marco75: ...
I am running vanilla Wizardry 8 GOG edition (version 1.2.4), with the widescreen patch (
https://community.pcgamingwiki.com/files/file/541-wizardry-8-extender-for-widescreen-support/).
I tried changing all the view distance values from default value of 90 - 110 to 2000, as you have described. On my Lenovo Thinkpad 450T this results in very uneven framerate. Some mods, such as Wizardry 8 Enhanced Edition (
https://www.nexusmods.com/wizardry8/mods/1) mention changing "draw distance at some locations", "Increased the view distance of many locations (except some locations where it was not needed or caused some problems)
For example Umpani Base Camp view distance from 75 to 400 (you can see the whole area), Arnika view distance from 90 to 150". So there is a lot of scope for experimentation.
I don't want to play with Enhanced Edition yet, as I want to have the vanilla experience first, play without guide etc., but I might install it to another folder to get those view distance values.
I assume you mean T450 instead of 450T
I increased view distance individually for each location so that e.g. only partially existing montain tops are not recognizeable as props from "wrong" angle at high distance, etc.
However the initial view distance was 4k in Savant City, the final location of Qusaris Wizardry 8 Reforged Mod,
the mod puts much more load on the game engine in general,
and especially the city brings it to its limits because of tile numbers/size and many dynamic objects,
several players reported stabilty issues that were partially solved by reducing VD to 2k,
the other reason was a new monster model which is not in vanilla Wiz8.
Note these issues all seem to be related to the limitations of the engine, not the computers performance!
I develop the mod on a W500, modded T60p, occasionally even on a modded R50p(single core dothan/32MB video ram),
and get at least no peceiveable lags related to view distance (idc much baout framerate;)
Note i use win xp, and no widescreen mod, the latter was tested with the mod and iirc did not cause lag increases,
but i dont like the ui stretching and abandoned it quick.
So if you get serioous lag and its not just the frame rate going down, I would assume the settings and/or the os as culprit.
It may help to:
Play without the widescreen mod and set resolution to 1024x768 or 2048x1536 etc
Remove any graphical "improvements" like shaders etc and use dx 7.
Run the game under XP
