out is to practice, but it all depends.
I find a 900 polygon main character with 13 bones and enemies of about 450 poly, (not a lot of them at the same time) will work ok. Thats with a poly count of about 800 for the level.
Try not using collision or not using dynamic lighting and simple textures, to really improve game speed.
-Luke
Hello
To check precisely the amount of vertices, select your charcter, enter Edit
mode and read the values in the top bar.
I’m not sure (for other engines I am) but the important number is the face count, and Blender counts quad faces instead of triangles.
So. keep in mind when you have, lets say, 500 vertices and 600 faces, in fact you have almost 1200 faces!!!
1000 polys is reasonable but Armatures and many bones are “heavy”
Take care!!
Bye
António
1000 poly count sounds good, the biggest speed increase would come from NOT using DLoc to move, instead use LinearVelocity.
I did a test a few weeks ago and notice that when using DLoc for a characters movent, when near a large structure (castle wall, canyon) it gets strange slowdown like it was lagging. When I used LinearVelocity it’s movement was smooth. Also using the mouse to move/rotate makes things faster (or seem that way 
)
Thanks for all the info, but my primary question concerned the number of keyframes. I want to create a really smooth and fluid run/walk animation with several keyframes. So let’s say would an animation of 10 keyframes run faster than one of 30?
Thanks for all the info, but my primary question concerned the number of keyframes. I want to create a really smooth and fluid run/walk animation with several keyframes. So let’s say would an animation of 10 keyframes run faster than one of 30?
30 frames is good for a smooth waling animation.
less frames to go through = less time = faster animation. 
It wont affect the speed to have more keyframes, although it will affect the file size a little. More keyframes is smoother, so use em:)