You mean hundreds, billions would look solid, but thanks for your info.
Exactly. If a ring system has billions of particles, most of our computers aren't able to handle that sort of computation, so i would just be easier to make rings that are solid, until a second large gravitational gradient comes near them, then the system would change and use a system a bit like we have now except behind the scenes, still showing the rings as solid but using the particles we have now as guidepoints, render the solid rings bending and being ripped apart, much like how SPH will handle planets, except maybe a bit simpler, since most likely all of this will occur 2D as (bent) rings rather than a 3D, round/near-round planet.