I was shocked to find that Oblivion had Skyrim had many Visable When Distant (WVD) mods that let you see a wide variety of additional buildings, objects, etc from far away (beyond what the in-game settings allow), but Fallout 3 has nothing.

Consequently, the middleground in my game looks like absolute garbage with the settings on Ultra. It goes from extreme detail in the foreground to a wide area the middle with almost nothing in it to a horizon full of things. Is there a way to modify this, either through the .INI (without using uGridsToLoad=) or by creating a mod, so that more detail is displayed in the middle ground?

The reason I don't want to use ugrids is: it's a resource hog, and I've been told it will not just show everything with max textures, but also implement AI as well. I don't want things to be triggered if they are too far away from me. From what I understand, the VWD mods for other Gamebryo games created a stopgap between what ugrids does and the awfulness that is the middleground in the default game. For example, all buildings and objects like smaller rocks and cars can be made to load, albeit in low detail only. As of now, the game says 'You get some low-res models of only the very largest things. Want vehicles, roads, smaller rock clumps, and dozens of other things? NoU.'

I have had some success editing the .INIs: to bring out extra detail in the extreme distance and a little bit in the foreground (via fSplitDistanceMult=, fBlockLoadDistance=, fBlockLoadDistanceLow=, fTreeLoadDistance=, and bForceFullLOD=).

But nothing else I've tried in the .INIs is affecting the view just outside of the Ugrid, and I've spent countless hours trying them all, and in different combinations. I'm pulling my hair out here. Please don't link me to the tweakguides page, I've read it a billion times.

From what I understand, all objects in F03 have a flag of sorts that indicates whether they are "visible when distant" or not. Would it work to edit objects in GECK or something to mark them as "visible when distant?" Additionally, my understanding is that only some objects "LOD meshes," basically simplied, low-res versions of themselves that are used when the player is deemed too far away. Would generating a LOD mesh for all items that don't have one be required along with this? Would this work?

Here is a view from Tenpenny Tower to show you what I mean. The forums won't let me post links for some reason (I'm too new?), so please just remove the spaces to get the full url.

Fallout @ Ultra Settings:

abload.de/ img/ max-ingame_beforew4u8i.jpg

With those five .INI tweaks:

abload.de/ img/ ss_15.175k.175k.165k.vyuti.jpg

Thanks for any help you can give.

PS- no Ugrids