Draw Distance Updater - v1.1.0.0

[corvey]

Just to give you a heads up about modded games.

In fs15 and 13 you dont have to have the map in a zip file of any kind. You can unzip it and run it in the correct subfolder easily.

How I did it.
1 : unzip map. 2 move it to the main FS15 install folder. 3: run the app and set the options. 4: copy the mod map folder back to the mods directory. 5 Profit !
Unzipped maps in the mod folder will load much much faster, as long as you are playing the map single player it works flawlessly.

I did testing with a mod map, and I found 0% performance loss on my computer upto 600 in all options.
But I did notice the FS engine its self has some issues.

I tested it with a mod map as well, which has now fixed the issue because of the report that I made to the creator, BUT if a mod map creator decides to edit the view distances in their map and someone uses this utility to change there view distances, there will be a multiplicative effect. such as I set a view distance in this, and a mod map also has an increased the view distance, which will result in both values being used and a view distance of something like 1600% being used which will bring even a modern computer to a very low 20-ish frames per second frame rate. Don't get me wrong, this is a great temporary solution, but it does not take the place of proper user-based settings that any modern game should have.

This wouldn't be an issue at all if Giants had the feature built in to options on the main menu. I'm sure if the guy who made this utility wanted to he could do a check-sum with the map mod being presented to the application to nullify its primary alteration.

[MBlazerGuy]

This wouldn't be an issue at all if Giants had the feature built in to options on the main menu. I'm sure if the guy who made this utility wanted to he could do a check-sum with the map mod being presented to the application to nullify its primary alteration.

Umm, nope, I don't think I could.

But, every time you run the program, it makes sure you always have the ORIGINAL files available by either creating copies, or by reusing the originals if the copies already exist.

If you get a mod that already has distances enhanced, all you would need to do is copy in the MOD, run the utility to make the changes, using lower settings that would match the MOD, then copy the MOD outside of the path that the Updater searches, and apply the different settings to all the default files, then copy back in the MOD.

[adcomp64]

This program is excellent. I did all of my mod maps and it works perfectly. A big thank you.

[MBlazerGuy]

As always, I'm just very happy that I'm able to share this utility.
I just wish it could be made into an official MOD, but it doesn't fit in to the list of developers criteria to qualify as one.

[matt1314]

I can only confirm this. Excellent tool, Doug. Great job, totally enhances the enjoyment of this game. I was always thinking why so many objects and shadows would pop up in front of my tractor while driving. Now this actually doesn't happen anymore.

I'm using the following settings: 250 (DDD), 300 (SDD), 300 (OCD), 300 (O LOD D) and 16384 (SQ). Running stable 60 FPS after a few benchmarks with these settings with an i7-3770K @ 4.3 GHz, GTX 780 Ti and 16GB RAM.

Thanks a ton. It goes really nice with a HD Texture Pack and SweetFX, a totally different experience. Plus you got a backup function as well. 10/10

[jodev]

Hi Doug,

First of all, awesome job on the utility. Have been using it for a while now and wouldn't want to go back to the original settings.

That said, I did try to revert to the original settings yesterday to take a few screenshots for someone. It killed the game with a CRC error message, forcing me to do a full reinstall. Here is what I theorize what happened. I originally used your updater prior to the 1.2 patch release. Once the patch was released the CRCs changed. Reverting your original backups now returns some files to a pre-1.2 patch state, throwing of the game.

Do you have a procedure for dealing with patches?

[strauts6]

This is not working now with 1.2 patch, asks for code and crashes after all.

[strudders2112]

I used it yesterday and it worked fine on 1.2.

Totally transformed my game.

However I had done a re install since I first used it and so it was on a clean 1.2 install.

Cheers

[MBlazerGuy]

Hmmm, I'll have to try the patch and let you know.
My guess for now is that the safest way to upgrade to the 1.2 patch should be first to restore the game to it's original state with the program, then apply the patch, then rerun the program and reapply your settings.

Theoretically, that should work, but I'll have to try it out myself.
Thanks.

[BostonJohnny1226]

BM

I too had to reinstall after the patch.

But, if you RESTORE the files, run the patch and then run your program, it'll work fine. Did for me.

[R-TEAM]

Hi,

i would suggesting to change the underline way the prg works ...
ATM (if i understand correct - if not, feel free to correct me ) the prg uses the values it found in different places and boost it with the factor the user set ( example -> 400% - if the map value was 100, after the use of the prg, it is now 400 ...).
This is flawles working for the default unpacked maps.
But - if you use an modded map (the problem with unpacking is another story ...) and he have from start an much higher draw distance value ( 300 as example) then you get at end an very high value (1200 in this example) who kills even high end PCs - and this with no additional sense....
It would be better to get an avarage value as standard (estimated from the default maps ..) and the prg use this estimated value as base und modify this base value with the boost the user set ...
So even on modded maps with higher default drawdistance values, yue get the same drawdistance as you set on all maps ...

Regards
R-TEAM