Originally posted by Saiyan
For games it's better to use one mesh......simply put most people don't have computers that can handle the graphics of a complicated model......so they keep it simple to keep framerates up.
I am sure when computer hardware becomes amazing and for a decent price....you will see Final Fantasy type games.....or better.....
It's not necessarily better to use a single mesh for game characters. It really depends on the game engine and the type of character you're working with. For instance, say you have a character with a lot of armor pieces (like a knight) -- it's easier and makes more sense to leave it as a segmented model. On the flip side, a character wearing skin-tight clothing would work best as a single mesh model. Neither one will necessarily run faster than the other. It all depends on poly count of the models. Higher poly counts tend to slow things down some more.
OK, enough game dev talk...