Did patch 1.1 mess with the LOD Distance?

[SigilFey]

I think we shouldn't derail this thread too much, if you guys want to discuss ini tweaks we should do it here:

INI/Settings Tweak(s)

Over at PCGamingWiki I noticed somehone dumped many (all?) possible INI values on pastebin. I had a look over those values and made a mental note of those that were interesting. Currently, the first one I stumbled over was this one: [RayTracing/BottomLevelCache] Budget = 209715200...

forums.cdprojektred.com

That's a good idea, actually. I'll leave the conversation that exists here where it is, though, just so that people in the thread already know where it went.

 

[backtron]

So yeah - draw distance for lighting especially needs an update and improvement.

It's interesting that at distance the light goes out completely. AFAIK most polygons drawn by GPU can have their own basic "brightness". Why not use it to simulate illumination in distance? You don't need shadows and bump maps far away. Take e.g. road under street lamps - set it to some static brightness value, add flare sprites to simulate lamps and voila!

nothing to do with any patch

Correct. It was to illustrate my point that the effects observed by people are not necessarily due to changes in settings, engine LOD handling, their machine but just basic model and texture errors present in very specific places. Maybe they visited such place only after update, that's why it might seem like reduction in LOD distance if previously they. e.g. saw doors or containers in completely different location.

(Image source :

)

 

[LeKill3rFou]

Correct. It was to illustrate my point that the effects observed by people are not necessarily due to changes in settings, engine LOD handling, their machine but just basic model and texture errors present in very specific places. Maybe they visited such place only after update, that's why it might seem like reduction in LOD distance if previously they. e.g. saw doors or containers in completely different location.

Yep there are some places like that, where even the world can completely disappear (since day one). But if you haven't found them prior to 1.3, you could think it's new or that something have changed
Like here

[Save corruption] Textures Disappearing

Update: I've edited the title of this thread because I'm still not sure weither the issue has been caused by .ini tweaks or in another way. (Old title: .ini-Tweaks Got Stuck to Save Files) If a person is experiencing a similar issue, they're now invited to use this thread even if there hasn't...

forums.cdprojektred.com

There is another spot like that in WellSpring (very tiny spot).

 

[Azulath]

Correct. It was to illustrate my point that the effects observed by people are not necessarily due to changes in settings, engine LOD handling, their machine but just basic model and texture errors present in very specific places. Maybe they visited such place only after update, that's why it might seem like reduction in LOD distance if previously they. e.g. saw doors or containers in completely different location.

As I have mentioned a few times, please report places like these so CDPR can fix those bugs.

 

[SigilFey]

Correct. It was to illustrate my point that the effects observed by people are not necessarily due to changes in settings, engine LOD handling, their machine but just basic model and texture errors present in very specific places. Maybe they visited such place only after update, that's why it might seem like reduction in LOD distance if previously they. e.g. saw doors or containers in completely different location.

Ehhh...kind of. No game is truly "seamless" open-world. It's just an illusion. At any given moment, only tiny portions of the gameworld are actually loaded. What "seamless" means is: rather than loading in an entire area (ala. Bioware games in which all assets for a given area are loaded or at least cached at the same time, then those individual areas are separated by loading screens), a "seamless" open world needs an engine to call for assets as needed, constantly streaming assets in and out of RAM. Depending on hardware and software differences, getting the right bit to stream in at the right moment in the right order while the player is constantly changing inputs with controls can be tricky. Needs to be tweaked and tweaked over time.

So, it's not always a matter of the game having the "wrong" bits of info loaded -- it's the game needing, more or less, to predict what the player is doing and what they're likely to see next, then having those assets cached. If the hardware or drivers interpret the game's calls differently, or if the player does something unexpected or unusual, the game needs to quickly cull the assets it cached, cache the new ones, then draw that as fast as possible to the screen.

^ That's where the balancing act comes in, trying to manage such an engine.

For example, your suggestion about using glow map textures for distant lights -- it's normally too much contrast. Works fine for games like Breath of the Wild or Borderlands that go for a cartoony, cell-shaded approach. But realistic distant lighting needs to appear diffused to look right, so it requires its own LoD assets. A flat texture glow map creates such a stark brightness at range that it's usually too much.

 

[Batak]

So, using cp77tools I managed to extract "basegame_1_engine.archive" from "Cyberpunk 2077\archive\pc\content", trying to find anything related to LOD config.
After extraction, I found the following folder, and file "basegame_1_engine\engine\systems\visual_controller_lod_distances.json ".

Now, this file is .json, and only 2 kb in size, but maybe there could be some game engine commands related to LOD inside. The only problem is that when opening it, there are a bunch of NULL values.

The only text I could read from this file with a notepad++ were those:
ECookingPlatform PLATFORM_PC root handle:ISerializable entDistanceLODsPresets definitions static:4,entLODDefinition backgroundDistanceLODs static:4,Float regularDistanceLODs cinematicDistanceLODs vehicleDistanceLODs cinematicVehicleDistanceLODs vehicleInteriorDistanceLODs largeVehicleInteriorDistanceLODs consoleDistanceLODs

I'm no modder, but does anyone have any idea if this json file could be modified for LOD or if .archive files from game location contains anything of value related to game engine streaming, rendering ?

 

[SigilFey]

So, using cp77tools I managed to extract "basegame_1_engine.archive" from "Cyberpunk 2077\archive\pc\content", trying to find anything related to LOD config.
After extraction, I found the following folder, and file "basegame_1_engine\engine\systems\visual_controller_lod_distances.json ".
View attachment 11253568

Now, this file is .json, and only 2 kb in size, but maybe there could be some game engine commands related to LOD inside. The only problem is that when opening it, there are a bunch of NULL values.

The only text I could read from this file with a notepad++ were those:
ECookingPlatform PLATFORM_PC root handle:ISerializable entDistanceLODsPresets definitions static:4,entLODDefinition backgroundDistanceLODs static:4,Float regularDistanceLODs cinematicDistanceLODs vehicleDistanceLODs cinematicVehicleDistanceLODs vehicleInteriorDistanceLODs largeVehicleInteriorDistanceLODs consoleDistanceLODs

I'm no modder, but does anyone have any idea if this json file could be modified for LOD or if .archive files from game location contains anything of value related to game engine streaming, rendering ?

Possible, but this would not be the thread to have this discussion. Go ahead and post about it here:

MODS

forums.cdprojektred.com

I'll leave the comment you've made in this thread for sake of reference.

 

[Azulath]

So, using cp77tools I managed to extract "basegame_1_engine.archive" from "Cyberpunk 2077\archive\pc\content", trying to find anything related to LOD config.
After extraction, I found the following folder, and file "basegame_1_engine\engine\systems\visual_controller_lod_distances.json ".
View attachment 11253568

Now, this file is .json, and only 2 kb in size, but maybe there could be some game engine commands related to LOD inside. The only problem is that when opening it, there are a bunch of NULL values.

The only text I could read from this file with a notepad++ were those:
ECookingPlatform PLATFORM_PC root handle:ISerializable entDistanceLODsPresets definitions static:4,entLODDefinition backgroundDistanceLODs static:4,Float regularDistanceLODs cinematicDistanceLODs vehicleDistanceLODs cinematicVehicleDistanceLODs vehicleInteriorDistanceLODs largeVehicleInteriorDistanceLODs consoleDistanceLODs

I'm no modder, but does anyone have any idea if this json file could be modified for LOD or if .archive files from game location contains anything of value related to game engine streaming, rendering ?

Please go ahead like @SigilFey suggested and create a thread there, but also link it here please.

 

[Batak]

Possible, but this would not be the thread to have this discussion. Go ahead and post about it here:

MODS

forums.cdprojektred.com

I'll leave the comment you've made in this thread for sake of reference.

Thanks, I posted a more advanced finding in the modding section:
Reference: https://forums.cdprojektred.com/index.php?threads/possible-lod-fix.11093773/