Detail rendering distance is very short

[BlackSpectre]

Hi, hoping you can help...

 

I've been noticing more and more than details on NPCs just disappear when I get about 50 ft away from them... details such as skirts, pants, hair, etc.

 

I've tried /visscale and it doesn't appear to fix the issue.

I've tried putting particle physics quality, world texture quality, and character texture quality all on Very High. Nada.

Character Detail is at 200%, world detail at 500%. Max particle count at 50000.

 

Any ideas?

[Naomi]

Character LODs depend on their ent types, which for common player models is typically 40/100 for LODs 1 and 2 so this is WAI. The reason they're more noticeable is due to larger resolution displays.

 

A code change to support a slider maximum value of 400% or 500% for character quality is probably the more appropriate route to take than trying to update the existing 3,000 ent types that would need to be examined.

 

[Arc-Mage]

Someone posted this link a few days ago under another forum.

 

 

[BlackSpectre]

22 hours ago, Naomi said:

Character LODs depend on their ent types, which for common player models is typically 40/100 for LODs 1 and 2 so this is WAI. The reason they're more noticeable is due to larger resolution displays.

 

A code change to support a slider maximum value of 400% or 500% for character quality is probably the more appropriate route to take than trying to update the existing 3,000 ent types that would need to be examined.

 

That totally makes sense! This year I have a new HUGEMUNGOUS monitor!!! 

 

Thanks for your reply, Naomi. It's good to know that there's not much I can do about it right now.

 

And @Arc-mage, thanks for the great link! People are so helpful!  🙂 In that youTube video, Positive Gamer only talks about /visscale. What would be amazing is an updated graphics setting guide for modern computers and COH. Wonder if one exists? Hmmm... prepares his search-fu...

 

UPDATE: Oh wow! I've been experimenting, and just put EVERYTHING on Ultra and Max, and it looks great. Performance is fine, still 80-100 FPS except when there are a lot of players in the area... then no matter what settings I have FPS falls. Not a big deal though... movement is still smooth, no jitters or artifacts... all good. I'm running a M1 Max Mac Studio with 64GB ram.

Edited May 29, 2023 by BlackSpectre

[BlackSpectre]

Another UPDATE:

 

Discovered the /lodbias command that can lengthen the character detail rendering all the way out to about 540 feet when set to 14.0. Beyond that, the NPC disappears entirely from view, so it's difficult to see if any setting greater than 14.0 has any effect. The NPC I used for testing was the Transact for Victory (P2W) NPC in Nova Praetoria.

 

Also any /lodbias setting greater than 2.0 will not be saved when the game client is restarted. The command will need to be run each time you start the game UNLESS you add the setting as a switch to the Extra Launch Parameters in the COH Launcher (e.g., -lodbias 5).

 

Edited May 30, 2023 by BlackSpectre

[Arc-Mage]

Yes, the look of this game is still impressive after almost 20 years. I believe CoH greatly benefits from only having to look like a comic book. The only drawback is the “dead eye” look of some of the faces. It’s a bit unsettling at times.

[BlackSpectre]

On 5/29/2023 at 7:34 PM, Arc-Mage said:

Yes, the look of this game is still impressive after almost 20 years. I believe CoH greatly benefits from only having to look like a comic book. The only drawback is the “dead eye” look of some of the faces. It’s a bit unsettling at times.

If you haven't yet, try /usecelshader 1  for an even closer comic book look.

[Zep]

On 5/28/2023 at 6:07 PM, Naomi said:

Character LODs depend on their ent types, which for common player models is typically 40/100 for LODs 1 and 2 so this is WAI. The reason they're more noticeable is due to larger resolution displays.

 

A code change to support a slider maximum value of 400% or 500% for character quality is probably the more appropriate route to take than trying to update the existing 3,000 ent types that would need to be examined.

 

 

Do you see this, and/or other engine enhancements coming? It would be awesome though I Dont know how much work it would be. Guessing more than editing an .ini file.

I was reading, if I understood it correctly, that Unreal 5.2 did away with LOD's and uses some other technique now - not that I see the manpower and money being available to migrate game engines.

[Naomi]

On 5/31/2023 at 12:34 PM, Zep said:

Do you see this, and/or other engine enhancements coming? It would be awesome though I Dont know how much work it would be. Guessing more than editing an .ini file.

I was reading, if I understood it correctly, that Unreal 5.2 did away with LOD's and uses some other technique now - not that I see the manpower and money being available to migrate game engines.

 

I don't think it would be a huge stretch to update the slider, but given that the stop-gap solution would be to use -lodbias as a parameter in the launcher in the interim, it's also likely to not be high on the list of immediate things to do, but it's more a question for @Number Six.

 

I'm not very familiar with Unreal Engine either, but I don't think they removed LODs completely. They have an optional auto-generated LOD system you can use.. but it's also not a new concept. CoH uses auto-generated LODs for character parts (stored at creation time, so not real time generated), and can do automatic LOD generation for world objects, though those need to be set manually per-object (distance settings) and probably isn't as good as whatever algorithm Unreal uses.

 

LODs will always be necessary though, auto-generated or otherwise. There's really no getting around the performance vs memory balance that everything ultimately comes down to, or in other words, if energy can be saved, LODs will be used in some capacity or another, which is especially important for mobile devices.

[BlackSpectre]

I've been doing a lot of testing of /lodbias and various distance/detail percentages. It seems like a setting of 10 (1000%) is the best setting for me to use. I can still see the character details drop off when I'm at a distance of about 400 feet, but I have to be looking very closely and specifically homing in on a specific character to notice it. Otherwise it looks seamless at that setting. 

 

So if a slider were to be implemented, I'd recommend going all the way up to 1000%, but if we do that, might as well go all the way to 2000% (which is presume is the maximum). 500% still makes the loss of detail very noticeable and a bit jarring. For reference, I'm using a Samsung CRG9 ultra wide 5120x1440 monitor.

 

I think it's worthwhile to improve the slider because the /lodbias settings are "overwritten" if the Graphics and Audio tab is selected in Options. Also I'm not sure if this is due to me, but settings higher than 200% appear to revert back after some time has elapsed (1 or 2 hours). I was busy writing up some wiki pages and doing some graphics settings research, and when I came back to the game the character detail setting was back to 200%. Happened twice. 

 

So adding the commands to the Extra Launch Parameters are not really the best option. In addition to the command line argument, I also need a macro on every character to change the setting back to 10 when it reverts. So yeah, still kind of a pain. It would be better to just set and then forget.

 

A different solution that in some ways is superior to the command line argument is to manually edit the gfx.json file and set it to 10, save it, then write protect it so that the game can't overwrite it. This way you don't have to mess with it at all, but then you're also unable to change any graphics or audio settings in game unless you first enable the file to be over written again. I'm not sure which solution is more convenient. Of course, an updated slider would make this whole issue moot... and if the Character Detail setting is updated, might as well update the World Detail slider too. 🙂

 

ON SECOND THOUGHT... we don't really need a new slider. All we need is for the game to NOT overwrite the World Detail and Character Details settings whenever the Graphics and Audio tab are selected or the Apply button pressed UNLESS the slider was actually used. Then all we'd need to use is the /visscale or lodbias commands, and those are easy. 

 

Edited June 3, 2023 by BlackSpectre