LOD and Draw Distance

[Vescro]

Hello,

My friend and I are trying to get back into Black & White on windows 7. We've both got it running in widescreen and we've maxed out the graphics options but the Level of Detail and Draw Distance is for some reason very low... I remember from when I used to play that it shouldn't be this bad.

The cliffs you see here wont be drawn in until I move closer:

​

Just to show the higher res textures are being used but aren't being drawn unless I zoom right in:

My friend and I both have nVidia cards but arent using any overriding graphics settings through the nVidia control panel, nor are we running runblack in any compatibility mode. Also, in checking the registry, 'detailidx' is set to 5 which I guess is the maximum value. setting it higher does nothing, lower makes it even lower.

Sooo, any ideas?

 

[fenton_pat]

Hmm, I'm no graphics expert (I had one course in Fourth Year computer science that talked about this stuff, but that was years ago), but the only time I recall seeing views like that was when I was zipping around alot and once I let the camera settle, it took a few seconds, for it to render everything in the correct level of detail.

I assume if you go back down to normal screen size, everything renders correctly, yes?

From the looks of detail in your top picture, it's mainly the stuff in the background that's failing to render properly.

Here's an educated guess - I would wager the graphics code focuses on rendering the foreground first and then moves onto the background.  As you got it working in wide-screen (takes moment to drool at that thought),  I'd guess that the rendering code allocates only so much screen space for the best level of detail and the rest goes down to the next level.  As the foreground is prioritised and there's now more of it, the background gets pushed down to the next level of detail. 

As this would be coded into B&W's code itself, it wouldn't matter how much graphical grunt it has available.  It would only use as much as the original Lionhead developers designed it to use maxed out.

This is all pure speculation on my part.  Can anyone say it this plausible or am I blowing smoke out my ass :suspect?

 

[Vescro]

The problem persists no matter what resolution is used. (to use widescreen you just run regedit and change "ScreenH" and "ScreenW"'s binary value to the resolution you want. They're stored in 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER/SOFTWARE/Lionhead Studios Ltd/Black & White/BWSetup')

Anyone using windows 7 not have this issue?

 

[SkelApe]

My guess is that Windows 7 simply doesn't want to co-operate with the game. It's understandable, given it's age, and Vista users also experience some sizable problems. Have you tried running it in compatibility mode, or with administrator privileges? I can't say i've experienced any problems like it though. Have you used the setup.exe application in the Black & White folder? Finally, you could try a complete re-install. I found a good site which discusses general problems with B&W relating to Windows 7. Take a look http://cowgod.net/2009/11/07/play-black-white-on-windows-7/

 

[Vescro]

Have you tried running it in compatibility mode

will still run with 2000, xp sp3, or 7 but overrides the setup options every time, no change in draw distance

or with administrator privileges?

no change

Have you used the setup.exe application in the Black & White folder?

yep!

Finally, you could try a complete re-install. I found a good site which discusses general problems with B&W relating to Windows 7. Take a look http://cowgod.net/2009/11/07/play-black-white-on-windows-7/

tried that just now, no change. (apart from gaining a few more registry keys) Also on that page, the link to their discussion of problems no longer works.

 

[Hammer]

will still run with 2000, xp sp3, or 7 but overrides the setup options every time, no change in draw distance

If I recall correctly, you have to run "setup.exe" with administrator privileges. What I did was run setup with administrator rights, set the graphics to Maximum Detail and 32-bit color, and then change the registry for widescreen. That's what works for me.

 

[Vescro]

If I recall correctly, you have to run "setup.exe" with administrator privileges. What I did was run setup with administrator rights, set the graphics to Maximum Detail and 32-bit color, and then change the registry for widescreen. That's what works for me.

and then run in compatibility mode? if so, xp sp3? also with administrator rights?

 

[Hammer]

and then run in compatibility mode? if so, xp sp3? also with administrator rights?

For my computer? No, Black & White works on my computer without any fiddling. I just know that in order for setup.exe to save your settings, it must be run with administrator privileges.

I would definitely use administrator rights, and if that doesn't work, then try the other compatibility modes. But having setup save your settings to Maximum Detail with the administrator rights will hopefully fix the issue, because it did for me.

 

[Vescro]

tried all kinds of admin and compatibility combos, still no luck. The graphics settings show as being set in the registry so I think it is saving them, its just not applying them in game?

 

[Hammer]

Hmm. I believe I recall reading in the "Black & White in Windows 7" thread something about using the "Custom Detail" setting rather than "Maximum Detail." So, my only remaining idea is to have setup save your settings as "Custom Detail," and you can of course check all of the boxes and move all of the sliders to the right.

I don't know why custom seemed to work  better, but I do remember reading that it did.

Best of luck to you.

 

[Vescro]

It saves as custom if you do anything in the advanced options window which is what I do, since 'maximum' isn't actually all settings on and maxed out.

Maybe this is all happening because I installed to my program files directory - did you guys install it differently?

 

[Hammer]

Huh. I use Maximum and it seems to look better to me than Custom with all of the settings maxed. Maybe it's just me.

Most people install Black & White in anywhere but Program Files, like C:\Games or whatever. My game, however, is installed in Program Files and the single-player campaign works and looks fine. Since most people have better luck installing elsewhere, I suppose it's worth a shot.

 

[JohnLukeG]

Here I am on the three year anniversary of this thread, wishing someone had found the solution to this problem that I now have as well.  Well, I read in another thread that this was caused by the game failing to assess newer GPUs and forcing certain very low settings.  Still hoping to figure it out, figured I'd post here and see if anyone has tricked the game into working properly.

 

[Hammer]

Your best bet for the game to work properly would likely be a virtual machine of some kind running XP. The game doesn't play too well with Win7 or Win8.

The game runs on my Win8 machine, but I have the graphical issues described in this thread last I checked.

 

[Gremxula]

Just my thoughts on this issue.
The game was made to run on W 95/98/M/2000.
1 cpu core at 350Mhz or above and a 8Meg graphics card all to run in 64Meg of ram.
Those stats were a bit high end when the game was released.....
OK so 13y later the game is  still the same  but PC'S gave changed vastly , so give the programmers credit for letting  the use of super high* resolutions in the 8Meg limit but something has to be sacrificed you can't have both resolution and detail at the same time.

*anything over 800x600