Draw Distance

Holy shit. Just testing Sierra made maps with larger view distance of 2800 and it actually helps some of the original maps out.

Originally in Swat 3 with the Convention Center map if you opened the doors and back up you would see a glitch with the portals in the doorway. That must of been because of a lack of view distance. Now with the larger view distance that portal glitching is gone!

The Import Store street was originally built at the maximum view distance and the graffiti wall was in the falloff area that would dim to black. As you approached the wall it would get brighter. This is all fixed.

View distance in Sewers maps helps of course too with portal glitches. Flashlight throw distance is short. Probably more realistic to keep it short.

Construction Yard in some ways is lessened in quality because of increased view distance. Remember that this is a night map. When you first spawn the darkness creates a certain mood. The edge of the yard falls off into the darkness and the lighting is done to enhance that. With the longer view distance you don't get that darkness way in the distance. Some of the tension and mood is lost. This applies to the Sewers mission also. To a lesser extent also makes Whiteman Airport less dangerous slightly.

12th and Figueroa is improved slightly because the buildings started to fall off into black and the brighter skybox gave it a fake look.

Garage improved on upper levels where view distance would glitch way in the background.

After viewing the maps with normal view distance and then with extended view distance I have a new appreciation for the Sierra map designers of Swat 3. On several maps they took a weakness of Swat 3 (a short view distance) and used that dark falloff to their advantage. They enhanced the map with lighting (or lack of). They definitely designed each map with the view distance limitations in mind and you aren't aware of it until you look at them with a larger view distance. They really were artists.

i know the installer is hefty as of right now, is it possible to maybe ask the user at install time which would be better choice based on their system.

It is possible, yup. The installer this time will actually be smaller than last version because of all the resolutions that were dropped temporarily.

Lol. Last night. I decided to play around with the draw distance hack and set it to 00009F48. Which is 325632 and it actually worked and works loaded down with a heavy map and lightmaps. I used it to dramatically extend the length of my map, pretty much from one end of the WC grid to the other and its all visible, all the time.

That is the equivalent of 27136 feet. You have a map that large?

Probably don't need it to be that large TBH. I just don't know exactly how far it actually needs to be and wanted to see if I could be evil and break it. The map is mostly concentrated in a relatively small area, but there is a a large narrow section in front of that, which runs from one end of the grid to the other to convey the correct look.