Level of Detail / draw distance

[garbaron]

Anyone else has the issue that grass, small rocks, small flowers – aka fluff details on the ground - are only drawn in a very limited sphere around you and as you move in any direction sections – like carpet tiles – that had no such fluff details suddenly pop in to existence?

I looked up older videos because I thought I remember it wrongly but these detail object used to kind of “beam” themselves in to existence so it wasn’t such a hard “now it’s not there, now it is” transition. This is most evident on planets with plains and only slight terrain variations.

The issue seems to have been added only a couple of patches ago but I only really realized it when driving around with my roamer today and the pop-in of grass and detail parts was very noticeable.

This really takes away the immersion and I hope HG can increase the distance stuff fades (not pops) in again to at least a distance that’s near outside the players view to the very least give a draw distance option in the graphics menu that allows for this.

[MechWarden]

I've be harping on part of this issue for a week or so and have noticed this issue for even longer.

I think it is a result of trying to whittle down graphics load while also wedging in other graphic details. I've gotten used to it, and kind of expect it by now, but I've been (overly) critical of it when it actually affects gameplay, like making ground-based animals harder to look for, and making points of interest, even huge freighter crash sites, nearly impossible to find visually from a respectable distance.

During first release and Foundation update, I used to be able to fly over the planet's surface and just find drop pods and larger structures pretty easily. Which I guess would make things like that Signal Booster nearly useless if that was still possible in the game now. However, it is a bit ridiculous to lose sight of a brightly colored crashed freighter when only a several hundred units away.

But back to the original topic, yeah... it is pretty ugly at times to see the world rendering of fluff just jump out of nowhere. I turned on Tesselation and it makes it even more noticeable, which I guess is why it isn't turned on by default on PC yet. It looks nice when it works, and that's more often than not. But driving too fast or doing particularly fast Rocket Boot travel does out pace the rendering field.

What's even more silly is that you can even measure how far this fluff detail goes by going into Picture Mode while alone in a game. You can travel far enough away, which isn't far at all, and see where the grass ends, and can see the small rain effect box that is planted right in front of your character's view.

I have to admit, figuring out where you can cut corners in terms of graphic rendering is just as much an art as it is a science. And while HG is talented (despite what rumours say), the experimenting they are doing just isn't panning out as well as they might have hoped.

I don't know, maybe I have my graphics settings set too high, but I would think a Core i7 processor (6th gen) and a GTX 1080, running it on a SSD would at least entitle me to some settings at max graphics at 1440p. Should I lock the FPS to 30 or something to prevent this issue?

[goldengoose7]

When NEXT first came out these distances were a lot further out from the player. But over time HG has been slowly reeling them back in. Likely in response to all the complaints about FPS from the mid to low end PC owners.

The real time PG engine puts a huge amount of demand on a machine's CPU especially when running in 1080p. And since the majority of PC players play in 1080p, (according to Steam player stats) CPU bottlenecking is real.

It would appear to anyone who has followed this game since the beginning that there doesn't appear to be a lot of wiggle room when it comes to optimizing the PG Engine. Because any time we see an improvement in FPS for Mid to Low end machines and consoles, it always comes at the expense of draw distance.

It does unfortunately appear to be HG's one and only answer to frame rate complaints.

Sucks if you own a fully capable machine that didn't have any trouble running the original versions of NEXT that had much more impressive draw distances than we have today.

[garbaron]

Well then HG should at least give us PC players that have the system to do it a "draw distance" option in the graphics menu.

[MBinMD]

I noticed this when I picked game back up the other day after not having played it for a while. Draw distance has been reduced vs. Next release version.

[goldengoose7]

Originally posted by garbaron:

Well then HG should at least give us PC players that have to system to do it a "draw distance" option in the graphics menu.

I agree 100%! And I have been lobbying for that option for 2 years. It is the only way us high end gaming PC builders/owners are ever going to be able to break free of the nerfs HG is constantly doing to improve console performance and casual gaming focused PC builds.

Several of my modding friends have looked into this idea of giving draw distance control to the player by reviewing the game code, and concluded that this would be far too involved and complicated to pull off with a typical mod. There are a few mods that can improve draw distance slightly while on foot. But nothing with the scope to do the entire game universe. Particularly ship based travel over planet surfaces, where draw distance issues, particularly significant pop-in are most evident.

HG will need to build in an actual in-game Draw Distance Slider that will give control over this to the player. If they are worried about players borking their game with it, then make it a locked feature that can only be accessed by players running a gaming PC with the horsepower required to handle an increase.

[MechWarden]

Thing was, I got good FPS at 1080p during Foundation. So much so, I was thinking of running the game at 1080p at 60+ FPS and OBS running on the same PC to do videos!
(obviously I didn't, or would have been one of those famous YouTubers by now)

I'm not sure how well it will run now using the older render distances with the extra shader stuff, but it would be nice to check it out with the same PC. I kind of miss being able to troll around for points of interest in my ship, getting surprised by what I come across. I kind of get the same effect in Exocrafts, but it just isn't the same.

[goldengoose7]

If you go back and look at all the FOG there was in those builds compared to even our currently nerfed version of NEXT, it was considerable. I remember when they went too far during Atlas Rises experimental testing and made it look like how flying during a storm is now. But all the time on every planet!

Low end PC owners loved the improved FPS of course. The rest of us got out our torches and pitch forks and thankfully HG rolled it back a bit.

But the release version was still way too borked for me. That was the point where I left the game and went back to Elite Dangerous for over 6 months. The nerf they left in was still over the top and ruined the flying experience for me.

If I want to play a game immersed in FOG everywhere, I will use my PS4 or XB1! lol!

[Khamethyst]

Originally posted by goldengoose7:

When NEXT first came out these distances were a lot further out from the player. But over time HG has been slowly reeling them back in. Likely in response to all the complaints about FPS from the mid to low end PC owners.

The real time PG engine puts a huge amount of demand on a machine's CPU especially when running in 1080p. And since the majority of PC players play in 1080p, (according to Steam player stats) CPU bottlenecking is real.

It would appear to anyone who has followed this game since the beginning that there doesn't appear to be a lot of wiggle room when it comes to optimizing the PG Engine. Because any time we see an improvement in FPS for Mid to Low end machines and consoles, it always comes at the expense of draw distance.

It does unfortunately appear to be HG's one and only answer to frame rate complaints.

Sucks if you own a fully capable machine that didn't have any trouble running the original versions of NEXT that had much more impressive draw distances than we have today.

Indeed and they are reeling in the amount of terrain altered now as well. They wanna do that for ps4, let em. But I have more than enough ram, vidcard room and ssd/cpu yadda yadda as the next and feel somewhat insulted when they need to dial it back for whatever cross-section of people who have not figured out how to make this game run well. Or expecting flawless operation on a gamesave from ages ago, etc..
I dont fault these people when HG is pushing these out live with some problems still. I just think a vast amount of posts in the "bug reporting" threads belong in "technical support" or even a ticket to their zendesk.

Not sure if them reeling back features and limits are attempts at narrowing down where the inefficiencies occur, and then maybe somewhere down the road in a final, we will get
something to remove in the code or even the menu godwilling. Draw distance and other adjustable limits have been staples in pc customization menus for a long time.

And I am with MechWarden when it's said that features like tessallation aren't ready for the spotlight yet due to these possible limitations. To the point where when it finally does look good and run good, its probably only gonna be within a few yards. Ive seen people say the same thing about the past sequels of the Sims vs Sims 4. Where something as simple as crossing the street will cause the game to load ridiculously for the cost of running smoother.

I started a new gamesave when 1.6 went live and recorded myself speed-running the game for 57min and didnt experience a single problem. Im sure I could have recorded more if I wanted but just decided to stop then. This is at 130mbps 1080p recording while keeping everything in the game up on its max too. -minus tessellation-motionblur-etcetc and with mods installed. (for faster progression to experience as much as I can to find errors)
I just didnt post it because Id like to avoid the "good for you" posts from others and plus I had Mystery Science Theater 3000 running in the bg the whole time. :)
I think there was one planet with a certain type of trees gathered slowed me down a bit. Slapped on the "one hit kill" mod with my mining tool and went all SUPERBEAM on that forest like the lady did on those gorillas in Congo. Framerate cleared right up. I thought it was the vast amounts of grass at first. But I hadnt smoked yet... fr though, the grass rendering was fine. But really noticed the 'pop-in' when flying low or on exocraft going fast.


btw, GoldenGoose, I saw your post on the other thread about the color changing mod for the ship and tried it out today, worked like a friggen charm! Thanks for the heads up on that.


HG, Hook us PC users back up please. Unlimited base complexity, Unimited Terrrain Edit, And increase draw distance. Let us sort out the requirements on our end :)


Cheers!
CS

[MechWarden]

I get the feeling that much of these limitations are to put all platforms on as level a playing field as possible. It just makes the console companies look bad when there are stories of a PC player getting a bunch more out of the same game than on their own hardware.

Imagine how put off a console player would be if a PC playing friend says that they don't need to use certain in-game stuff, just because the PC player can just see further out. Or how easy it is to explore an area because the PC version has 2, 5, or even 10 times the visable render distance for details than their console friend.

I know, it seems silly, worrying about fairness in a non-competitive game like NMS, but I can see them pressuring and trying to sell a 'uniformed experience' across platforms, with some promise for cross platform play or whatever. Cross platform play seems like a popular thing, so there might be push towards that; which leaves people with the better hardware than a console in an awkward position.
(honestly, I thought consoles today would perform better than a gaming PC that is over 2 years old, but... eh, idk... I don't keep close tabs on that)

[goldengoose7]

Really good points CS!

Especially the comment about far too many Tech Support issues being reported as bugs. I think that comes down to human nature where most gamers have an overinflated sense of how powerful their PC actually is. ;o) NMS will always test that belief system, and in cases where the user is forced to face facts and see first hand that their "Great Gaming PC" is borderline mediocre in 2018, they start to throw tantrums, and want to blame something other than their hardware for their fps woes.

Also... Speaking as one of the NMS vets that is actually running with a 960+ Hour Legacy save, I would go further in suggesting that even reports of this being a problem isn't when you have a truly high end rig.

I very rarely run into any FPS drops in NMS with my system. That has pretty much always been the case, since the bulk of my build has been around for the life of the game. With the exception of my Samsung 960 Pro M.2 SSD and my 1080ti. Prior to that I was running a 950 Pro and a super clocked 980ti. (An obvious winner of the silicon lottery)

Glad that mod worked out for ya! :o)

Speaking of mods...

There is a modder over on the NMS Modders Discord that is working up a truly epic looking replacement for the jump and teleport animation sequences. Using Geforce Tools so it will only work with Nvidia cards, but MAN! Does it ever blow the doors off of anything I have seen to date! HG would be wise to seriously look into adding that into the Vanilla game when this mod becomes the screaming hit I expect it will be when finally released.

I have been helping the guy with some Beta testing and I am already addicted to using it instead of the Peaceful Jump Mod I had been using. The vanilla animations are not even in the same dimension! (No pun intended!) lol!

[goldengoose7]

Originally posted by MechWarden:

I get the feeling that much of these limitations are to put all platforms on as level a playing field as possible. It just makes the console companies look bad when there are stories of a PC player getting a bunch more out of the same game than on their own hardware.

The "Cursed" "One Size Fits All" approach to game development. I would like to believe that HG of all development houses would want to see their game experienced at the peak of its capabilities and thus encourage cutting edge hardware be used to run it, but the evidence suggests that you are absolutely right!

I am not sure if the console makers are actually forcing HG's hand in terms of keeping a tight rein on the PC version's ultimate performance advantages over console. But ultimately it seems rather silly to attempt such a thing when everyone knows a high end gaming PC is going to blow the doors off of any gaming console. Even those future versions that haven't even been made yet! ;o)

Its a damn shame that the PC version and particularly the top 2% of the hardware in this segment are being denied the ability to get everything they possibly can out of the game.

[MechWarden]

I guess that's why I'm very critical about only certain aspects of the render distances. The gaming PC I have now is my first dedicated high end gaming PC I bought, having been used to the limitations of mid teir rigs for years, and knew well before getting it that it will show its age in 2-3 years. It has been over two years, and I'm kind of expecting signs of obsolescence.

But when I hear that the hardware is still fairly good and the game (albeit 2 years old as well, but it has updated) still runs pretty well on it too, seeing significant game play changes due to only graphics changes me wonder what the heck is going on.

I ignored it at first, since NMS runs like an indie development early access title, and have had games that utterly stressed even the best PC out there, but I draw the line of acceptably where graphics issues impact gameplay.

[goldengoose7]

Sounds like you bought or built the best at the time! Always a wise decision. In the span of 3-5 years, you will experience awesome gaming at the bleeding edge for most of that time. High end machines are useable for a much longer period of time than mid level/economy builds could ever hope to be. Often being replaced with yet another under performer. A total investment cost now approaching the cost of one high end machine, but never with the high end PC gaming experience included in that $$$.

And I hear ya about drawing the line at borked gameplay!

I LOVE flying my ship fast over the surfaces of planets in NMS. Despite what anyone says about the flight model, this is simply something you won't experience in the same way in any other space game. Including the often mentioned Elite Dangerous.

So when HG starts messing with the draw distances and I start noticing that the trees that I have flown over dozens of times on my way to the local trading post are no longer visible on the terrain below and instead have started to DRAW IN as I get closer, it really ticks me off!

Especially when the previous version of the game ran like butter on my machine and the only reason my gameplay has now been nerfed is to pacify all those whiners who refuse to get real and upgrade their antiquated S*IT! And hopefully to something that isn't already borderline too slow a year later.

[Galenmacil]

Same old story: "Wah! The game run badly on my toaster PC! Help!" or "They should optimize this game, performance is crap!".

There is no magic way to do this. Usually it is done by decreasing the draw distance. Like others here, I would very much like to see more options (draw distance adjustment, effect resolution, shadow distance, etc...) but I don't think Sean is going to do it. HG is, after all, initially a console developer.

This is a trend for several years now that low end machine gets priority over high end ones. Not just for NMS but for the whole gaming industry. Multi port game sure do not help this either.

This is exactly why I gave NMS a negative review. I am fed up with this pop in and "can't see sh*t past 200 meters" while in ship. In my opinion, the more they try to fix NMS, the more problems they create.

[MechWarden]

Originally posted by Galenmacil:

Same old story: "Wah! The game run badly on my toaster PC! Help!" or "They should optimize this game, performance is crap!".

There is no magic way to do this. Usually it is done by decreasing the draw distance. Like others here, I would very much like to see more options (draw distance adjustment, effect resolution, shadow distance, etc...) but I don't think Sean is going to do it. HG is, after all, initially a console developer.

This is a trend for several years now that low end machine gets priority over high end ones. Not just for NMS but for the whole gaming industry. Multi port game sure do not help this either.

This is exactly why I gave NMS a negative review. I am feed up with this pop in and "can't see sh*t past 200 meters" while in ship. In my opinion, the more they try to fix NMS, the more problems they create.

uh, ok... that kind of wandered around different topics. Not sure who here in this thread has a "toaster PC", but that has been a point that was already made.

And yeah, the "can't see crap, captain" rendering issue is what I've been harping on in several topics. I self deprecate a bit on that, because I maybe pushing it too much, but it is hard not to. With ground animals disappearing after moving 80 units away (air creatures disappear 500 units away, so not as bad), while having 3 S-Class upgrades for my scanner which gives a listed radius of over 600 units, you kind of feel a bit cheated in performance when realizing that later on it won't help you get that last critter on the Discovery list.

Note: the 600+ unit scanner isn't a waste, since I do find other things at distance, but for animals it doesn't help in finding them. Helps with money though!