The Witcher 2

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Created by

ArmedLightning

Uploaded by

metalalloy

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About this mod

Reduces pop-in by disabling billboards, adjusting mesh removal, and enabling persistent characters.

Permissions and credits
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Main features:
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- Disables billboards, mesh removal, and affects character spawning in
the environment.

- Affected categories include architecture, decorations, terrain details, and
vegetation.

- Mesh LOD's remain unchanged in order to preserve performance with little
affect on image quality.

- Performance may vary depending on system configuration.

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Installation
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- Copy the CookedPC folder to the Witcher 2 base installation directory.
Delete folders or files to remove affected categories.

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Known Issues:
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- Some noticeable pop-in affects a small number of meshes inside Vergen.
Adjustments to the meshes alone haven't remedied the problem. Problem likely
exists within spawning rules for the world environment. Other levels may
exhibit similar behaviour.

- Changes made to the community files may have unintended consequences. At this
time, affected characters have ALL fields in the Always Spawned column set to
TRUE. Unfortunately, I don't have the time to validate each and every row, for
every affected NPC, for every scene. No major issues were noticeable in the
limited play testing I've done (Prologue, Flotsam, Vergen, Henselt's Camp).

- Neon grass bug when used alongside FCR2.

- Agressive Billboard rendering continues to affect the meshes listed below despite changes
made in the properties tab. The changes necessary to control this have eluded me.
Similar issues affect the "Extreme Quality Flora" mod by EatChildren. I assume the
issue lay within the mesh properties themselves. No option exists to clear the
billboardEntries field. The only way I've found is via Copy & Paste of an empty array. 
However, the behavior of affected meshes seems to indicate that this is merely superficial.
Calls for the applicable Bilboard Atlas files continue to be made for affected meshes.

dwarf_pine_arena
rock_cave_debris
rock_cave_debris2
rock_cave_debris3
desert_r_foliage01
desert_r_foliage02
desert_r_foliage03
desert_r_foliage04
desert_r_foliage05
desert_r_foliage06
grass_branch_set_01c
grass_bushes_scarp_02
grass_bushes_scarp_02_burned
grass_bushes_set_01
grass_bushes_set_02
grass_bushes_set_03
grass_bushes_set_04
grass_04_small_draug
grass_04b_draug
grass_draug_big_02
grass_draug_big_03
grass_draug_small_02
grass_geometry_big_01
bulrush_01
bulrush_02
bulrush_03
bulrush_04
fern_01
fern_02
fern_03
grass_04_combined2
grass_04_small
grass_04_small_dwarf
grass_04_small_dwarf2
grass_04a
grass_04b
grass_04b_mid_range
grass_04b_short_range
grass_04b_transition
grass_common_clump_02
grass_draug_arena_01
grass_dry01
grass_dry02
grass_geometry_big_01
grass_geometry_big_02
grass_geometry_big_03
grass_common_low
shrub_forest_low
debris_rocks_01a
debris_rocks_01b
debris_rocks_01c
grass_rocks_01a
weed_high_01a
weed_high_03
weed_high_04
weed_high_05
weed_high_07
weed_high_08a
l04_weed_high_01
l04_weed_short_03
meadow_flowers
meadow_flowers_a
vaccinium_A
vaccinium_a_dwarf
dwarf_pine_e
dwarf_pine_e_low
dwarf_pine_e_verylow
dwarf_pine_f
dwarf_pine_g
dwarf_pine_g_low
prol_pine_e
prol_pine_f
prol_pine_f_static
prol_pine_g
prol_pine_g_2

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Other
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- Files compatible with Redkit are included in the appropriately named folder.

- Intentionally packaged as loose files to allow flexiblity in setup.

- With the exception of Diegog5's texture contributions, the rest of this mod can
be used in other projects.

- Don't expect a whole lot of support. This was a personal project and I have
obligations in the real world. Total FINAL record changes were 1,930 and I'm a little
weary from it. If something is broke you'll likely have to track down the problem yourself.