I can't seem to remember what the ini setting is / settings are for getting grass to show up in the far distance. I've maxed it out in the main menu settings of course, but that takes it to... 8000/7000 I think? Thing is, I'm not sure it's really even extending that far, and I've no idea what the maximum numbers would be either. Grass still gradually appears at a medium-ish distance while I'm travelling, which is annoying. Trees are visible in high detail clear to the horizon, and I'd like the grass to match, basically. Also running RAEWVD, so the problem is probably more painfully obvious than it might've been.

Just find a section that reads "[grass]". There′s not many values under it, you can instantly tell which setting controls the "fade" distance, and which is the max visible distance.

Yeah, I saw that one. Thing is, it doesn't seem to solve the issue of it not appearing until the mid-distance, as opposed to far distance. I tried a few numbers here and there. Any suggestions for actual settings? For example, how far is the horizon, in Oblivion ini terms? The limit, in other words. Because yeah, I'll try that, if it's possible.

Sorry if I've somehow missed the blindingly obvious. Can happen.

There isn't such a thing as LOD grass. That would be asking for computer deaths...

Drat. I've still got graphics power to spare, and it seems that would be a good use for some of it.

Um, at the risk of sounding (even more?) daft, not to mention repeating myself, just how far is as far as you can see, in Oblivion? In thousands, kinda thing.

I do not remember the exact limit. I think it is around 12000 or something. There was a discussion about this recently. Someone was trying to turn off grass and do some other things... Search "grass" maybe...?

Thanks once again.

Since I do not feel like searching this thread to look for the (hopefully) answer, at the moment: http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1085873-two-questions/page__hl__grass.

It's 12000 only if you're looking towards the corners of a cell, so you get a pretty marginal increase with that setting. 10000 is effectively the max.

The max distance grass can be viewable is 12288 units. That's generally only possible if you're standing right inside the edge of a cell, looking across to the other side of THAT cell, plus the two cells beyond it that the game loaded into memory. Setting grass beyond this point is useless as after that distance you're in LOD land.

Also, grass is generated in-game. There is no mechanism present to display it in LOD.

Ooh! Ooh! Badmath! :nono: Bounding boxes are square!

From one corner of a cell, to the far corner of the cell 2 across and two down, is another square root of two... 17377.85625 and change is the Real Ultimate Limit of seeing something non-LOD. :grad:

(Now watch me be wrong in some terribly stupid way...)

Geometry was 20 years ago for me. Gimmie a break

17 years, so back at ya!

Also I was reviewing exactly this math within the past 24 hours, to verify the maximum spell radius which can't ever hit low-process actors. (192.)

Actually the max distance is 20274.166 units since the game loads new cells if you're 1.5 cells away from the border of the loaded area and not if you're 2 cells away.

EDIT: :grad:

Presumably you could edit the ini file to make the game load more cells around you in full detail than normal, increasing the grass range further. But I hear that leads to graphical glitches...

UGridsToLoad, or whatever it's called - is that the one?

And what can / does go wrong when that's altered? I know it has to be an odd number (or actually, it'll revert to one anyway, IIRC), and I've heard of people using (or at least thinking abuot using) 7 or 9, rather than 5. But that's about it.

And would it do anything about the "issue" I have with grass not showing up until the middle distance? Any chance at all?

Can't you see the difference between the loaded area and the LOD area (the area with the grain shader, low detail landscape and fake trees). That is what ugrids controls. By default 5x5 cells are loaded, if you set ugrids higher then more cells get loaded. Like 7x7 or 9x9 cells. The more cells you load, the higher the grass distance can be since grass can only spawn in the loaded area. Problem is that you will get bugs if you set it higher than 5. The water will behave strange ('holes' in the water) and your character will sometimes start to jump like crazy and only stop if you reach the next cell (never actually tried, but that's what I've read). You can try to set it higher and see whether you can live with the bugs (and whether your computer can handle it). If you do I would increase the object distance as well, or you will start to see empty cells without rocks etc in the distance.

Once in awhile you'll enter a cell where you, and sometimes any other characters, will start to jump up and down repeatedly on the same spot. You can no longer move in any direction except for up and down and are forced to quit the game at that point. So you definitely don't want to change that number to anything beyond 5.

When it happened to me I couldn't even move to get to another cell. I was stuck in place going up and down like a Mexican Jumping Bean. The water problem is not that bad really, there are some ini tweaks you can use to get rid of it. The main issue is the bouncing.