» Thu Jul 04, 2013 3:18 am In an upcoming fallout game, the BIGGEST thing I'd like to see different, is to have the distant flicker fixed. I believe its an issue do to a limitation in the engines z-buffer. If you play on PC at high resolutions, you've most likely seen it happen allot.
To see an example, just youtube "Fallout Distant Flicker"
-This will bring up several good examples
In a nutshell: the z-buffer is not large enough. I'll try to explain as best my (novice) brain can
The "z-buffer" is responsible for telling the engine the precise geographical coordinates of polygons in 3-D space. When you zoom out (half a mile) or so, it takes a MUCH more precise z-buffer than one that's rendering dungeons or small rooms and such.
Lets take the 3-D model of a house and zoom out to half a mile. At this distance if the z-buffer is not precise enough, the engine may become confused when displaying a window on the house, and instead may display the wall of the house. This is because the wall and window are admittedly very close to each other. The engine will now continue to struggle with which of the polygons to display until you
1. Get closer
2. Increase the Z-buffer (which only the developer can do)
The struggle between which polygon to display will result in a flicker. And this phenomenon is known as "z-fighting"
This is not a limitation of only the bethesda engine, it's a limitation of ALL graphical engines. We've just not noticed it because
A. Our resolution has been lower
B. Open world maps didn't use to exist in the scope they do now
As game maps have expanded and evolved, so should the technology to back up these advancements. I don't know why this has been neglected, but it completely shakes the player from immersion.
Dear Bethesda,
I know that the current generation of consoles are using very very antiquated hardware, and I can really appreciate that you've had to streamline your final product to force it to run on them.
However the next gen is here, and with it comes new hardware and new possibilities. Please don't let this problem be ignored! There is no fix from a hardware/modding standpoint, it's completely up to the developer to fix this.
I have faith
-A loyal and very enthusiastic fan
