increasing the Level of detail

[mbarbaric]

hello,

i find it quite restrictive how the level of detail disappears as you zoom out of the battlefield. and frankly, it looks quite ugly not having trees or ground detail on the far side of the map. 

I have all the details on max but i find this still not enough. I wonder if someone knows if there is a way to force the game to use more generous levels of detail?

 

Thanks!

[KungFuTreachery]

I agree, this is very annoying. The other end of the map itself will literally disappear on the largest maps at certain angles.

[MikeyD]

The counter-intuitive solution is to DECREASE your quality settings. That would lower the burden on your graphics card and low rez distance LODs won't need to kick in so soon to compensate. Another thing to try - I do most of my playing at camera level 1 or 2. You're down in the weeds with the troops. When you play up high the detail goes away and your little vehicles look like toys.

[KungFuTreachery]

8 minutes ago, MikeyD said:

The counter-intuitive solution is to DECREASE your quality settings. That would lower the burden on your graphics card and low rez distance LODs won't need to kick in so soon to compensate. Another thing to try - I do most of my playing at camera level 1 or 2. You're down in the weeds with the troops. When you play up high the detail goes away and your little vehicles look like toys.

Decreasing quality settings does not make the roads stop cutting off or the trees stop disappearing at distance. The attached picture was taken on "balanced" - and I assure you my GTX 1080 is up to the challenge of drawing that highway texture across the entire map if it were allowed to do so.

"just don't zoom out" isn't a solution. You need to view the entire map to coordinate your operations and see what is going on. The detail needn't go away when I play high up, not to this extreme.

[Flibby]

Until the game engine gets completely redesigned in DirectX this is the best it's going to get

[mbarbaric]

1 hour ago, Flibby said:

Until the game engine gets completely redesigned in DirectX this is the best it's going to get

is that a fact? can someone confirm this? seems really strange that on 2080 the game looks like it is missing half of the map.

[HerrTom]

2 minutes ago, mbarbaric said:

is that a fact? can someone confirm this? seems really strange that on 2080 the game looks like it is missing half of the map.

Roads and railroads have always looked terrible for me (1070 here) in all CM games. I started experimenting with some massive maps a while back in CM:BS and came across the same issue of trees disappearing in the distance.  I'm not sure I buy the DirectX/OpenGL argument rather than it's a limitation on the CMx2 rendering engine that hasn't been addressed.  I would think it really hasn't been an issue until we started getting these (awesome) big maps in CM:CW.

[mbarbaric]

2 minutes ago, HerrTom said:

Roads and railroads have always looked terrible for me (1070 here) in all CM games. I started experimenting with some massive maps a while back in CM:BS and came across the same issue of trees disappearing in the distance.  I'm not sure I buy the DirectX/OpenGL argument rather than it's a limitation on the CMx2 rendering engine that hasn't been addressed.  I would think it really hasn't been an issue until we started getting these (awesome) big maps in CM:CW.

indeed. all ww2 titles have smaller maps and, while visible, it is not nearly as prominent as here. It seems the ground detail (grass) disappears 100m in distance and everything after that looks like those poker tables. really breaks immersion.

sometimes games have a file where you can edit technical details and make custom settings for these things. 

[MikeyD]

You play the game at that camera level? REALLY?

[HerrTom]

32 minutes ago, MikeyD said:

You play the game at that camera level? REALLY?

Not a lot, but I spend time way zoomed out all the time planning my battle at the start of the game or when a big change happens tactically in the battle (like a new column marching out of the woods). In particular, the disappearing trees is a big problem in figuring out where forests are on the big maps - but it even is a problem at ground level. Say I want to blow up this M901. Looks like a prime position to get some eyes on:

Edit: to note, since it's not clear from the pictures, they're taken from up on a hill at big zoom levels for clarity.

But nope, you can't see it. Why? You drive the camera forward quite a ways and suddenly trees sprout from the ground.

When planning my mission, I can't see any of the trees on the other half of the map from here. In reality, it's covered with trees.

Edited May 5, 2021 by HerrTom
Context

[CaptainTheDark]

I do a lot of checking and rechecking, maybe too much. I wish I could assign keyboard and/or mouse controls to the Up/Down movement that's driven by the mousewheel. I've got no way to emulate that, but plenty of keys not bound to anything. It would make life within the game's render box easier.

I'm using a Mac that was built for video editing, and it handles these graphics just fine, as far as I can tell. I was more surprised by the way nearby objects are clipped when the camera comes close (I love zooming in on an in-flight rocket, then unpausing and watching it zoom, that kinda thing).

[LukeFF]

7 hours ago, mbarbaric said:

is that a fact? can someone confirm this? seems really strange that on 2080 the game looks like it is missing half of the map.

Yes, it's true. This game engine was designed ages ago, when computer hardware wasn't neary as powerful, so we're stuck with it until something better comes along.

Edited May 6, 2021 by LukeFF

[mbarbaric]

thanks for this. then nothing can be done and I can stop obsessing about it and keep playing the game as is.

[zmoney]

17 hours ago, CaptainTheDark said:

 (I love zooming in on an in-flight rocket, then unpausing and watching it zoom, that kinda thing).

Lol this is one of my favorite things to do as well, I feel like a toddler. Glad to see I’m not the only one.

 

It seems as if this rendering issue is worse with CMCW than with any other title. I have noticed it in other games but CMCW is next level, I just figured it had to do with some of the other graphical errors being ironed out.

[Lethaface]

The draw distance in CMCW seems very short indeed, I did notice with regard to ground textures mainly. But could just be the size of maps and forces.

[Kevin2k]

19 minutes ago, Lethaface said:

The draw distance in CMCW seems very short indeed, I did notice with regard to ground textures mainly. But could just be the size of maps and forces.

Or malfunctioning/absent lower detail models, which decreases the framerate, which makes the game engine compensate it by decreasing draw distance.

The situation with the lower detail models of this CMCW game is not that good. Not as good as the other CM games.

[akd]

21 minutes ago, Kevin2k said:

Or malfunctioning/absent lower detail models, which decreases the framerate, which makes the game engine compensate it by decreasing draw distance.

The situation with the lower detail models of this CMCW game is not that good. Not as good as the other CM games.

What is missing LoDs?

[IICptMillerII]

1 hour ago, zmoney said:

It seems as if this rendering issue is worse with CMCW than with any other title. I have noticed it in other games but CMCW is next level, I just figured it had to do with some of the other graphical errors being ironed out.

It’s because the maps in CMCW are, on average, larger than most other CM titles. So you will notice the effect more in CW, but it is the same in every CM game. 

[AlexUK]

Really suffering from this too. Maps seem great, but I mainly see featureless low detail. 

 

Fact I got slaughtered in first NTC mission probably didn't help.... 

[Kevin2k]

2 minutes ago, akd said:

What is missing LoDs?

What is the question exactly?

M60 tank series - malfunctioning LODs, seemingly untested properly.

US infantry - malfunctioning LODs, seemingly untested properly.

M16A1 rifle - no LODs, just a single main one. Rather odd since this one is everywhere.

Did not look any further yet, but this is indicative of, lets say 'structural negligence' of LODs. Like I said in the bugs thread, someone on the DEV-side should check all the newly introduced 3D models LODs.

I switched to messing with Fire & Rubble instead, for now, until there is a patch.

 

 

[domfluff]

12 minutes ago, AlexUK said:

Really suffering from this too. Maps seem great, but I mainly see featureless low detail. 

 

Fact I got slaughtered in first NTC mission probably didn't help.... 

"Wow, these NTC maps are a barren wasteland"
"Well, I was *supposed* to have a Combined arms company"

[Kevin2k]

1 hour ago, akd said:

What is missing LoDs?

Let me add this:

I don't have to tell you which distance-lods are present or missing in any CM game. Just extract all mdr files in the brz archives and make a list of them.

About them malfunctioning, or their effect on frame-rate, it is very hard to check as an end user. There are no functions available in the game to check this, so it is all just anecdotal observations from people with less powerful Graphics cards. There needs to be something to debug this on the dev-side, maybe there already is, but the CMCW team hasn't used it for sure

 

 

[mbarbaric]

8 minutes ago, Kevin2k said:

Let me add this:

I don't have to tell you which distance-lods are present or missing in any CM game. Just extract all mdr files in the brz archives and make a list of them.

About them malfunctioning, or their effect on frame-rate, it is very hard to check as an end user. There are no functions available in the game to check this, so it is all just anecdotal observations from people with less powerful Graphics cards. There needs to be something to debug this on the dev-side, maybe there already is, but the CMCW team hasn't used it for sure

 

 

actually, you can check the distance where the detail disappears if you use target command. For me, the grass disappears at about 100m from the point of view at about ground level. didn't check other details (trees, roads) nor considered how the height might influence the LoD.

Edited May 6, 2021 by mbarbaric

[IICptMillerII]

3 minutes ago, Kevin2k said:

There needs to be something to debug this on the dev-side, maybe there already is, but the CMCW team hasn't used it for sure

You’re wrong. And being antagonistic does not help anyone or anything, especially yourself. 
 

The LOD issues are being addressed in the first patch. In fact, I believe as of right now most of them are fixed. 
 

The reason the game shipped with them is because, for techno wizardry reasons I will never understand, when the final release candidate was built, something caused some LODs to get a little wonky. We figured that it was not worth delaying the release of a game for a minor graphical issue that has no effect on gameplay, and only occurs on certain models and in lower graphics settings. 
 

I think we made the right call. The response to Cold War has been overwhelmingly positive. And I think BFC hitting a release target has been very positive as well. Further, most feedback on bugs has been very polite and professional, and I think we have done a good job of responding and addressing these issues. A patch is being worked on as we speak that will fix these issues, and some other issues that were the result of very constructive feedback. 

[mbarbaric]

1 minute ago, IICptMillerII said:

You’re wrong. And being antagonistic does not help anyone or anything, especially yourself. 
 

The LOD issues are being addressed in the first patch. In fact, I believe as of right now most of them are fixed. 
 

The reason the game shipped with them is because, for techno wizardry reasons I will never understand, when the final release candidate was built, something caused some LODs to get a little wonky. We figured that it was not worth delaying the release of a game for a minor graphical issue that has no effect on gameplay, and only occurs on certain models and in lower graphics settings. 
 

I think we made the right call. The response to Cold War has been overwhelmingly positive. And I think BFC hitting a release target has been very positive as well. Further, most feedback on bugs has been very polite and professional, and I think we have done a good job of responding and addressing these issues. A patch is being worked on as we speak that will fix these issues, and some other issues that were the result of very constructive feedback. 

great to hear that was a technical issue and being worked on already.