Ghesthar

I would be surprised if this was calculation, given the performance gain from lowering model quality all the way. Changing model render distance should have literally no impact on any sort of 'simulation-end' calculations - none of the visual effects should. In my opinion, there is either some incredible lack of optimization in the visual engine, or a complete failure to offload to the GPU.

I made an account just to contribute this. Performance is the only thing keeping me from spending money on these games. I don't care about graphics fidelity, these look perfectly reasonable. The gameplay is good (always 'quality of life' and UI improvements, but completely managable), the features are great.. but my computer is not ancient, and I get massive control lag, framerate drops to basically nothing, and more than enough other performance and performance-related quality of life issues that I am find these too frustrating to stick with. I want to love these games, I want to buy them, but I can't convince myself to spend the money only because of performance. This is compounded by reading other comments in this thread which say that the developers don't think performance is an issue. I don't want hundreds of frames per second, I don't want anything out of line, I just want a smooth(er) experience. Just know that there is at least one person who would be converted to a sale if this was improved.