Actually.. it depends.. First I come to treat bump mapping as a modeler being lazy.. not a modder being lazy "Never substitute a bump map for geometry that should be there" thats whats said in production of course in gaming its more efficient to use a bump map... That being said.. A ship with more polies SANS bump map should look better because of the fact that the detail is actually there, than one with one trying to make up for it.. Bump maps get you close.. not that close However normally *IN EAW* good bump maps and low poly counts do indeed look better than high poly sans bum.. due to the fact that if they DID add the geometry that the bump map added.. the poly count would go off the charts, those models problably dont have all the details modeled and are expected to have those in the bump map .. just out of the fact that it will go in game