Engineer's Workshop: Extended Draw Distance

[coprax]

Downside to increased view is, it makes the world/the zones feel smaller. Limited view distance and fog are not only there for technical purposes but also to simulate an atmosphere like in the real world.
On a typical day real world 'view distance' is something like 10-15km.
And when I can see across a whole zone and into the adjacent one in WoW, that just doesn't feel right, don't you think?

Increased renderung distance for objects is nice though.

[merli]

On a typical day real world 'view distance' is something like 10-15km.

Are you sure? I think I see at least 50km from my house.

[Daedius]

So how much of an impact on performance will this have past Ultra setting?

Currently getting 90-150+ fps on Ultra in the outdoors right now.

[coprax]

Are you sure? I think I see at least 50km from my house.

no I am not sure, but that's what the weather forecast data usually says.^^ Never seen a number bigger than 20km there.

[judgementofantonidas]

Downside to increased view is, it makes the world/the zones feel smaller. Limited view distance and fog are not only there for technical purposes but also to simulate an atmosphere like in the real world.
On a typical day real world 'view distance' is something like 10-15km.
And when I can see across a whole zone and into the adjacent one in WoW, that just doesn't feel right, don't you think?

Increased renderung distance for objects is nice though.

yeah. because I want to be reminded how much farther I am being forced to ride because I bumped my head and forgot how to summon my flying mount.

Brilliant.

[Woods7]

So we'll *finally* be able to see all of ICC from old Dalaran?

[Cazmosis]

Downside to increased view is, it makes the world/the zones feel smaller. Limited view distance and fog are not only there for technical purposes but also to simulate an atmosphere like in the real world.
On a typical day real world 'view distance' is something like 10-15km.

This would be interesting if even a shred of this was factual. Absolute conjecture

[Baelic]

And this upgrade just seems to just adapt some default limiters to growing hardware performance again, rather than fixing the poorly optimized code to make better (or actually any use) of current hardware potential of 'modern' computers built after the year 2010.

When you start talking about things like "reducing vertices drawn" and LoD (Level of Detail), those are indeed optimizations of the existing engine that will allow for more efficient use of current (and older) hardware. Modifying an existing engine takes a large amount of work, especially for a game as large as WoW.

[Mazaxist]

They should instead work on being able to see players from distance. Sometimes I see players literally appear right in front of me out of nowhere.

[drypulse]

what does it matter when mobs/people will still just pop up magically into existence.....

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They should instead work on being able to see players from distance. Sometimes I see players literally appear right in front of me out of nowhere.

agreed. this is the real problem.

[imkrazy182]

what does it matter when mobs/people will still just pop up magically into existence.....

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agreed. this is the real problem.

This is more from server/client lag. Not so much view distance.

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After placing the before and after pics on separate tabs so i could compare full size images one after the other and really looking closely, I see what he means. For example, notice that in the 'old' picture of the Vale, the trees are brighter and clearer looking (even if you can't see as far in the distance), and in the Icecrown comparison, the snowy edges of the zone were brighter white and clearer when closer to the player, whereas in the new one that same area looks like a dreary mess consistently as it goes into the background.

While its true that Icecrown is a dreary mess in the first place and that its kind of the point of the zone, we see another example of this exact same effect in the Crystalsong comparison. Notice how the snowy mountain cliffs closer to the viewer in the old one is crisp and white and clear, and in the 'new' one it is much more toned down and muted.

My armchair guess is that this was a bid to try and shoot for a gradual shift of what we see in the background compared to what we see up close, in an effort to move away from 'blocky' shifts in perception. That stuff exists for a reason though, and we gotta see the stuff around us with brightness and clarity before we can worry about the shrubs and bushes a couple miles off. The tech is very nice and cool, but it may benefit people if they're able to use their graphics settings to customize stuff, if possible.

I agree. Even though I can see the terrain further, everything looks much more muted. It feels like the fog starts 10 yards out and just dulls everything quicker. I would prefer the old compared to this new.

[oldgeezer]

Are you sure? I think I see at least 50km from my house.

A good approximation for the distance to the horizon (in km) is 3.6 x sqrt(h), where (h) is height in metres above ground level. On Earth that is, not Azeroth.

[Coote]

I think that will hurt the permormance too much.

If performance is that important, you wouldn't be running at Ultra settings in the first place. Increasing the maximum graphics on higher settings does nothing for the performance of those running at lower settings.

[Philosopino]

So much horizon you begin to wonder if Azeroth is flat.

[Yrrildur]

Looking better, but still I can't shake the feeling that in 2016 the graphics should be updated. I can only imagine what this game would feel like if the graphics were up to date. Those edges of the platform in the 2nd picture still look like crap, no extended horizon will fix that.

[Glurak]

atm i cant play on full details in legion with my I7 2700k and Geforce 770GTX Warlords works great on max.


Mh when the perfomance increases not working for me its time for a new pc :-)

[Nokonda]

So how about other graphical enhancements? All we hear about in this expansion is a slight increase (trust me, it's slight) in draw distance. What about texture resolution improvements? Other effects?

[Daywalk3r]

Switching from 970 to 1080 just for WoW. Yes, I think I'm insane in the membrane, but really hoping to get it maxed out on 3x 1080p monitors. 970 wasn't able to handle it properly.

I'm sorry to tell you this, but it won't help much. I know someone with a 1080 and 4790K and he still has pretty bad FPS in some areas with quality at 10 (maxed out).
WoW is just too CPU limited to make full use of such a highend GPU.
Draw distance and stuff like that relies strongly on the CPU and WoW's old modified WC3-Engine is only using 2 CPU Threads unlike modern games which use at least 4.

[lookatmypet]

I'm sorry to tell you this, but it won't help much. I know someone with a 1080 and 4790K and he still has pretty bad FPS in some areas with quality at 10 (maxed out).
WoW is just too CPU limited to make full use of such a highend GPU.
Draw distance and stuff like that relies strongly on the CPU and WoW's old modified WC3-Engine is only using 2 CPU Threads unlike modern games which use at least 4.

WoW uses all 4 cores on my CPU... and your statement is incorrect, wow is not a "CPU Limited" game anymore. Ultra Settings all 4 of my cores use roughly 25% and the GPU uses ~40% ish.
They migrated off the "CPU" bound part with WOD release (anyone remember the CMAA crap)
Source Here

With that said, the game still has to render a lot of stuff, and you will always take frame rate hits when there are tons of players around.

[Nohara]

As long as it keeps running on medium settings at 1440p and 60 fps on me iMac 2009, I'm ok! The only zone that currently really gives me a bad performance is the Alliance garrison and probably Dalaran 2009. For some silly reason shutting off 'Outline Mode' doubles the performance.