I'm wondering how to increase the distance that LOD kicks in for a lot of the objects and textures in the game. I used the tweakguides Fallout 3 ini guide as a reference, but I'm having no success.

For a simple example, if I want to extend the distance that grass pops in, I've tried increasing the values found in the [Grass] section of the ini:

[Grass]iMinGrassSize=80bGrassPointLighting=0bDrawShaderGrass=1iGrassDensityEvalSize=2iMaxGrassTypesPerTexure=2fWaveOffsetRange=1.7500fGrassWindMagnitudeMax=125.0000fGrassWindMagnitudeMin=5.0000fTexturePctThreshold=0.0000fGrassMinStartFadeDistance=0.0fGrassMaxStartFadeDistance=70000.0fGrassDefaultStartFadeDistance=35000.0fGrassFadeRange=10000.0fGrassStartFadeDistance=70000

I've multiplied the fade values by 10. I have made these changes both in fallout_default.ini AND in falloutPrefs.ini, and I've been using the launcher so the changes in fallout_default.ini get propogated to fallout.ini

Nothing changes, though. The grass pops in/out at the exact same distance (I have a save that's sitting on the line where a patch of grass pops in and out). The grass is a simplified example of my problem; I ultimately want to increase the LOD of all objects, which have a tonne of settings in [LOD] that are not documented in the Fallout3 ini tweak guide. I was playing around with them as well, and noticed no changes no matter how much I changed the values.

As a side note, while looking up any precedent of this issue, I found a rumor that the Perception stat affects draw distance. I have personally tested this, and have found that Perception does not affect the draw distance of grass, objects, or terrain. My (untested) theory is that perhaps Perception affects the distance enemies show up on your compass, and people just got confused; that is an untested theory, however.

Fallout NV is different than Oblivion/Fallout 3.

You need to edit the Fallout_default.ini file in the game directory.

I have clearly explained in my original post that I understand that difference, and have made the changes to fallout_default.ini

Wow, my bad. Seems I missed everything after the quoted ini stuff in my haste to reply. :blush:

When I had this problem, I just altered all the .ini files. Oh yeah, do you have Steam Cloud enabled for the game? May wish to turn it off. (I think that was the cause.)

There is another Fallout_default.ini in Steam\userdata\10838577\22380\remote

Try that if Steam Cloud isn't the issue. (Damn my memory, I think that's it though.)

Keep in mind that if you validate your NV steam files - STEAM will revert them back to the orignals - Keep back ups. Also, I always change both .ini files just to be on the safe side. Make sure the folders/files are not " Read Only " before you make your tweaks.

Also you may want to head over to TweakGuides.com to check out the fallout 3 tweaks and make sure you are not exceeding limits and putting incorrect values in.

Furthermore, it seems that you are messing/testing items that are new to the Fallout NV .ini - I would expect some issues doing this. Be careful and make backups of the originals. Its very easy to forget to unchange a value.

Strange that your tweaks don't seem to work - I have had no problems with my .ini tweaks at all.

Thank you for the input. The issue persists, however. It's not a Steam Cloud issue - I can make changes to other parts of fallout_default.ini, and I can see resulting effects: increasing uGridsToLoad increases the distance that some static objects get rendered, for instance. That was my fault - I should have clarified that the areas I have been focusing on modifying are [Grass] and [LOD].

A few things here:

• fallout.ini is the only file that is set to read-only. If any others were read-only, I would not be able to save the changes in notepad.
  
• As stated in my OP, I always make the changes to both fallout_default.ini and falloutPrefs.ini
  
• I also stated that I used TweakGuides as a reference in the OP. Is anyone reading my original post before replying? I'm sorry, I don't mean to come off as condescending, but it's frustrating when I have already addressed these things.

Have you tried editing fallout.ini directly (untick read only, edit, re-tick read only) and then not using the launcher?

I have. Sorry, I should have mentioned that.

I think the main problem to note is that some changes to fallout_default.ini show up in-game. This means that there is a difference between the way Fallout3 and FalloutNV interpret the values under the [Grass] and [LOD] section of the ini, because it is those two specific sections that are not showing any changes in-game, no matter what I tune the values to.

It appears as though the values that represent grass and LOD are either:
a ) Modified using different values in the ini file than those that were used in Fallout3, or
b ) Hard-coded to have a specific maximum

i think it have its max on that u can set ingame which is strange . are there any devs on this forum who could say if its a bug or it was intended.