Possible to increase draw distances beyond Extreme?

[Aluminum Donkey]

I know people have tried this in the past but I'm talking about the latest-and-greatest Multithread version of DCS which now offers great performance! My machine is up to the task so can anyone help?

Can I edit any config files to increase draw distances for trees, buildings, shadows etc.? If so, how to I do it? I wanna use all 16GB of my graphics memory and load up my nice new GPU

AD

[Gun Jam]

The extreme draw distances are pretty not extreme at least in VR, Smoke is not even drawn in at like 15 miles, lights have become a bit better but not great. I would also like to know if this can be improved.

 

[Aluminum Donkey]

32 minutes ago, Gun Jam said:

The extreme draw distances are pretty not extreme at least in VR, Smoke is not even drawn in at like 15 miles, lights have become a bit better but not great. I would also like to know if this can be improved.

 

No kidding, the new graphics cards are awesome and I just got one with 16GB of VRAM. I paid for 16GB of VRAM and I wanna use 16GB of VRAM

I really, really wanna know how to crank up the draw distances! The better cards these days can handle it. Somebody help!

AD

[MadKreator]

12 hours ago, Aluminum Donkey said:

I know people have tried this in the past but I'm talking about the latest-and-greatest Multithread version of DCS which now offers great performance! My machine is up to the task so can anyone help?

Can I edit any config files to increase draw distances for trees, buildings, shadows etc.? If so, how to I do it? I wanna use all 16GB of my graphics memory and load up my nice new GPU

AD

In the core game files, find the "graphics.lua". scroll till you find the visibility distance multipliers for each of the different presets. Bump the extreme one up and see how it works. I run mine at 3 instead of the default 1.5. I don't know where the limits are to this. Even doubling this doesn't necessarily double the distance. Bumping this to 3 gives the cockpit view about the same draw distance as you see in the f2 external view.. so maybe 30% increase...( depending on your fov/ zoom level). This prob breaks IC and will get written over each update or repair so using ovgme or the likes is recommended, of course.

[Aluminum Donkey]

11 minutes ago, MadKreator said:

In the core game files, find the "graphics.lua". scroll till you find the visibility distance multipliers for each of the different presets. Bump the extreme one up and see how it works. I run mine at 3 instead of the default 1.5. I don't know where the limits are to this. Even doubling this doesn't necessarily double the distance. Bumping this to 3 gives the cockpit view about the same draw distance as you see in the f2 external view.. so maybe 30% increase...( depending on your fov/ zoom level). This prob breaks IC and will get written over each update or repair so using ovgme or the likes is recommended, of course.

Awesome, thanks so much!

AD

[MadKreator]

Just now, Aluminum Donkey said:

Awesome, thanks so much!

AD

No prob. There’s lots of numbers and things to fiddle around with in the graphics.lua.. most of them don’t seem to do much of anything, oddly enough. I’m sure a lot of the files that really change things are hidden/ inaccessible. But this one at least does something. Although like I mentioned, it’s not a really huge effect. I’m sure there is some other equation or setting/ value the graphics engine takes into account when using these multipliers. 
The LOD distance is another one that can be bumped up.  ( in graphics.lua) But from what I saw, its effects are also very minimal and only affects the distance that the initial LOD starts coming into view, and ONLY for places units/ objects in a mission etc. It doesn’t affect the overall scenery or baked in object in a map. This setting also seems limited too by something else in the engine. It won’t make units appear 20 miles away or anything.. we’re talking (maybe) in the hundreds of meters. Makes things a little nicer for sub 1000’ flying in helis, but for aircraft/ higher alt, it’s not a significant enough change to really worry about.

[Aluminum Donkey]

Greetings everyone,

I tried cranking the Extreme disancfactor up to 3.0 and even 5.0. It certainly draws further out and uses up more VRAM (~10GB instead of only the usual 6 to 8 GB) but it causes lots of glitching of local buildings in the London area of Normandy 2.0. It even causes entire city blocks of building to fail to render!

It's weird because the framerates are still awesome, but buildings flicker on and off.

My guess is that it's an inherent limitation of DirectX 11 and improving it greatly will require the new implementation of the sim in Vulkan or DX12. The best I could do was increase the Extreme distance factor from 1.5 to 2.0, using 3.0 or higher causes visual glitching.

Thanks!

AD

[Mustang]

You can mitigate the disappearing objects by making an edit to your terrainoptions41.lua - under the instancer section add an additional 0 to the buffer amounts (this breaks IC)

[MadKreator]

On 10/21/2024 at 5:07 PM, Aluminum Donkey said:

Greetings everyone,

I tried cranking the Extreme disancfactor up to 3.0 and even 5.0. It certainly draws further out and uses up more VRAM (~10GB instead of only the usual 6 to 8 GB) but it causes lots of glitching of local buildings in the London area of Normandy 2.0. It even causes entire city blocks of building to fail to render!

It's weird because the framerates are still awesome, but buildings flicker on and off.

My guess is that it's an inherent limitation of DirectX 11 and improving it greatly will require the new implementation of the sim in Vulkan or DX12. The best I could do was increase the Extreme distance factor from 1.5 to 2.0, using 3.0 or higher causes visual glitching.

Thanks!

AD

Interesting, I guess I’ve never noticed any glitching.. Maybe worse on some maps. I will have to push it to its limits and do some trials for fun.

 

On 10/21/2024 at 5:31 PM, Mustang said:

You can mitigate the disappearing objects by making an edit to your terrainoptions41.lua - under the instancer section add an additional 0 to the buffer amounts (this breaks IC)

Thank you for this. I messed around with all sorts of values  in that LUA the other day ( admittedly not knowing what any of it does), just to see what effects the various settings had. Nothing I changed seemed to have any real noticeable affect. Again just haphazardly changing things for fun. I was trying to see if there was a way to make the Highest level LOD’s( LOD 0?)  for buildings, appear farther away, so you don’t have rooftop details just appear when your right on top of them in a heli. ( excuse my lack of correct terminology). And to see if I could get night lighting LOD’s to do the same.. reach full level/ intensity at a farther distance. Although,  I’m sure its more complex than a simple value or multiplier 

Edited October 23, 2024 by MadKreator

[Dangerzone]

Just wondering if it's worth asking in a 'wish list' instead. I mean, it's great to be able to hack - but would be really good if this was supported officially so it doesn't break IC?

[Aluminum Donkey]

8 hours ago, Dangerzone said:

Just wondering if it's worth asking in a 'wish list' instead. I mean, it's great to be able to hack - but would be really good if this was supported officially so it doesn't break IC?

No kidding, today's PC hardware is killer and it doesn't even have to be top-of-the-line stuff. Ought to be able to make use of it more.

AD

[Aluminum Donkey]

Thanks for the help everyone, I tried increasing buffer sizes as per Mustang's post about terrainoptions41.lua. It made no difference for me. I'm using about 10.5GB of graphics memory out of my 16GB and still get glitching of ground objects.

AD