On mobile devices the render distance seems to be much larger than previously on the lowest graphics quality setting. This seems to have caused performance issues and crashes for some (mobile) users.
It seems like the engine tries to select a “suitable” render distance automatically based on some criteria now, causing chunks of parts to blink in and out constantly too.
This is the render distance on the lowest graphics quality now:
Previously it would only render in a very small box around the player, about 1/4th of the width and height of what is currently visible.
Joining on the lowest quality setting can even cause the entire map to be rendered now (loading in some other geometry will cause it to lower it a bit, though).
The game also uses streaming, not sure if that’s related.
Hi, I’m looking into this issue. I can think of two things that may be happening:
One, is that the client tries to use a higher quality level and therefore increases the render distance. Can you confirm that the quality level is at the lowest value? You can Set the quality level to manual, adjust it manually, and see if the render distance is reduced.
Two, is that the client is using a greater distance at the same quality level. The render distance is computed based on the number of objects currently visible and clamped to a minimum value. I noticed that humanoids and other dynamic parts are culled at a fixed distance from the camera. Is this something that you are doing on the game side? An unfortunate side effect is that as you remove objects, the client will try to render more and increase the view distance in response. Could this be what is happening here?
This is at the lowest graphics quality, set manually (tested on a device I own myself).
The game optionally allows hiding distant moving objects to increase performance, but this can be disables in the game’s own settings menu (in the image above this has been disabled, so the only parts spawning/despawning are guests entering/leaving the park). Should in general not be a large difference, though, as over 99% of the parts aren’t affected by this and I don’t think games can detect when Roblox doesn’t render parts either.
I’ve also encountered expanded render distance on mobile. I have a “graphics calibration” screen at the beginning of the game. If you can see a block way in the distance, it is set to high graphics mode. If you can’t, then low graphics mode is set.
But lately, every device at any graphics level renders the distance block, when they didn’t before. I haven’t noticed any performance problems, so I figured Roblox just optimized their engine or something. So I mostly think it’s a good thing. Though, I do notice the issue you pointed out where the render distance shrinks suddenly to be very small and you can’t see more than 30 studs away. This only happens for a second or two, and it happens more often the lower you set your graphics setting.
I notice this behavior on both mobile devices and studio.
I still get this issue but on pc (have not tested on mobile). I got free model maps for testing and the rendering does not seem to work even on graphics one on PC and at certain angles the rendering appears to work but only on specific angles which are hard to get and stay on.
