Rendering behind what I can see....

[Thoronve]

<p>I posted this in the performance thread stickied above, but one part of my testing raises an intersting question:</p><p>"I noticed another peculiarity. As required, I was in first person view, so i couldn't see the airship behind me (although I could see it's shadow on the dock when GPU shadows were on). Every time the Airship was behind me I got a drop of 2-3 FPS, and it recovered when it left.</p><p>This got me thinking - if I can't see it, why is there a drop? It must be rendering behind me (to cast the shadow). I had changed my maximum view distance to '60', and can back up quite a way from my toon if I need to. However I rarely use this. What if I reduce the maximum view distance - maybe that will effect what is rendered behind me?</p><p>I changed this to a maximum of 10 (a nice comfortable distance) and lo, and behold... my frame rates improved by 2-3 FPS both with GPU shadows AND when only at High Quality! - So with this change I can get 37 FPS.</p><p>For those who've changed the maximum view distance, this might get back a couple of FPS...."</p><p>So the question is - does EQ2 render things behind the viewpoint that we can't see? If it does then perhaps all those tests staring at a wall aren't truly reflective of the possible speed of the graphics rendering engine? Does it make a difference if the wall is in Qeynos Harbor, or behind a bookcase (blocking your view behind )?</p><p>Enquiring minds want to know...</p><p>-Thoronve-</p>

[TSR-DanielH]

<p>Greetings,</p><p>This might be caused by a specific setting in the display options.  Open the options panel, go to the Display tab and then expand the 'shadows' section.  There will be a checkbox for 'Shadows from off-screen'.  Try removing the check from that box if you haven't already.  Let us know if that has an effect on performance.</p>

[Thoronve]

<p>Hi Daniel...</p><p>I was pretty sure it wasn't checked, but wanted to confirm...I went back to the docks in moors and reran some tests as below:</p><p>I reset my graphics again to High Quality, and each time I do that the CPU shadows section has 'Allow shadows from off screen' unchecked. It also defaults to CPU shadows of average quality. I sat there and watched while I could hear the airship arrive (i couldn't see it or its shadow on occasion, but noted the horn blast, and the 'ropes' creaking). I tried toggling between each run of the airship with GPU shadows (3x), and shadows from off screen on and off...</p><p>Setting           No Airship        AirshipHQ-CPU-OFF        36                 31HQ-CPU-ON         36                 31HQ-GPU-OFF        33                 31HQ-GPU-ON         33                 30</p><p>This (on my system) indicates a slight hit with GPU shadows (but they look much better to me) but essentially the toggle for off screen made no difference either way. So to my layman's eye it looks like the airship simply being there, but not seen, has an impact.</p><p>All of this with max view distance set at 10.</p><p>-Thoronve-</p><p>edit: table formatting looked wrong - hope its better now...</p>