Skyrim Distant Detail
Makes certain objects and structures visible from great distances, especially in sparse areas like Whiterun.
ATTENTION: This mod is NOT compatible with Hearthfire!
WHAT IT DOES AND WHO IT’S FOR:
This mod will make certain objects, like large rocks, stone structures, and bridges visible across Skyrim (mostly in Whiterun) regardless of your distance from them. This helps fill in detail in areas that would otherwise look somewhat sparse and bald from a distance.
The mod is intended to be a nice compromise for those of you who want extended rendering distance without having to deal with the performance impact of changing the ugridstoload setting in your .ini file, and without having to procedurally create distant LOD items.
INSTALLING:
Simply download the .ESP and activate it with your mod manager or Skyrim’s data manager.
I recommend keeping your ugridstoload setting at the default value of 5 when using this mod.
I STRONGLY recommend you also download the following visual enhancers:
“Enhanced Distant Terrain,” by opticshooter
“High Quality LODs,” by Ethatron
“Better Distant LOD waterfalls,” by rolloLG
NOTES ON PERFORMANCE AND TECHNICAL LIMITATIONS:
The items are made visible by ticking a flag in their properties labeled “is full LOD,” which makes those items render at full detail at ANY distance, regardless of whether or not you can even see them.
This is not an ideal situation, but the performance hit should still less than you would experience by increasing the ugridstoload value in your .ini file, and the visual yield is actually better because the draw distance of these objects is no longer bound to grids at all.
I have only experienced 1 to 2 frames-per-second less using this mod on my system which is running Windows XP, 3 GB of RAM, an ATI HD 4890 GPU with 1 GB on-board vRAM, and a duo core processor (2.8 GHz / 2.8 GHz)
I am interested in hearing about your experience with the mod, and what performance impact you experience, if any. (Please include your system specs including OS, RAM, graphics card, and processor if you are reporting on performance.)
FUTURE PLANS:
Depending on how well the mod performs on a variety of systems, I may release versions that offer a greater variety of visible distant objects, but ultimately I would prefer to have simple LOD versions of these objects made so that we do not have to render the full LOD versions.
If there are any modders out there who know more about creating simple LOD items for implementation in Skyrim, please get in touch with me!
