2009-10-20 How to remove the fog on overworld maps

Finally i’ve found a working solution to disable the fog for overworld maps.

The trick is: Simply start the game using gamestate.ini configured for a small map (I use map.83) and after that load a saved game (works with every existing savegame).

This makes the engine “forget” to add the fog on overworld maps, which makes in further consequence also higher viewing distances possible.

Config details:

Create this gamestate.ini file in your UIX Install Path:

[Init]
Version = 100
Map = 83
X = 6500
Y = 7500
Z = 1200
Time = 0800
[Interface]
Compass = 1
Toolbelt = 1
Backpack = 1
Journal = 1
Spellbook = 1
HealthBar = 1
ManaBar = 1

Now make the following change to the options.ini to make this thing work:

Replace the line

start=0

with

start=…UIX Install Path…gamestate.ini

Why is this different to the “clipping plane out” settings in default.kmp:

Because the default.kmp methodics is not permament, when the weather changes or the map is changed, then the fog is back.

What is possible:

Here are the options.ini settings, which work well with the actual build of Beautiful Britannia, higher Settings cause crashes, especially in Yew:

FarClippingPlaneDistance=8500
MiddleClippingPlaneDistance=8000

MaxObjCullSize=5
CullStartDist=3000

LODScale=4.0

And how does this look like:

Here are 3 screens showing Britain and LB Castle, just to show the difference. [see BB Archive (17-19)]

I’ve also used 4x anisotropic filtering here, which I highly recommend for better picture quality.

Britain Center

Britain Center – with LB Castle in Background

LB Castle Park

I have to say that the framerate is very low (around 10 FPS in Britain) on my old system (P4 2,4 with 512 MB RAM and ATI Radeon 9800 Pro) using these settings with the actual Build of Beautiful Britannia.

The result is of course a litte better when playing original UIX (around 15 FPS in Britain).

But on a modern high end system there should be 25 FPS possible, even with these settings and while playing Beautiful Britannia. UIX cannot use the featues of modern graphic cards (the engine supports only DX7 and Gilde), so a fast CPU is the most important part.

Firstknight