Player models view/rendering distance

[Vladoffsky 0]

Hello fellow survivors, i have a question. What option in game or in settings files is responsible for the distance that other players are rendered on my machine? The problem is that i can see zombies at about 1.000 meters, but other players are only showing up at about 300-350 meters. Also, at first (at about 350-450 meters) i can see only weapons on the back of the players, and only then, at about 350 meters the player models show up. My friend that plays on veeeery low settings can see other players as far as i can see zombies, i play at low-medium setting, am getting 25 fps in towns and 35 in the open, so i don't think that it is performance issue, also i play on low latency servers, and due to good internet connection my ping is very low too. What may be the problem?

[soulfirez 901]

what is your object detail set to in the option very low low etc etc. this is a good option to make your game run better but from what i have seen some people have complained about it making players hard to see ( looked at a pic where a persom looked like 3 dots from a distance of around 500m when his object view distance set in the cfg was 1200m..

[Death By Crowbar 1213]

I sense a sniper in training...

[TEST_SUBJECT_83 465]

Hello fellow survivors, i have a question. What option in game or in settings files is responsible for the distance that other players are rendered on my machine? The problem is that i can see zombies at about 1.000 meters, but other players are only showing up at about 300-350 meters. Also, at first (at about 350-450 meters) i can see only weapons on the back of the players, and only then, at about 350 meters the player models show up. My friend that plays on veeeery low settings can see other players as far as i can see zombies, i play at low-medium setting, am getting 25 fps in towns and 35 in the open, so i don't think that it is performance issue, also i play on low latency servers, and due to good internet connection my ping is very low too. What may be the problem?

Found these on Reddit!

http://www.reddit.com/r/dayz/comments/1xwtin/dont_use_very_lowlow_object_option_huge/

 

 

[DMentMan 707]

i can´t see people at 300 m away for some reason, i got full setting on everything, help?

[TEST_SUBJECT_83 465]

i can´t see people at 300 m away for some reason, i got full setting on everything, help?

Have you ever messed with your .cfg file before?

View and object distance can be tweaked.

Obviously this telling you to lower it to gain performance, but if you have a nice rig you can do the opposite!

Info from this website:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=216291078#150061

 

Open the file named YourName.DayZProfile located in C:\Users\Username\Documents\DayZ\ with the notepad. Now find the following lines:

sceneComplexity=# - set it to a value between 200000 and 50000, it will draw less elements and reduce CPU load.

viewDistance=# - set it to a value between 1800 and 1200, it reduces the cpu and gpu load.

preferredObjectViewDistance=# - it decreases CPU load, set it to 1000

terrainGrid=# - Set it to one of these values: 50, 25, 12.5, 6.25, 3.125. Higher value = Better FPS, Lower value = lower fps but a better graphic quality. I suggest setting it to 25 or 12.5 for the best performance/quality ratio. 

shadowZDistance=# - set it to a value between 100 and 200 (100 is the best for me), reduces gpu and cpu load.

Edited February 18, 2014 by TEST_SUBJECT_83

[gibonez 3633]

Player rendering needs to be optimized.

 

In arma 2 players can render at upwards of 5k meters.

 

ACE mod I had players render at like 9k meters.

[DMentMan 707]

 

Have you ever messed with your .cfg file before?

View and object distance can be tweaked.

Obviously this telling you to lower it to gain performance, but if you have a nice rig you can do the opposite!

Info from this website:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=216291078#150061

 

Open the file named YourName.DayZProfile located in C:\Users\Username\Documents\DayZ\ with the notepad. Now find the following lines:

sceneComplexity=# - set it to a value between 200000 and 50000, it will draw less elements and reduce CPU load.

viewDistance=# - set it to a value between 1800 and 1200, it reduces the cpu and gpu load.

preferredObjectViewDistance=# - it decreases CPU load, set it to 1000

terrainGrid=# - Set it to one of these values: 50, 25, 12.5, 6.25, 3.125. Higher value = Better FPS, Lower value = lower fps but a better graphic quality. I suggest setting it to 25 or 12.5 for the best performance/quality ratio. 

shadowZDistance=# - set it to a value between 100 and 200 (100 is the best for me), reduces gpu and cpu load.

 

thanks

[e00c 84]

According to that guide, you should change: GPU_MaxFramesAhead= x; 

Default is 1000... reducing it to (1-4) seems like a massive drop? What exactly does this do??

For the record, I'm not suffering from performance. I get fairly decent fps rates.. 

[ErichZann 28]

 

Have you ever messed with your .cfg file before?

View and object distance can be tweaked.

Obviously this telling you to lower it to gain performance, but if you have a nice rig you can do the opposite!

Info from this website:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=216291078#150061

 

Open the file named YourName.DayZProfile located in C:\Users\Username\Documents\DayZ\ with the notepad. Now find the following lines:

sceneComplexity=# - set it to a value between 200000 and 50000, it will draw less elements and reduce CPU load.

viewDistance=# - set it to a value between 1800 and 1200, it reduces the cpu and gpu load.

preferredObjectViewDistance=# - it decreases CPU load, set it to 1000

terrainGrid=# - Set it to one of these values: 50, 25, 12.5, 6.25, 3.125. Higher value = Better FPS, Lower value = lower fps but a better graphic quality. I suggest setting it to 25 or 12.5 for the best performance/quality ratio. 

shadowZDistance=# - set it to a value between 100 and 200 (100 is the best for me), reduces gpu and cpu load.

 

This is not helpful, since it does not really relate to the problem mentioned earlier. If your DrawDistances are set to at least 1000m or above, how can that explain that models of players in maybe 400m are not rendered? I have not seen any effect of this setting on player model rendering. Terrain grid is the ingame seeting "Terrain" i assume? For some reason, that setting does not change anything for me, neither quality wise not fps wise, does it make a difference for anyone?

[soulfirez 901]

According to that guide, you should change: GPU_MaxFramesAhead= x; 

Default is 1000... reducing it to (1-4) seems like a massive drop? What exactly does this do??

For the record, I'm not suffering from performance. I get fairly decent fps rates.. 

nothing for fps but can remove stuttering caused by it bottlenecking while prerendering frames so it can make the game smoother even though fps wont gain ( or gain very very little)

[rickyriot 1009]

The config file is your friend, I use that rather than the in game GUI.

Go to your documents folder, find the DayZ folder, and open up the yourname.DayZProfile file (changing yourname to the name you use for the game), then look for the following lines..

 

sceneComplexity=xxx;

shadowZDistance=xxx;

viewDistance=xxx;

preferredObjectViewDistance=xxx;

 

Push them as high as your FPS will allow and you'll find, like Jimmy Cliff, "you can see clearly".

[ErichZann 28]

 

The config file is your friend, I use that rather than the in game GUI.

Go to your documents folder, find the DayZ folder, and open up the yourname.DayZProfile file (changing yourname to the name you use for the game), then look for the following lines..

 

sceneComplexity=xxx;

shadowZDistance=xxx;

viewDistance=xxx;

preferredObjectViewDistance=xxx;

 

Push them as high as your FPS will allow and you'll find, like Jimmy Cliff, "you can see clearly".

 

So, explain us, why dont you see a player then sometimes at 500m, if the viewDistance is set to 2000m, and the ObjectViewDistance to 1200m?

[zeroy 240]

Im not 100% sure but I think players are treated differently in the rendering process as the rest of the objects/terrain. The factor that determines the visibility of the other players is bound to what people in Arma engine call the "network bubble" - this is a bubble radius where information on players and their position is known to you the player. You can easily imagine that it wouldn't be possible to have a network bubble too big or the amount of info to bring to the player at every tick would be considerable. 

 

So maybe it isn't so much to do with the graphical option of quality (you may have noticed that low/normal settings graphics aren't even different) but more to do with this network bubble - we don't know how it works and how big it is however. This would explain what's been noticed:

 

So, explain us, why dont you see a player then sometimes at 500m, if the viewDistance is set to 2000m, and the ObjectViewDistance to 1200m?

 

Edited February 18, 2014 by zeroy99

[rickyriot 1009]

So, explain us, why dont you see a player then sometimes at 500m, if the viewDistance is set to 2000m, and the ObjectViewDistance to 1200m?

 

It's a mix of all sorts of things, and I am certainly no expert, however I have never had any problems regarding seeing players and/or zombies.

[ErichZann 28]

Im not 100% sure but I think players are treated differently in the rendering process as the rest of the objects/terrain. The factor that determines the visibility of the other players is bound to what people in Arma engine call the "network bubble" - this is a bubble radius where information on players and their position is known to you the player. You can easily imagine that it wouldnt be possible to have a network bubble too big or the amount of info to bring to the player at every tick would be considerable. 

 

So maybe it isnt so much to do with the graphical option of quality (you may have noticed that low/normal settings graphics arent even different) but more to do with this network bubble - we dont know how it works and how big it is however.

 

Hm yeah that could be one factor, but there seems to be an issue with models sometimes only rendering partly (you only see head and arms for example), which would be a bit weird in that context. My friend has this, we are looking at each other from a distance, I see him completely, he only sees me partly, and we have the same settings for the two ViewDistances in the config, so its clearly not (only) due to that. Could be that the SceneComplexity (ingame setting: Objects) has an influence, but this would be rather bad, because in cities many people need this low, otherwise it will kill the CPU... All in all, looks like a strange design and another engine issue for me.

[rickyriot 1009]

Could be that the SceneComplexity (ingame setting: Objects) has an influence, but this would be rather bad, because in cities many people need this low, otherwise it will kill the CPU... 

 

Problem is you can't have it both ways. Large distance viewing when you need it and short when you don't. If you expect to see a player 1000m away in the countryside then you should expect to see a player 1000m away in the city, just that with the city you need to render all the buildings in the scene as well with that level of clarity.

[ErichZann 28]

Well, Zombies are for example not influenced by the objects setting, so I guess player models dont have to be either... And just because I want buildings etc rendered with less detail (since the engine works horrible in cities, rendering all kind of stuff I cant even see because its behind a wall etc), that does not have to mean that players just disappear after a few hundred meters i think.

[Highlander007 249]

So, what's the consensus, what do I have to increase in the cfg file to see players a kilometer away?

[ErichZann 28]

Not really a consensus yet, but for me it looks most likely its the "Objects" setting in the ingame menu (SceneComplexity in cfg) that makes the difference, but have to test that later on... Since some people experience this differently, it could also be a bit bugged and not always reproducable...

[TEST_SUBJECT_83 465]

This is not helpful, since it does not really relate to the problem mentioned earlier. If your DrawDistances are set to at least 1000m or above, how can that explain that models of players in maybe 400m are not rendered? I have not seen any effect of this setting on player model rendering. Terrain grid is the ingame seeting "Terrain" i assume? For some reason, that setting does not change anything for me, neither quality wise not fps wise, does it make a difference for anyone?

 

Well if you look at the pictures above you see the problem the OP had is partly due to objects distance.

If you have your objects below normal you will have trouble seeing player passed a certain point.

 

Now the guide I linked shows you were to tweak "object" distance hence making objects render farther away, and since player view distance is tied to objects,

then one can assume changing your object view distance may help.

[ErichZann 28]

Well if you look at the pictures above you see the problem the OP had is partly due to objects distance.

If you have your objects below normal you will have trouble seeing player passed a certain point.

 

Now the guide I linked shows you were to tweak "object" distance hence making objects render farther away, and since player view distance is tied to objects,

then one can assume changing your object view distance may help.

 

Well, yeah in a way, but it should be made clear that this "Objects" setting you are referring to, is the SceneComplexity setting in the config. It has nothing to do with the PreferredObjectViewDistance in the config. So we should not try to mix up all these different settings, which are also called differently ingame and in the config (or dont even exist ingame partly).

 

And the "Object" setting ingame should normally define the Object detail (hence the name SceneComplexity in the cfg), and not the distance it is rendered at, that why its all a bit strange. Even the name SceneComplexity tells it should influence the Scene (Trees, bushes, buildings, ...) and not player models, but well...