Niagara system selector

Requirement	Prefer	Verify
Simple repeatable particles, many emitters	Lightweight/stateless emitter	required modules/renderers are supported
Gameplay-readable particle data or CPU-only interface	CPU sim	particle count and game-thread cost
Large particle count, supported GPU behavior	GPU compute sim	bounds, GPU collision/data access, readback limits
Many same-type impacts/bursts	Data Channel + shared listener	batching semantics, island/extents, lifetime
Trail/beam	Ribbon or beam-style module setup	source continuity, tessellation, UVs
Volumetric smoke/fire/liquid	Niagara Fluids or flipbook	Beta maturity, GPU/memory budget, platform
Pure camera-facing illusion	Sprite/flipbook	overdraw, sorting, lighting
Shape and parallax matter	Mesh particles	triangles, draw calls, material cost

Decision questions:

1. What must the player perceive, and for how long?
2. Must particles affect gameplay, or only respond to gameplay?
3. Does the simulation need scene/depth/distance-field collision?
4. How many systems and particles coexist in the worst representative view?
5. Can a material animation, decal, mesh animation, or flipbook communicate the same effect cheaper?

Mixed systems may contain both stateful and lightweight emitters. Choose per emitter, not by habit.