Draw Distance Updater - v1.1.0.0

[MBlazerGuy]

Draw Distance Updater has been updated to v1.1.0.0

Hello Farm Sim community!

I wrote a program a couple of years ago when playing Farming Simulator 2013 because the graphics were just so poor that I couldn't be bothered to play the game.

When I'm driving tractors, I like to look out and admire the landscape, and not be forced to have a view looking 45 degrees down at the ground, because any higher than that and you would see the "edge of the world", accompanied with low resolution graphics, missing shadows, and trees and rocks all magically popping in out of thin air as you move.

When I updated to 2015, the graphics were improved over 2013, but... not enough.

I wish the developers could realize how beautiful this game can look, with todays high end CPU's and Video cards.

Place this program in your Farming Simulator 2015 installation folder and run it. It will display the following window, allowing you to adjust the games visual appearance based on the percentages you wish to increase (or decrease) the different graphical options.



By default the values will all be set to 150% and when you change them and apply the changes, the current values will be saved in an INI file. The values above are what I use.

You can play with each of these settings to get the graphics to look just the way you like them, increasing them to push your PC's ability to the limit, finding the perfect balance between visual appearance and performance.

What the program will do is scan from the location it is run, which should be your Farming Simulator 2015 (or 2013) folder. It will scan all files ending with .i3d and adjust the following settings, multiplying the values based on the percentages you provide:

Change Detail Draw Distance to: This setting searches and adjusts the values for: viewDistance="####" - Increase the ring of maximum detail around your location, viewing fields of wheat in 3d as far as the eye can see, if you want to.

Change Shadow Draw Distance to: This setting searches and adjusts the values for: shadowFarDistance="####" and shadowExtrusionDistance="####" - Increase the distance when shadows start to appear under objects.

New in v1.1.0.0 Change Shadow Quality: This setting searches and adjusts the values for: depthMapResolution="####" and numShadowMapSplits="#" - Adjusting this setting will greatly enhance the quality of the shadows generated by all objects and trees.

Change Object Clipping Distance to: This setting searches and adjusts the values for: clipDistance="####" - Increases the distance of when objects pop into view. Increasing this far enough puts trees up on the hill sides for beautiful landscapes.

Change the Object LOD Distance to: This setting searches and adjusts the values for: lodDistance="###" - This gives a more subtle change to objects by increasing the distance when they change from higher resolution objects to lower resolution objects.

When you click the Update button, it currently scans the 387 files ending with .i3d, and updates 295 of them that contain any of the above values to be updated. First, it renames the original files, adding .ORIGINAL to the names, then writes out the new files. If the program is being run multiple times, it always reads from the .ORIGINAL files, so the values entered are always the percentage increases from the original files.

If you want to revert the files back to the original state, just click the Restore button, and all of the updated files will be remove, and the .ORIGINAL files will be renamed back to the original names.

Click here for a screenshot of the default view.
And click here for the after view, using the settings in the screen shot above, of 300%, 400%, 400%, 400%
(hint: Open both the above URL's and click to zoom in to full resolution on both, then click to toggle between the two tabs to flip the pictures back and forth to recognize the improvements.)

Code: Select all

Version 1.1.0.0
- Added Change Shadow Quality option.
- Added menus, Help, Settings, What's New, and About box.
- Added proper handling of Write/Update permissions error when renaming files.
- Added automatic updating of crc_files.xml file to remove CRC64 error at game startup.
- Added check for file FarmingSimulator2015.exe (or 2013), to prevent accidental execution of the program from an invalid location.

Download the v1.1.0.0 program here.
The file has been scanned at virustotal.com. You can validate the results to authenticate the EXE file here.

Thanks, I look forward to hearing your feed back.

[Baleur]

Great tool!
And this is how you ensure the virus-free nature of your files, so people at least have some basis for trusting it.
Scanned it for ya,
https://www.virustotal.com/en/file/6c40 ... 415012063/

[MBlazerGuy]

Great tool!
And this is how you ensure the virus-free nature of your files, so people at least have some basis for trusting it.
Scanned it for ya,
https://www.virustotal.com/en/file/6c40 ... 415012063/

Excellent, thanks!
I wish I knew a way to add this as an official free MOD, instead of just a post in this forum.

[GotoSan]

So I just bought the game; and would like to take advantage of my Haswell i7 GTX 780 rig.

Downloading and trying it out.

Hope its no problem.

[MBlazerGuy]

So I just bought the game; and would like to take advantage of my Haswell i7 GTX 780 rig.

Downloading and trying it out.

Hope its no problem.

Let me know how it works out for you.
Just make sure you place the EXE in the correct folder...



It make the game look and run fantastic on my 64-bit Windows-7 O.S. with 16 GB memory Intel i7-3930K CPU liquid cooled and overclocked to 3.2 Ghz, and dual EVGA GTX 780 video cards in SLI.

[Gazer75]

Excellent! Just what I needed. Thank you!

Why can't options to do this be in the game!? :S

[AnimeDan]

whats the highest values you can set it too? to where the game doesn't recognize the value increase anymore

[MBlazerGuy]

whats the highest values you can set it too? to where the game doesn't recognize the value increase anymore

Yep!

Go as high as you want. If your system has enough processor power and memory to make it work, it'll work. The trick is to adjust the settings one at a time, and keep tweaking them until you get that perfect balance between beauty and frame rate.

[MBlazerGuy]

Why can't options to do this be in the game!? :S

I agree with you 100%
There's no reason why all this couldn't be built into the game options, and the values would simply be dynamically adjusted as the i3d files are read by the computer.

This tool is great for the game itself, but unfortunately it won't work with mods, because the game has expanded i3d files, while modes are compiled and unreadable with a text editor.

[bassaddict]

There's no reason why all this couldn't be built into the game options

Oh, there is a reason and a very big one it is: DAU.
We already see a few people asking about performance problems, turning out to be too high settings and/or to weak hardware. With such an option in the game, you would see way more such topics.

[MBlazerGuy]

There's no reason why all this couldn't be built into the game options

Oh, there is a reason and a very big one it is: DAU.
We already see a few people asking about performance problems, turning out to be too high settings and/or to weak hardware. With such an option in the game, you would see way more such topics.

Hmmm, I think I might have to disagree. With the options panel, and a proper description of what they do, it would be very easy and understandable of what these options would do, and how they could affect performance. Todays complaints of slow performance would be less by the fact that those with slower systems could reduce settings to increase performance.

If such an option system were written into the game, it could also incorporate an automated test feature that would track the frame rate, and provide the optimal settings that one could use, as is done in many current games today.

[Gazer75]

There's no reason why all this couldn't be built into the game options

Oh, there is a reason and a very big one it is: DAU.
We already see a few people asking about performance problems, turning out to be too high settings and/or to weak hardware. With such an option in the game, you would see way more such topics.

DAU?

Most games these days have a wider range of settings. Just cause people have weak hardware doesn't mean you leave out high settings for others.
The game looks a lot better when you do not have to see the horrible ring of low details. It kills immersion completely for me.

Things like this automatically cut 20% off my review scores. Its just laziness.

[Lenko]

It really bugged me that I couldn't lord over my plots like a King surveying his Domain, without all the Canola fields being turned into a murky yellow 2D shape.
I'm definitely going to give this a go tonight!

[MBlazerGuy]

If anyone has the ability to create and upload a uTube video to illustrate the improvements that this tool can bring, please do!

I may try this myself, but I'm just not that good at making "enjoyable" videos.

[ghosted]

I'm afraid this don't work for me I have windows 7 64bit and get this error. I have placed the .exe file in main FS2015 folder and run it




Whats point in replying to this post if the op don't even reply