NPCs, for some reason, have a standalone system for distant LOD textures and models that works on top of normal LOD. Only dragons appear to use this system.
Switching the model of objects that are big, moving and the main focus of the player is not exactly the greatest idea... At a very far distance the low quality LOD may look fine or even indistinguishable from the normal one, but if you're fighting a dragon, you're going to notice it popping back and forth from bad quality to good quality. In case of Durnehviir it looks so bad that it was even considered a bug and fixed in the unofficial patch. This mod however solves the problem in a more fundamental manner by removing the distant LOD from all NPCs even those added by other mods. Performance impact is negligible because there is essentially never a situation where there are a lot of dragons flying in the distance.

The mod is offered as an UPF patcher. This means it utilizes the Unified Patching Framework (UPF) of zEdit and generates a patch plugin
tailored to your load order.

There are already other mods that attempt to solve this problem so what makes this mod different? Plugin based mods such as the original No Dragon LODs conflict with other mods that edit dragons; my mod doesn't. Compared to other dynamic patchers there are only minor technical details. My mod straigthforward removes distant LOD from all NPCs, whereas the other mods use overly complicated methods to identify dragons that can fail under specific circumstances.


Installation

• Install the latest release of zEdit.
• Manually download this mod.
• Open zEdit. Click the button in the top right that looks like three little cubes. Click 'Install Module' and select the downloaded file.
• Restart zEdit.
  

Now you are able to build the patch plugin. These steps should be repeated each time you add, remove or update a mod to your load order.

• Open zEdit and load your entire load order.
• Press Ctrl + Shift + P or click the button in the top right that looks like a jigsaw piece.
• Make sure No Distant LOD for NPCs is ticked and click 'Build'.
• Exit zEdit saving the created patch plugin zPatch.esp.
• Make sure zPatch.esp is activated at the bottom of your load order.
  

Compatibility

Compatible with anything.