Particle Experimentation

Been tinkering with my particles, I can’t decide on a looks, or size, or amount of them. I really can change most aspects of them with some changes in the code, as they are drawn using the graphics API, I think it might be a case of too much choice. Too big and they fill the screen too little and they are hard to see, James suggested that my 1000 x 800 screen size is too big, so I’ve scaled it down to 800 x 600, making everything very cramped. I believe that my particles fire off too much, I have them on a timer, the faster the timer fires, the more often the sound data gets captured, the more accurately the particles match the music. That’s great but from a game point of view there a crazy number of particles to collect let alone the potential slow down. So I’m wondering if to set them off at fewer intervals but at the same time keep to the music, it’s a tough balance to keep.