So I'm trying to port Renegade Squadron's Saleucami over to SWBF1 from SWBF2. The original model sits at 20,000 polys, and I've started to break it up into several objects. I haven't had much luck getting it to run in SWBF1 so far. I think the main mesh is still around 10,000 polys. I just need to know how much further I need to break it up so I can make it run reliably in SWBF1.
When I built my first Scarif map (which to this day remains unreleased) I had to break down Gogie's bridges, which were somewhere between 8K and 10K in a single object within the MSH. I think you can have a high-poly MSH made up of many objects, but IIRC a single object can be roughly 4k-5k before problems start arising.
Maps can hold a ton of objects, as proved with Sereja's maps.
Cool. What I've been doing is just splitting the model and keeping everything in its current position in XSI. That way I can just plug in identical XYZ coordinates for each split object in ZE. Same concept for Kashyyyk (ES), which I haven't check in SWBF1. I've got ~10-15 objects, but haven't checked the poly count on those.