Possible to Increase Draw Distance?

[Wrakker]

Is there any way to do this? I work in unity and I'm close to trying to attempt mod this to allow it if there isn't :| Seeing my base pop in after the trees and ground has rendered really breaks immersion.

[avatar.zero]

If you have the console activated ("-console" [without quotes] in the game's launch options), then open the console with F5 (*) and enter "lodbias 10" [also without quotes] (**). This should improve how draw distances are handled, but no guarantee that you won't still encounter the issue you're talking about.

* Though it might also be doable with just the regular chat window accessed with the Enter key (haven't tried it that way), in which case no need to add anything to the launch options.

** Default value is 5. Values over 10 can be entered, but don't seem to provide any greater benefit.

[GunsForBucks]

Originally posted by avatar.zero:

If you have the console activated ("-console" [without quotes] in the game's launch options), then open the console with F5 (*) and enter "lodbias 10" [also without quotes] (**). This should improve how draw distances are handled, but no guarantee that you won't still encounter the issue you're talking about.

* Though it might also be doable with just the regular chat window accessed with the Enter key (haven't tried it that way), in which case no need to add anything to the launch options.

** Default value is 5. Values over 10 can be entered, but don't seem to provide any greater benefit.

Pretty sure the LOD bias only applies to texture detail of things rendered...not actual render distance for pop in.

[electricdawn]

Yup. @GunsForBucks is correct. LoD literally means "Level of Detail". It does not pertain to draw distance.

[Lucidess]

I would also like to know how to increase the distance, i'm assuming we will need a mod for it though... while seeing a base pop in is kind of annoying to see, it's more about the trees and the very very distant lands that are simply.. land, until the big trees render in.

[PakaNoHida]

Nothing like seeing a box suddenly pop in Notre Damn...((Assassin's Creed)) this is often a limitation of all game engines, and the Unity engine is no exception.

[Hiryukaen]

Its part of the games resource management, if the game kept things loaded in further out it would be more taxing on the systems resources.
The game already has issues on low to mid end pc's. There needs to be a lot more optimization done before further distance could even be considered for everyone not running super computers, which would terrible for a new game that isn't specifically marketed for supercomputer users.

[sarteck]

Originally posted by Hiryukaen:

Its part of the games resource management, if the game kept things loaded in further out it would be more taxing on the systems resources.
The game already has issues on low to mid end pc's. There needs to be a lot more optimization done before further distance could even be considered for everyone not running super computers, which would terrible for a new game that isn't specifically marketed for supercomputer users.

In my opinion, it should be up to us how badly we want to tax our systems, as long as they give some "this might crash your system, use at own risk" warning when going to an "Advanced options" kind of page.

[Sanki]

I'm using 2 mods for that "Render Limits" and "Custom Graphics Settings" I have set different settings triple more than the default, lod bias also set to 10(2 default LUL) and it runs smooth on 3080ti.
Render Limits mod allows to change more than just lod bias.
Both are on Nexus mods.

[Wrakker]

@Sanki Installed those mods and they work perfectly! We're going to work on installing them to our server as well. If I knew how I would post a before and after screenshot in here but the difference is astounding. I also went from 120fps to 40 but honestly totally worth it. I could tweak further to keep it at 60 but it's pretty crazy seeing our structures and trees across a lake that previously was just a blob of land

[Sanki]

Yup it's a great combo, HD textures to kill fps even more in case you missed this post on Nexus:
"...Turns out, Valheim by default only allows 512 MB of memory space for textures, probably because they are so low in vanilla..."

If your GPU has 6GB or more memory, you can allow more.
In the CustomGraphicsSettings.cfg

## The total amount of memory to be used by streaming and non-streaming textures.
# Setting type: Int32
# Default value: 512
streamingMipmapsMemoryBudget = 4096

gives BIG boost to fps!

[Wrakker]

Ahh, I will def do this. Thanks!

[Migz - DH]

In reference to earlier comments, yes, "LoD" is "Level of Detail". But, the comments seem to show a misunderstanding. LoDs are a way for games to change model quality for objects depending on how far away from the camera (i.e., how small the object is on screen) the object is. (Look at the "Skeletal Mesh LOD Bias section in this UE4[docs.unrealengine.com] document for an example picture.)

This is what Unity's documentation[docs.unity3d.com] says about Level of Detail and Maximum LOD level:

Level of Detail

Lod Bias - Set the level-of-detail (LOD) bias.
LOD levels are chosen based on the onscreen size of an object. When the size is between two LOD levels, the choice can be biased toward the less detailed or more detailed of the two Models available. This is set as a fraction from 0 to +infinity. When it is set between 0 and 1 it favors less detail. A setting of more than 1 favors greater detail. For example, setting LOD Bias to 2 and having it change at 50% distance, LOD actually only changes on 25%.

Maximum LOD Level - Set the highest LOD that the game uses. See Maximum LOD level for more information.

Maximum LOD level

Unity does not use Models which have a LOD below the MaximumLOD level and omits them from the build (which saves storage and memory space). Unity uses the smallest LOD value from all the MaximumLOD values linked with the Quality settings for the target platform. If an LOD level is included, then Models from that LODGroup are included in the build and always loaded at runtime for that LODGroup, regardless of the Quality setting being used. As an example, if LOD level 0 is used in any Quality setting then all the LOD levels are included in the build and all the referenced Models load at runtime.

[electricdawn]

Thanks to @Sanki for the suggestion of the render_config mod. I downloaded it on ThunderStore.

Unfortunately it doesn't have the Custom Graphics Config mod. Any suggestions on where I can download this without having to register? Nexus unfortunately requires this.

Thanks again!

Edit: Never mind. I found it on ThunderStore! It's CustomGraphicsConfig. ;)
Edit2: I can confirm that setting the memory limit higher in Custom Graphics Config helps a lot with FPS when more things are happening. This even works with my very lowly RX 6500 with only 4GB VRAM.

When I'm in the mountains and a blizzard happens, my FPS usually used to tank hard. Now it just keeps on chuggin' and nothing much changes. HIGHLY recommended. This might in fact also help users with high end GPUs.

[Migz - DH]

Originally posted by electricdawn:

This might in fact also help users with high end GPUs.

What part of what you're doing in particular?

[electricdawn]

Since the game only uses a tiny 512MB for streaming textures, graphic cards with much more memory are not used to their full extent. With upping that size to, say, 1GB or even more might help them use resources more efficiently. It helped my lowlow end card...