Draw Distance

[TheLegendOfThe]

I have some problems with close objects popping out of nowhere in my games... It makes me curious, can a video card or it's drivers influence a game's draw distance(or whatever is the appropriate name) more than how the game itself is configured? Also, is it normal for the drivers to select a wrong native resolution?

 

[Cerb]

I have some problems with close objects popping out of nowhere in my games... It makes me curious, can a video card or it's drivers influence a game's draw distance(or whatever is the appropriate name) more than how the game itself is configured?

No. It' the game, and many are bad about that, Gamebryo being a poster-child. Games used to just have a fog of war, but they like real horizons now, and many games are half-baked, so you notice it more.

Also, is it normal for the drivers to select a wrong native resolution?

Drivers may select a different resolution for your desktop, based on querying the video card and monitor, when you change drivers. Usually, that's the native resolution, but not always. The objective is generally to select the highest resolution, refresh rate, and color depth supported by both the video card and monitor. Usually, the monitor is at fault, when it doesn't work, but older Intel IGPs, and common Silicon Image chips for DVI, can also be at fault. Ultimately, EDID isn't as simple as a straight-forward resolution and refresh rate list, and often isn't perfectly done.

If you are talking about games, that's all on the developers.

 

[Cuular]

Newer more complex games will often choose smaller non-reference resolutions based on your hardware.

So if you don't have a fast cpu/gpu often you will get non-native resolutions offered as default.

 

[TheLegendOfThe]

No. It' the game, and many are bad about that, Gamebryo being a poster-child. Games used to just have a fog of war, but they like real horizons now, and many games are half-baked, so you notice it more.

Drivers may select a different resolution for your desktop, based on querying the video card and monitor, when you change drivers. Usually, that's the native resolution, but not always. The objective is generally to select the highest resolution, refresh rate, and color depth supported by both the video card and monitor. Usually, the monitor is at fault, when it doesn't work, but older Intel IGPs, and common Silicon Image chips for DVI, can also be at fault. Ultimately, EDID isn't as simple as a straight-forward resolution and refresh rate list, and often isn't perfectly done.

If you are talking about games, that's all on the developers.

I've been getting this problem on Portal 2 and Crysis, and apparently some people don't have these problems,while others have.That's what some research I have done indicates... also weirdly I didn't notice this issue on Fallout New Vegas, at least not on close objects.

Newer more complex games will often choose smaller non-reference resolutions based on your hardware.

So if you don't have a fast cpu/gpu often you will get non-native resolutions offered as default.

I was talking about the drivers thinking my native resolution is higher than it actually is

 

[nenforcer]

This is actually a configureable setting in openworld sandbox games like Grand Theft Auto. Draw distance is really only limited by the amount of VRAM on your video card and how much CPU horsepower you have available to render all of it.

 

[Red Hawk]

But the game engine configuration influences how much memory and CPU power that extended draw distance takes up. Thus, some games have greater draw distances than others on the same system.

 

[Anarchist420]

No. It' the game, and many are bad about that, Gamebryo being a poster-child. Games used to just have a fog of war, but they like real horizons now, and many games are half-baked, so you notice it more.

Drivers may select a different resolution for your desktop, based on querying the video card and monitor, when you change drivers. Usually, that's the native resolution, but not always. The objective is generally to select the highest resolution, refresh rate, and color depth supported by both the video card and monitor. Usually, the monitor is at fault, when it doesn't work, but older Intel IGPs, and common Silicon Image chips for DVI, can also be at fault. Ultimately, EDID isn't as simple as a straight-forward resolution and refresh rate list, and often isn't perfectly done.

If you are talking about games, that's all on the developers.

Actually, many games aren't at fault for z-fighting or even abnormal fog. It's usually due to the drivers not forcing the highest depth precision format or not supporting a certain depth bias feature. Or the drivers emulating the wrong fog format or emulating it inaccurately. Nvidia's drivers seem to emulate the old fog formats fine from the very few examples I've tried, but I don't know about ATi, and I haven't tried a whole lot of games that used hardware fog anyway.

I have some problems with close objects popping out of nowhere in my games... It makes me curious, can a video card or it's drivers influence a game's draw distance(or whatever is the appropriate name) more than how the game itself is configured? Also, is it normal for the drivers to select a wrong native resolution?

Yes, the former can be a driver problem, but it isn't always.

 

[Cerb]

Actually, many games aren't at fault for z-fighting or even abnormal fog. It's usually due to the drivers not forcing the highest depth precision format or not supporting a certain depth bias feature. Or the drivers emulating the wrong fog format or emulating it inaccurately. Nvidia's drivers seem to emulate the old fog formats fine from the very few examples I've tried, but I don't know about ATi, and I haven't tried a whole lot of games that used hardware fog anyway.

What I meant there is that there used to be an absolute cut-off where the FoW was, and now we're rendering out to the horizon, not to a fog a few hundred yards out. As a result, there is much more on the screen, and thus much more work trying to figure out what to hide, and what to make low detail. More complexity -> more room for logic bugs.