Patch 2.0 having WORSE draw distance than vanilla on some items even with a value of 50 like invisible barrier walls with visible barbed wire at a close distance. Deleting the INI file fixed it.
Definitely a nice looking mod, but I also have some audio issues, and something else which may or may not have to do with this mod- I have the GTA fast travel mod installed, and when I fast traveled to Lizzie's bar the outside walls and all the doors were transparent and there was some weird occlusion culling or something going on. It was very strange.
I've set the value on 100 and it helped.. a little bit. Now the ad signs, cars, crowds and etc are popping not so close as in vanilla, but still it's noticable.
I've been testing INI settings and found that DistanceBoost not only improves the image quality of objects at a distance but also makes them 'pop in' less and further away. But not for all objects, certain things like numbers on a freight container or a sticker/decal on a barrel aren't affected, and by all accounts, lights.
Something I have found that affects some lights at a distance is MinStreamingDistance via what I imagine is a brute force method. It doesn't seem to affect the same things as DistanceBoost, which is odd. Some people reported issues setting MinStreamingDistance above 50, problematic lights only went away for me around 60/65, though.
What I am using right now: [Streaming] DistanceBoost = 40.000000 MinStreamingDistance = 75.000000
Still trying to figure out what affects certain decals and lights in certain places. You would think it would be DecalsHideDistance or DynamicDecalsHideDistance but it is not.
Please, keep us updated. Even with the mod, today I've noticed some bridges pops up\disappears right above me. Afaik there were no such problems with the first versions, but CDPR decreased LoD draw distance with first patches, is it true? I've played only around 20 hours so far, the draw distance was stopping me from playing earlier, but as for now I have nothing to play and I've decided to give it a shot.
The only settings I've tested with bridges so far is the extreme values above, I don't know if those are good for everyday use, still testing things. Note that while the bridges/overpasses in question still have issues where they will disappear occasionaly mid way to them, but they are seeable generally speaking from much further way.
Here are the default values of the above ini settings according to CET/CyberEngineTweaks:
I am assuming the editor variants are used for photo mode? Or possibly only when viewing the world with a modding/dev tool? Unclear.
Edit 2: After further testing the above appears to be incorrect and my testing methodology was flawed, but your mileage may vary. The rest (non struck through) still stands after double-checking my work.
Seem to affect how many light nodes are allowed in one scene? Turning them down to 1 also made certain things fail to render at their full resolution/model/LOD in a timely manner after running to a new area and made certain light fixtures, the entire lamp in fact, never render at all no matter how close I got. So they too help with reducing pop in if you increase the values above their default, which are:
Update: The max nodes settings simply allow scenes to be more or less complex, the more complex they are the harder they are to run, and the more likely you are to see pop in if say the TimeLimit settings are too forgiving (high in value).
The editor variant which oddly enough is under Streaming and not Streaming/Editor and don't be confused by the Editor in the settings name, it's part of it's name not where it is supposed to go: [2022-10-25 06:16:39 UTC-04:00] [info] [HookGameOptionInit] Streaming/EditorThrottledMaxNodesPerFrame = 500
The testing continues, perhaps I shall one day actually play :D
Edit:
Oh and I forgot that changing RadiusNearInvMult to 1.00000 instead of 0.9999/whatever the value is here helps with 2D pop in for some reason at extreme distances. Notably with cars and traffic, where you would see cars coming down the road, but not up it, save for ones that would blink into and out of existence in the same spot, this made 2D cars show going up and down. Weird.
Would you be able to post your full ini edits when your methodology testing phases are finished?.
I cannot for the life of me trust the current mod results, since CPU optimisations thread by mod author of CPU tweaks/optimisations states that Maxnodesperframe claim that it shouldn't go higher than 500, yet draw distance boost mod has both set to 99999. (it makes me feel like someone has it wrong and hasn't correct their notes on their end).
Please, keep us updated. Even with the mod, today I've noticed some bridges pops up\disappears right above me. Afaik there were no such problems with the first versions, but CDPR decreased LoD draw distance with first patches, is it true?
I played around launch for a bit and I recall the issue with bridges/overpasses from then. I can't speak for other things.
Would you be able to post your full ini edits when your methodology testing phases are finished?.
I cannot for the life of me trust the current mod results, since CPU optimisations thread by mod author of CPU tweaks/optimisations states that Maxnodesperframe claim that it shouldn't go higher than 500, yet draw distance boost mod has both set to 99999. (it makes me feel like someone has it wrong and hasn't correct their notes on their end).
I can do that. Some notes though, this mod, the Draw Distance mod, just adds/modifies two vanilla settings, DistanceBoost and RadiusNearInvMult. What I was speaking of were my personal changes/additions.
I recall the mod author of that optimization mod making some kind of statement like that, but that mod is to make the game run better, not to fix issues with pop in which make the game harder to run (more demanding). And by all accounts the maxnode settings appear to make the game harder to run, exactly how I am not sure, on some tests (for other things) I noticed it hit my VRAM fairly hard, others my physical memory, I haven't done dedicated tests on this specific aspect of those particular settings but just things I noticed as I was testing other things but the data could have influenced by other aspects of my tests and not specifically those settings.
Currently as 98% sure of what I want to go with for my next playthrough:
Some notes on these settings, DistanceBoost has been maligned at being over a certain point (40/42/50/20 depending on who you ask) will cause everything from flickering on terrain (just terrain by my experience) to save corruption/broken quests.
I can attest that going over 25-28 creates flickering in long range scenes where the DistanceBoost ends, and we have been told if certain other INI tweaks are applied the affect is exacerbated, although I only noticed one do this:
Whatever this does, it sucks, don't use it. I had to go down to DistanceBoost of 5 to get it to stop flickering with no tangible change in anything.
As for save corruption in the early design of the game after release apparently INI settings/changes were saved in your save file, and this could cause issues, this is no longer the case. As for broken quests, I think a lot of those instances were from people using mods that might have DistanceBoost changes in them but alongside reductions to the maximum streaming distance and also height, which were really what bugged those quests out. However I cannot be quiet sure of this and I have done a few quests and had no issues that I saw. But I think the issues were mainly quests involving car chases/long car rides, which I have not tested yet.
I matched my DistanceBoost setting with my MinStreamingDistance setting as they both can affect the same item but in different ways. So for example MinStreamingDistance makes lamp fixtures (but not necessarily the totality of the light they emit) appear further away but not the pole they are standing on, which is where DistanceBoost comes in. However from what I can tell, DistanceBoost is far more finicky with causing graphical glitches upon very specifically where the setting's distance ends. Arguably setting it higher makes this less noticeable as it's less likely to be viewable in the city (Badlands might be the opposite since you can see a long ways) however regardless if you set it too high, the whole world sort of disappears save for certain objects. I noticed this going over 100 for the setting.
Edit 2:
I chose the number 75 for DistanceBoost and MinStreamingDistance based on one particular light near all foods that was popping out of existance below 60 streaming fairly obviously, 65 was less noticeable, 70 was basically good to go and then I just gave it an extra 5 considering other situations with longer view distances it would need a little more. Take note as you encroach 100 you are encroaching other settings in the game, some changeable some not, that being so close to them is very potentially a problem in regards to causing issues like world disappearing/etc. Most likely this is because are you pushing for parts of the world to be rendered past other settings that say "don't render s*** here" basically and this causes issues.
Edit 3:
For DecalsHideDistance and DynamicDecalsHideDistance, from what I can tell, setting these too high is a waste of VRAM, they are more than likely similar to the unit distance measurements used by MinStreaming and DistanceBoost and 100 is more than enough considering what something like 75 is on those other settings. I have seen mods setting these to things like 400/200, I struggle to see what these even affect, might do more testing here.
Edit 4:
As for the absence of certain tweaks, like MaxStreamingDistance, the default value for it is absurdly high, and I know how much 75 is from my tests with the minimum version of this setting, the max version is default 26,000 plus. I have to think that at no point will you notice or gain anything increasing this, only break your game by decreasing it to something that will break a car chase quest, or even possibly increasing it too for that matter.
The next gen shadows mod doubles this setting, I am not sure why, maybe to make really far away shadows visible? I doubt it, though, as the settings for that, even in his mod, do not go out that far, no way. I'd wager to say that 26K in this unit size might be the whole game map, possibly. Then again that mod actually has a lot of non shadow based changes in the INI file, that I think he was just too lazy to extract his personal tweaks from his shadow tweaks mod.
Edit 5:
I am also not likely to use the MaxNodesPerFrame settings as I am just not sure what they actually do to make a confident change. Even more so for the TimeLimitAttachingPerFrame type settings.
My current guess for the TimeLimit settings do is that basically it is telling your system to have X ready by Y time or we do Z. And the issue is I don't know what Z or even X is. It's obviously related to streaming, but my understanding of that, other than it limits what is shown/rendering is fairly small.
Edit 1:
Oh and the DissolveTime change is about anti pop in, too, namely when you have just loaded a save, or go to a place just a little too fast/where the game really thought you weren't going to end up and didn't have a lot of time preparing this and is still in the 500ms 'dissolve time' phase and things very near you just kind of... pop in. This however affects most things, so setting it to 0 can make transitions for LOD/Mesh levels more jarring and noticeable when you move closer and further away from the object the lower the setting goes. The higher it goes the more 'pop in' that happens. Setting it to ridiculously high levels like 10 whole seconds and things will not pop in but 'fade in', comically.
Edit 6:
I have found that PrecacheDistance under streaming can also affect lights, however it does not affect things like fans/AC units on buildings like MinStreamingDistance does and it also seems to carry more of a resource cost for VRAM and RAM. That said, where it might take MinStreamingDistance a value of 75 to affect a light, PrecacheDistance can do it at a value of 37.5 for example. I am not sure I see a reason to use it compared to MinStreamingDistance, more testing required. *scribbles in journal*
Edit 7/Final Update:
After some testing, DistanceBoost operates a bit more differently than say MinStreaming or even PreCacheDistance, essentially it affects things different near, mid and long distance, and not in the same way. It has issues where it will make certain lamp fixtures (those unaffected by MinStreaming/PreCache) appear further away, however to get the pole to show up, you have to increase the number further... which has a good chance of making another lamp fixture even further away appear without a pole as well. So I've opted just to keep this at it's least buggy value I have found, which is 15.
Furthermore I deduced that a PreCache value of 25 is roughly equivalent to a value of 75 for MinStreaming in regards to the light fixtures they both seem to affect. Also, it is more clear to me how the TimeLimit and MaxNode settings work, basically they exist to limit the complexity of a scene if your system is having a hard time loading it in or is suffering from poor performance. So basically your machine is given times, if it fails to meet the specific demands in those times the scene is reduce in complexity, and junk/lights/other things are not loaded to make it easier to handle. I settled on values for this that match the Editor values, which I am fairly certain is for the PhotoMode in the game, to make them the same as the default value for the rest of the game, so it can look as good as the PhotoMode does. Which is a far more conservative approach to what most people put these settings at.
My rig setup (as I think it definitely plays a part in how these things can or cannot break things): i9 9900K 5.0ghz (OC) RTX 3080 10GB 16GB of 3200mhz DDR4 SATA SSD
This setting can also affect lights at a distance with some caveats: [Streaming] PrecacheDistance = 0.000000
However it does not affect things like fans/AC units on buildings like MinStreamingDistance does and it also seems to carry more of a resource cost for VRAM and RAM. That said, where it might take MinStreamingDistance a value of 75 to affect a light, PrecacheDistance can do it at a value of 37.5 for example. I am not sure I see a reason to use it compared to MinStreamingDistance, more testing required.
Edit/Update: MinStreamingDistance does not affect Fans/AC units like I thought, it was just the game being iffy with LOD (sort of a known issue) on a couple of reloads that just happened to coincide with me changing the minStreamingDistance. Still investigating exactly what PrecacheDistance and MinStreamingDistance affect, more so the first. I am still betting minstreaming is the better deal, but we'll see.
Also, @Qweqwew mentioned issues with overpasses, at least one I observed having pop in/out like mentioned in the known issue description of this mod page, and is doubly confirmed to be an issue with using too high of a DistanceBoost, in my case anything over 15 caused it to happen. Basically visible up close and at a great distance but a short middle section in-between the two it would pop out of existence and the trains would appear to fly, actually kind of cool.
All in all, that bug aside setting DistanceBoost higher resolves more pop in issues than it causes by a mile.
Yeah, the Maxnodes lines kinda set off some red flags for me, which is why I tested with the authors "99999" setting and then their theoretical "500", but neither produced good results and felt like negative gains than positive, which is why I stopped using that general opt ini file altogether and am now focusing on this distance boost one atm myself.
Also bit random, but Is wear I saw someone somewhere on here state that Minstreaming/Maxstreaming distance modifiers clashed with some in-game missions, so I take it those were fixed to allow for those 2 lines to be used now? (just asking out of curiosity).
[Streaming/Culling/AutoHideDistanceNear]
I'm so glad I'm not the only one that noticed when this was set to True, that it gave issues, I thought I was losing the plot when I was telling ppl over on Reddit that it was doing the opposite, and ppl were telling me differently.
btw, do we still have to create separate ini files for each edit?. Someone on another streaming boost mod claimed that the game apparently reads only the first set of lines and not all the rest in the ini files, but that makes no sense to me, as all other games that feature or have features ini files, read every single line (Skyrim and F4 for prime examples read every line in each ini).
Yeah, the Maxnodes lines kinda set off some red flags for me, which is why I tested with the authors "99999" setting and then their theoretical "500", but neither produced good results and felt like negative gains than positive, which is why I stopped using that general opt ini file altogether and am now focusing on this distance boost one atm myself.
Also bit random, but Is wear I saw someone somewhere on here state that Minstreaming/Maxstreaming distance modifiers clashed with some in-game missions, so I take it those were fixed to allow for those 2 lines to be used now? (just asking out of curiosity).
[Streaming/Culling/AutoHideDistanceNear]
I'm so glad I'm not the only one that noticed when this was set to True, that it gave issues, I thought I was losing the plot when I was telling ppl over on Reddit that it was doing the opposite, and ppl were telling me differently.
btw, do we still have to create separate ini files for each edit?. Someone on another streaming boost mod claimed that the game apparently reads only the first set of lines and not all the rest in the ini files, but that makes no sense to me, as all other games that feature or have features ini files, read every single line (Skyrim and F4 for prime examples read every line in each ini).
I tested the INI thing, reads the whole file. Put very drastic changes that would be immediately noticeable if they weren't there at the bottom of the file, still worked.
Oh and 500 is the default for the editor mode for max node, which I think is the internal name for the photo mode, but I could be wrong.
I went with 500 myself, instead of larger values like 1000, 3000 or even the 9999+ I was testing earlier because the game is actually quite demanding and I have made a point of not messing with occlusion/culling for this reason and this particular feature is very close to that. Also it's kind of cool to think that scenes aren't exactly the same every time you go there.
And another big point about this is, if your system is having a really hard time loading a scene, and it's given an infinite amount of time to do it with high TimeLimit settings this will CREATE pop in, particularly if the max node setting has also been increased and the scene is quite complex. This is because only some of the scene is loaded/streamed when you first arrive, and it's still 'working on it' and loading it in, when it would otherwise have stopped and said this is the final product, no there was never a cup here before you are quite mistaken. lol
For the time limit settings I went with 12 for all of them which is the highest number I have seen the editor use... but it only uses that 1 setting. I think 12 is actually quite forgiving and I may lower this value to prevent pop in if it becomes an issue. This is a setting that is very dependent on your machine, and how fast it loads things. It makes me think an nvme SSD would be a great boost for this game, they're not even that expensive anymore... hmmm
After some testing, DistanceBoost operates a bit more differently than say MinStreaming or even PreCacheDistance, essentially it affects things different near, mid and long distance, and not in the same way. It has issues where it will make certain lamp fixtures (those unaffected by MinStreaming/PreCache) appear further away, however to get the pole to show up, you have to increase the number further... which has a good chance of making another lamp fixture even further away appear without a pole as well. So I've opted just to keep this at it's least buggy value I have found, which is 15. Furthermore I deduced that a PreCache value of 25 is roughly equivalent to a value of 75 for MinStreaming in regards to the light fixtures they both seem to affect.
Those extra decal settings I was really hoping would fix a number of the disappearing decals on barrels/metal draw door things but they don't. They don't appear to do anything but they can't really hurt either.
MaxOffscreenSimTime this keeps player created fires (burning bikes, etc) from disappearing too quickly when they are off-screen as far as I know. The value is measured in seconds.
I also went with PreCache and MinStreaming at about the same distance they each make that particular light near All Foods appear and it was about a 3 to 1 different in terms of value to get that to happen. Which might just be loading in unnecessary resources, possibly not. It is possible the precache loads in more to memory and thus reduce pop in (or it's just the placebo effect) because is has to do less calls to the data drive and it's sort of just happen stance that it makes lights appear further away.
It is also possible that is just a buggy dev only feature that I shouldn't be messing with. I guess I'll find out the hard way, but no issues so far in my cursory tests. Which consist of running around, pixel peeping, doing one particular quest and looking for NPC's glitching out/quests failing due to bugs, etc.
Edit:
I am considering returning the TimeLimit values to default (lower), and increasing MaxNode, that way if the scene is more complex and my machine can handle it, it will make it more complex with less pop in. Maybe with less pop in.
But there are just certain things that will always pop in, things that are not affected in away by any INI setting. Likely due to it being baked into their LOD or their meshes/models I am assuming.
Less related to pop-in tweaks I'll also be using for anyone interested:
EDIT: I have no idea why, but the animation setting I have here is getting garbled in the post, even though it shows fine in the edit post, anything referencing Java is garbled by NexusMods FYI. It's MAX FACIAL ANIMATIONS VISIBLE = 6 but without spaces save for the equal sign and the 6. [Animation] MaxFacialAnimatijavascript-event-stripped 6 [Crowd] MinStreamingVelocityNormalizedToBlockSpawn = 99999.000000 BaseParkedCarProbability = 1.000000 AppropriateMinDistToPlayer = 15.000000 DespawnLastSeenMinTime = 60.000000 [AI] EnableLowFPSDetection = false LOD0TickRate = 1 LOD1TickRate = 2 LOD2TickRate = 3 LOD3TickRate = 4 [Locomotion] SkippingAIRequestsEnabled = false [Traffic] UncrowdMultiLaneRoads = false
The AI LOD tick rates I am fairly certain is how often the NPC updates it's decision making based on how far away a civilian/crowd NPC is, so I lowered the values to make them more responsive. Initial testings show promise.
The minstreaming velocity setting basically lets the crowd spawn no matter how fast you are going so the city doesn't depopulate just because you got a case of the speedies.
Similarly the despawn setting was increased and should make them stick around more, too. And the min Distance to player is either how far away they are allowed to spawn or how far away they try to keep from the player to avoid collision, either way I want the number higher, so it was increased 50%.
Thanks for posting your findings! Have you noticed much of a performance loss with your settings? I have similar specs, although my 3080 (10 GB) is paired with an AMD 5900x.
Not much actually. The only time I have issues is in menus when my VRAM gets maxed out. Right now with this I sit around 7.3GB in low complexity areas and 8-9 in high ones @4k DLSS Ultra no RT. But the game does have a bit of a memory leak and eventually I have to restart if in a heavy scene if I want to use the inventory menu or the map. However I use a few texture upgrades as well that don't help with this. Apparently the menu/map lag problem was introduced in version 1.52, and CDPR is aware of it, ideally will be fixed in the next patch or hot fixed.
I was using RT with Balanced DLSS but it really seems to exacerbate the menu lag despite FPS in normal gameplay being fine.
I have a i7 10700k and 3090, dont notice any performance issues ( i use all the 4K textures of the "surface mod" btw), i don't care about VRAM utilisation :)
credit where it's due... these aren't half bad at all... bummer we can't just boost out that distance any further... it's the one thing that fixes everything but the things it breaks lol... will say rain effects are at an odd frame rate with all this, but as far as settling goes, I think this is bout as happy medium as I am gonna get and man I didn't expect chunking in some random list of INI settings some one else figured out on another machine with all manor of who knows what would actually be so comprehensive... (I learned the hard way to never trust that from ye old source engine lol)... but man if I can just get used to the blur a little bit, this might be a sweet spot.
Wounder if the rain is a unfixable side effect? runs at half framerate it seems, or something odd... I would throw in for the finer rain mod, but at this point my whole cyberpunk install is a rubegoldberg machine built from and on top of a jenga tower, and I haven't even finished the game yet lol... Told my self I would finally for real for real play out this save hell or high water lol...
Any chance of having a version of this list with default values? I have a ryz7 3700/ rtx3060ti Id like to bump up some things but dunno where to start. thx
Any chance of having a version of this list with default values? I have a ryz7 3700/ rtx3060ti Id like to bump up some things but dunno where to start. thx
I have just compared your settings against the standard-mod and your ones drastically decrease render distance. Even light sources are vanishing a couple of meters away. Above that, it even does not give any FPS improvements...
If you wanted to push it to its limits with no regard for performence what would every suggest to change in ini file. 4090 could now push this draw distance further maybe?
Thinking maybe we could add a max draw distance ini file for those who are after it.
The original description for the mod only mentions the DrawDistance setting. The latest file version says, "New tweak that improves advertisements changing visuals (lod changing)." Maybe it has something to do with that? That's only a guess, I don't know for sure.
408 comments
Thanks for your mod.
Something I have found that affects some lights at a distance is MinStreamingDistance via what I imagine is a brute force method. It doesn't seem to affect the same things as DistanceBoost, which is odd. Some people reported issues setting MinStreamingDistance above 50, problematic lights only went away for me around 60/65, though.
What I am using right now:
[Streaming]
DistanceBoost = 40.000000
MinStreamingDistance = 75.000000
Still trying to figure out what affects certain decals and lights in certain places. You would think it would be DecalsHideDistance or DynamicDecalsHideDistance but it is not.
I actually have news on the bridge pop up front, I have found that these settings under streaming can help with that:
TimeLimitAttachingPerFrame = 999.000000
TimeLimitSectorLoadPerFrame = 999.000000
TimeLimitSectorUnloadPerFrame = 999.000000
TimeLimitStreamedPerFrame = 999.000000
The only settings I've tested with bridges so far is the extreme values above, I don't know if those are good for everyday use, still testing things. Note that while the bridges/overpasses in question still have issues where they will disappear occasionaly mid way to them, but they are seeable generally speaking from much further way.
Here are the default values of the above ini settings according to CET/CyberEngineTweaks:
[2022-10-25 06:16:39 UTC-04:00] [info] [HookGameOptionInit] Streaming/TimeLimitAttachingPerFrame = 0.500000
[2022-10-25 06:16:39 UTC-04:00] [info] [HookGameOptionInit] Streaming/TimeLimitSectorLoadPerFrame = 2.000000
[2022-10-25 06:16:39 UTC-04:00] [info] [HookGameOptionInit] Streaming/TimeLimitSectorUnloadPerFrame = 1.000000
[2022-10-25 06:16:39 UTC-04:00] [info] [HookGameOptionInit] Streaming/TimeLimitStreamedPerFrame = 6.000000
[2022-10-25 06:16:39 UTC-04:00] [info] [HookGameOptionInit] Streaming/TimeLimitStreamedPerFrameWhileLoading = 8.000000
The editor variants:
[2022-10-25 06:16:39 UTC-04:00] [info] [HookGameOptionInit] Streaming/Editor/TimeLimitAttachingPerFrame = 10.000000
[2022-10-25 06:16:39 UTC-04:00] [info] [HookGameOptionInit] Streaming/Editor/TimeLimitDetachingPerFrame = 10.000000
[2022-10-25 06:16:39 UTC-04:00] [info] [HookGameOptionInit] Streaming/Editor/TimeLimitStreamedPerFrame = 12.000000
I am assuming the editor variants are used for photo mode? Or possibly only when viewing the world with a modding/dev tool? Unclear.
Edit 2: After further testing the above appears to be incorrect and my testing methodology was flawed, but your mileage may vary. The rest (non struck through) still stands after double-checking my work.
Also these settings:
EditorThrottledMaxNodesPerFrame = 99999
MaxNodesPerFrame = 99999
Seem to affect how many light nodes are allowed in one scene? Turning them down to 1 also made certain things fail to render at their full resolution/model/LOD in a timely manner after running to a new area and made certain light fixtures, the entire lamp in fact, never render at all no matter how close I got.
So they too help with reducing pop in if you increase the values above their default, which are:[2022-10-25 06:16:39 UTC-04:00] [info] [HookGameOptionInit] Streaming/MaxNodesPerFrame = 300
Update: The max nodes settings simply allow scenes to be more or less complex, the more complex they are the harder they are to run, and the more likely you are to see pop in if say the TimeLimit settings are too forgiving (high in value).
The editor variant which oddly enough is under Streaming and not Streaming/Editor and don't be confused by the Editor in the settings name, it's part of it's name not where it is supposed to go:
[2022-10-25 06:16:39 UTC-04:00] [info] [HookGameOptionInit] Streaming/EditorThrottledMaxNodesPerFrame = 500
The testing continues, perhaps I shall one day actually play :D
Edit:
Oh and I forgot that changing RadiusNearInvMult to 1.00000 instead of 0.9999/whatever the value is here helps with 2D pop
in for some reason at extreme distances. Notably with cars and traffic, where you would see cars coming down the road, but not up it,
save for ones that would blink into and out of existence in the same spot, this made 2D cars show going up and down. Weird.
I cannot for the life of me trust the current mod results, since CPU optimisations thread by mod author of CPU tweaks/optimisations states that Maxnodesperframe claim that it shouldn't go higher than 500, yet draw distance boost mod has both set to 99999. (it makes me feel like someone has it wrong and hasn't correct their notes on their end).
RadiusNearInvMult. What I was speaking of were my personal changes/additions.
I recall the mod author of that optimization mod making some kind of statement like that, but that mod is to make the game run better, not to fix issues with pop in which make the game harder to run (more demanding). And by all accounts the maxnode settings appear to make the game harder to run, exactly how I am not sure, on some tests (for other things) I noticed it hit my VRAM fairly hard, others my physical memory, I haven't done dedicated tests on this specific aspect of those particular settings but just things I noticed as I was testing other things but the data could have influenced by other aspects of my tests and not specifically those settings.
Currently as 98% sure of what I want to go with for my next playthrough:
UPDATED WITH FINAL RESULTS (MORE OR LESS):
[Streaming]
EditorThrottledMaxNodesPerFrame = 500
MaxNodesPerFrame = 500
TimeLimitAttachingPerFrame = 12.00000
TimeLimitSectorLoadPerFrame = 12.000000
TimeLimitSectorUnloadPerFrame = 12.000000
TimeLimitStreamedPerFrame = 12.000000
TimeLimitStreamedPerFrameWhileLoading = 12.000000
DistanceBoost = 15.000000
RadiusNearInvMult = 1.00000
MinStreamingDistance = 75.000000
PrecacheDistance = 25.000000
[Game]
MaxPlayingEffects = 32768
[Streaming/Culling/StaticDecals]
PosterDecalDistance = 75.000000
FlatDecalDistance = 75.000000
[LevelOfDetail]
DecalsHideDistance = 75.000000
DynamicDecalsHideDistance = 75.000000
[Rendering/Particles]
MaxOffscreenSimTime = 30.000000
[Rendering/Shadows]
CascadeRange0 = 12.000000
CascadeRange1 = 30.000000
CascadeRange2 = 75.000000
CascadeRange3 = 140.000000
[Rendering]
DissolveTime = 0.050000
Some notes on these settings, DistanceBoost has been maligned at being over a certain point (40/42/50/20 depending on who you ask) will cause everything from flickering on terrain (just terrain by my experience) to save corruption/broken quests.
I can attest that going over 25-28 creates flickering in long range scenes where the DistanceBoost ends, and we have been told if certain other INI tweaks are applied the affect is exacerbated, although I only noticed one do this:
[Streaming/Culling/AutoHideDistanceNear]
Enabled = false
Whatever this does, it sucks, don't use it. I had to go down to DistanceBoost of 5 to get it to stop flickering with no tangible change in anything.
As for save corruption in the early design of the game after release apparently INI settings/changes were saved in your save file, and this could cause issues, this is no longer the case. As for broken quests, I think a lot of those instances were from people using mods that might have DistanceBoost changes in them but alongside reductions to the maximum streaming distance and also height, which were really what bugged those quests out. However I cannot be quiet sure of this and I have done a few quests and had no issues that I saw. But I think the issues were mainly quests involving car chases/long car rides, which I have not tested yet.
I matched my DistanceBoost setting with my MinStreamingDistance setting as they both can affect the same item but in different ways. So for example MinStreamingDistance makes lamp fixtures (but not necessarily the totality of the light they emit) appear further away but not the pole they are standing on, which is where DistanceBoost comes in. However from what I can tell, DistanceBoost is far more finicky with causing graphical glitches upon very specifically where the setting's distance ends. Arguably setting it higher makes this less noticeable as it's less likely to be viewable in the city (Badlands might be the opposite since you can see a long ways) however regardless if you set it too high, the whole world sort of disappears save for certain objects. I noticed this going over 100 for the setting.
Edit 2:
I chose the number 75 for DistanceBoost and MinStreamingDistance based on one particular light near all foods that was popping out of existance below 60 streaming fairly obviously, 65 was less noticeable, 70 was basically good to go and then I just gave it an extra 5 considering other situations with longer view distances it would need a little more. Take note as you encroach 100 you are encroaching other settings in the game, some changeable some not, that being so close to them is very potentially a problem in regards to causing issues like world disappearing/etc. Most likely this is because are you pushing for parts of the world to be rendered past other settings that say "don't render s*** here" basically and this causes issues.
Edit 3:
For DecalsHideDistance and DynamicDecalsHideDistance, from what I can tell, setting these too high is a waste of VRAM, they are more than likely similar to the unit distance measurements used by MinStreaming and DistanceBoost and 100 is more than enough considering what something like 75 is on those other settings. I have seen mods setting these to things like 400/200, I struggle to see what these even affect, might do more testing here.
Edit 4:
As for the absence of certain tweaks, like MaxStreamingDistance, the default value for it is absurdly high, and I know how much 75 is from my tests with the minimum version of this setting, the max version is default 26,000 plus. I have to think that at no point will you notice or gain anything increasing this, only break your game by decreasing it to something that will break a car chase quest, or even possibly increasing it too for that matter.
The next gen shadows mod doubles this setting, I am not sure why, maybe to make really far away shadows visible? I doubt it, though, as the settings for that, even in his mod, do not go out that far, no way. I'd wager to say that 26K in this unit size might be the whole game map, possibly. Then again that mod actually has a lot of non shadow based changes in the INI file, that I think he was just too lazy to extract his personal tweaks from his shadow tweaks mod.
Edit 5:
I am also not likely to use the MaxNodesPerFrame settings as I am just not sure what they actually do to make a confident change. Even more so for the TimeLimitAttachingPerFrame type settings.
My current guess for the TimeLimit settings do is that basically it is telling your system to have X ready by Y time or we do Z. And the issue is I don't know what Z or even X is. It's obviously related to streaming, but my understanding of that, other than it limits what is shown/rendering is fairly small.
Edit 1:
Oh and the DissolveTime change is about anti pop in, too, namely when you have just loaded a save, or go to a place just a little too fast/where the game really thought you weren't going to end up and didn't have a lot of time preparing this and is still in the 500ms 'dissolve time' phase and things very near you just kind of... pop in. This however affects most things, so setting it to 0 can make transitions for LOD/Mesh levels more jarring and noticeable when you move closer and further away from the object the lower the setting goes. The higher it goes the more 'pop in' that happens. Setting it to ridiculously high levels like 10 whole seconds and things will not pop in but 'fade in', comically.
Edit 6:
I have found that PrecacheDistance under streaming can also affect lights, however it does not affect things like fans/AC units on buildings like MinStreamingDistance does and it also seems to carry more of a resource cost for VRAM and RAM. That said, where it might take MinStreamingDistance a value of 75 to affect a light, PrecacheDistance can do it at a value of 37.5 for example. I am not sure I see a reason to use it compared to MinStreamingDistance, more testing required. *scribbles in journal*
Edit 7/Final Update:
After some testing, DistanceBoost operates a bit more differently than say MinStreaming or even PreCacheDistance, essentially it affects things different near, mid and long distance, and not in the same way. It has issues where it will make certain lamp fixtures (those unaffected by MinStreaming/PreCache) appear further away, however to get the pole to show up, you have to increase the number further... which has a good chance of making another lamp fixture even further away appear without a pole as well. So I've opted just to keep this at it's least buggy value I have found, which is 15.
Furthermore I deduced that a PreCache value of 25 is roughly equivalent to a value of 75 for MinStreaming in regards to the light fixtures they both seem to affect. Also, it is more clear to me how the TimeLimit and MaxNode settings work, basically they exist to limit the complexity of a scene if your system is having a hard time loading it in or is suffering from poor performance. So basically your machine is given times, if it fails to meet the specific demands in those times the scene is reduce in complexity, and junk/lights/other things are not loaded to make it easier to handle. I settled on values for this that match the Editor values, which I am fairly certain is for the PhotoMode in the game, to make them the same as the default value for the rest of the game, so it can look as good as the PhotoMode does. Which is a far more conservative approach to what most people put these settings at.
My rig setup (as I think it definitely plays a part in how these things can or cannot break things):
i9 9900K 5.0ghz (OC)
RTX 3080 10GB
16GB of 3200mhz DDR4
SATA SSD
Please keep us updated on what you find :)
[Streaming]
PrecacheDistance = 0.000000
However it does not affect things like fans/AC units on buildings like MinStreamingDistance doesand it also seems to carry more of a resource cost for VRAM and RAM. That said, where it might take MinStreamingDistance a value of 75 to affect a light, PrecacheDistance can do it at a value of 37.5 for example. I am not sure I see a reason to use it compared to MinStreamingDistance, more testing required.Edit/Update: MinStreamingDistance does not affect Fans/AC units like I thought, it was just the game being iffy with LOD (sort of a known issue) on a couple of reloads that just happened to coincide with me changing the minStreamingDistance. Still investigating exactly what PrecacheDistance and MinStreamingDistance affect, more so the first. I am still betting minstreaming is the better deal, but we'll see.
Also, @Qweqwew mentioned issues with overpasses, at least one I observed having pop in/out like mentioned in the known issue description of this mod page, and is doubly confirmed to be an issue with using too high of a DistanceBoost, in my case anything over 15 caused it to happen. Basically visible up close and at a great distance but a short middle section in-between the two it would pop out of existence and the trains would appear to fly, actually kind of cool.
All in all, that bug aside setting DistanceBoost higher resolves more pop in issues than it causes by a mile.
Also bit random, but Is wear I saw someone somewhere on here state that Minstreaming/Maxstreaming distance modifiers clashed with some in-game missions, so I take it those were fixed to allow for those 2 lines to be used now? (just asking out of curiosity).
[Streaming/Culling/AutoHideDistanceNear]
I'm so glad I'm not the only one that noticed when this was set to True, that it gave issues, I thought I was losing the plot when I was telling ppl over on Reddit that it was doing the opposite, and ppl were telling me differently.
btw, do we still have to create separate ini files for each edit?. Someone on another streaming boost mod claimed that the game apparently reads only the first set of lines and not all the rest in the ini files, but that makes no sense to me, as all other games that feature or have features ini files, read every single line (Skyrim and F4 for prime examples read every line in each ini).
I tested the INI thing, reads the whole file. Put very drastic changes that would be immediately noticeable if they weren't there at the bottom of the file, still worked.
Oh and 500 is the default for the editor mode for max node, which I think is the internal name for the photo mode, but I could be wrong.
I went with 500 myself, instead of larger values like 1000, 3000 or even the 9999+ I was testing earlier because the game is actually quite demanding and I have made a point of not messing with occlusion/culling for this reason and this particular feature is very close to that. Also it's kind of cool to think that scenes aren't exactly the same every time you go there.
And another big point about this is, if your system is having a really hard time loading a scene, and it's given an infinite amount of time to do it with high TimeLimit settings this will CREATE pop in, particularly if the max node setting has also been increased and the scene is quite complex. This is because only some of the scene is loaded/streamed when you first arrive, and it's still 'working on it' and loading it in, when it would otherwise have stopped and said this is the final product, no there was never a cup here before you are quite mistaken. lol
For the time limit settings I went with 12 for all of them which is the highest number I have seen the editor use... but it only uses that 1 setting. I think 12 is actually quite forgiving and I may lower this value to prevent pop in if it becomes an issue. This is a setting that is very dependent on your machine, and how fast it loads things. It makes me think an nvme SSD would be a great boost for this game, they're not even that expensive anymore... hmmm
After some testing, DistanceBoost operates a bit more differently than say MinStreaming or even PreCacheDistance, essentially it affects things different near, mid and long distance, and not in the same way. It has issues where it will make certain lamp fixtures (those unaffected by MinStreaming/PreCache) appear further away, however to get the pole to show up, you have to increase the number further... which has a good chance of making another lamp fixture even further away appear without a pole as well. So I've opted just to keep this at it's least buggy value I have found, which is 15. Furthermore I deduced that a PreCache value of 25 is roughly equivalent to a value of 75 for MinStreaming in regards to the light fixtures they both seem to affect.
I have decided on these settings for now:
[Streaming]
EditorThrottledMaxNodesPerFrame = 500
MaxNodesPerFrame = 500
TimeLimitAttachingPerFrame = 12.00000
TimeLimitSectorLoadPerFrame = 12.000000
TimeLimitSectorUnloadPerFrame = 12.000000
TimeLimitStreamedPerFrame = 12.000000
TimeLimitStreamedPerFrameWhileLoading = 12.000000
DistanceBoost = 15.000000
RadiusNearInvMult = 1.00000
MinStreamingDistance = 75.000000
PrecacheDistance = 25.000000
[Game]
MaxPlayingEffects = 32768
[Streaming/Culling/StaticDecals]
PosterDecalDistance = 75.000000
FlatDecalDistance = 75.000000
[LevelOfDetail]
DecalsHideDistance = 75.000000
DynamicDecalsHideDistance = 75.000000
[Rendering/Particles]
MaxOffscreenSimTime = 30.000000
[Rendering/Shadows]
CascadeRange0 = 12.000000
CascadeRange1 = 30.000000
CascadeRange2 = 75.000000
CascadeRange3 = 140.000000
[Rendering]
DissolveTime = 0.050000
Those extra decal settings I was really hoping would fix a number of the disappearing decals on barrels/metal draw door things but they don't. They don't appear to do anything but they can't really hurt either.
MaxOffscreenSimTime this keeps player created fires (burning bikes, etc) from disappearing too quickly when they are off-screen as far as I know. The value is measured in seconds.
I also went with PreCache and MinStreaming at about the same distance they each make that particular light near All Foods appear and it was about a 3 to 1 different in terms of value to get that to happen. Which might just be loading in unnecessary resources, possibly not. It is possible the precache loads in more to memory and thus reduce pop in (or it's just the placebo effect) because is has to do less calls to the data drive and it's sort of just happen stance that it makes lights appear further away.
It is also possible that is just a buggy dev only feature that I shouldn't be messing with. I guess I'll find out the hard way, but no issues so far in my cursory tests. Which consist of running around, pixel peeping, doing one particular quest and looking for NPC's glitching out/quests failing due to bugs, etc.
Edit:
I am considering returning the TimeLimit values to default (lower), and increasing MaxNode, that way if the scene is more complex and my machine can handle it, it will make it more complex with less pop in. Maybe with less pop in.
But there are just certain things that will always pop in, things that are not affected in away by any INI setting. Likely due to it being baked into their LOD or their meshes/models I am assuming.
Less related to pop-in tweaks I'll also be using for anyone interested:
EDIT: I have no idea why, but the animation setting I have here is getting garbled in the post, even though it shows fine in the edit post, anything referencing Java is garbled by NexusMods FYI. It's MAX FACIAL ANIMATIONS VISIBLE = 6 but without spaces save for the equal sign and the 6.
[Animation]
MaxFacialAnimatijavascript-event-stripped 6
[Crowd]
MinStreamingVelocityNormalizedToBlockSpawn = 99999.000000
BaseParkedCarProbability = 1.000000
AppropriateMinDistToPlayer = 15.000000
DespawnLastSeenMinTime = 60.000000
[AI]
EnableLowFPSDetection = false
LOD0TickRate = 1
LOD1TickRate = 2
LOD2TickRate = 3
LOD3TickRate = 4
[Locomotion]
SkippingAIRequestsEnabled = false
[Traffic]
UncrowdMultiLaneRoads = false
The AI LOD tick rates I am fairly certain is how often the NPC updates it's decision making based on how far away a civilian/crowd NPC is, so I lowered the values to make them more responsive. Initial testings show promise.
The minstreaming velocity setting basically lets the crowd spawn no matter how fast you are going so the city doesn't depopulate just because you got a case of the speedies.
Similarly the despawn setting was increased and should make them stick around more, too. And the min Distance to player is either how far away they are allowed to spawn or how far away they try to keep from the player to avoid collision, either way I want the number higher, so it was increased 50%.
I was using RT with Balanced DLSS but it really seems to exacerbate the menu lag despite FPS in normal gameplay being fine.
I use now :
[Streaming]
EditorThrottledMaxNodesPerFrame = 500
MaxNodesPerFrame = 500
TimeLimitAttachingPerFrame = 12.00000
TimeLimitSectorLoadPerFrame = 12.000000
TimeLimitSectorUnloadPerFrame = 12.000000
TimeLimitStreamedPerFrame = 12.000000
TimeLimitStreamedPerFrameWhileLoading = 12.000000
DistanceBoost = 15.000000
RadiusNearInvMult = 1.00000
MinStreamingDistance = 75.000000
PrecacheDistance = 25.000000
[Game]
MaxPlayingEffects = 32768
[Streaming/Culling/StaticDecals]
PosterDecalDistance = 75.000000
FlatDecalDistance = 75.000000
[LevelOfDetail]
DecalsHideDistance = 75.000000
DynamicDecalsHideDistance = 75.000000
[Rendering/Particles]
MaxOffscreenSimTime = 30.000000
[Rendering/Shadows]
CascadeRange0 = 12.000000
CascadeRange1 = 30.000000
CascadeRange2 = 75.000000
CascadeRange3 = 140.000000
[Rendering]
DissolveTime = 0.050000
[Animation]
MaxFacialAnimatijavascript-event-stripped 6
[Crowd]
MinStreamingVelocityNormalizedToBlockSpawn = 99999.000000
BaseParkedCarProbability = 1.000000
AppropriateMinDistToPlayer = 15.000000
DespawnLastSeenMinTime = 60.000000
[AI]
EnableLowFPSDetection = false
LOD0TickRate = 1
LOD1TickRate = 2
LOD2TickRate = 3
LOD3TickRate = 4
[Locomotion]
SkippingAIRequestsEnabled = false
[Traffic]
UncrowdMultiLaneRoads = false
Everything sems ok as far i can tell...
I have a i7 10700k and 3090, dont notice any performance issues ( i use all the 4K textures of the "surface mod" btw), i don't care about VRAM utilisation :)
Wounder if the rain is a unfixable side effect? runs at half framerate it seems, or something odd... I would throw in for the finer rain mod, but at this point my whole cyberpunk install is a rubegoldberg machine built from and on top of a jenga tower, and I haven't even finished the game yet lol... Told my self I would finally for real for real play out this save hell or high water lol...
[Streaming]
EditorThrottledMaxNodesPerFrame = 500
MaxNodesPerFrame = 500
TimeLimitAttachingPerFrame = 12.00000
TimeLimitSectorLoadPerFrame = 12.000000
TimeLimitSectorUnloadPerFrame = 12.000000
TimeLimitStreamedPerFrame = 12.000000
TimeLimitStreamedPerFrameWhileLoading = 12.000000
DistanceBoost = 15.000000
RadiusNearInvMult = 1.00000
MinStreamingDistance = 75.000000
PrecacheDistance = 25.000000
[Game]
MaxPlayingEffects = 32768
[Streaming/Culling/StaticDecals]
PosterDecalDistance = 75.000000
FlatDecalDistance = 75.000000
[LevelOfDetail]
DecalsHideDistance = 75.000000
DynamicDecalsHideDistance = 75.000000
[Rendering/Particles]
MaxOffscreenSimTime = 30.000000
[Rendering/Shadows]
CascadeRange0 = 12.000000
CascadeRange1 = 30.000000
CascadeRange2 = 75.000000
CascadeRange3 = 140.000000
[Rendering]
DissolveTime = 0.050000
Ryzen 7600 and 4070-ti user here.
You are my V!
Thanks a lot for your research and testing!!! Really is an amazing contribution.
Thinking maybe we could add a max draw distance ini file for those who are after it.
I have completely broken light with new patch and path tracing with this config. All is too dark, like 0 bouncing.nvm, it's weather mod