The view distance can be significantly increased in World of Warcraft: Legion. But does this effect really show?
Double view distance – Double beauty?
As is common with a new expansion of World of Warcraft, the developers at Blizzard are busy tweaking the various parameters to get the most out of the outdated engine of the game. In Legion, they primarily focus on the view distance at which environments are rendered in the game. In a new blog post from the developers, they discuss in detail the new features and how the graphical splendor will change for new and old PCs.
The view distance in World of Warcraft is fundamentally influenced by two factors. The first is the fog distance, meaning the distance from the character at which all the surrounding pixels take on the color of the fog (and are thus no longer recognizable). The second factor is the general view distance, or the distance up to which the game world is calculated and rendered. Players on low graphical settings will have often noticed the effect when entire buildings suddenly “pop out of the fog” – then both settings are set quite low.
With “Legion,” the view distance is increased from 1300 length units to 2500 – essentially a near doubling. Those who want to get the absolute maximum out of the game – and have a computer that allows this – can even go up to 3500 units. What this looks like in the game can be seen in these two “before/after” images (click to enlarge).
The first screenshot already suggests it, but these new graphics settings also affect the old world. Whether in Azeroth, the shattered world, Draenor or on the broken islands, every area of the game benefits from these new settings.
This is made possible by a new technique that the developers have been experimenting with since Mists of Pandaria. Different models of the environment now have different levels of detail so that they consist of fewer polygons from a greater distance, thus consuming less processing power.
Moreover, the new view distances are only available for the 64-bit client – all owners of “older” computers would probably not have considered cranking up the graphics this high anyway.
What else changes with World of Warcraft: Legion, you can check in our overview article about the new expansion .
