Proposal to modify the functioning of the "Model Culling"

[ReActif.9251]

Hello,

 

I would like to mention here a problem in the way the "model culling"* works in Guild Wars 2

Indeed, the lower the settings (_screenshot below_), the fewer models are displayed.

 

![](https://i.imgur.com/J6xzp1c.jpg"")

 

## BUT! There's a huge BUT!

 

The game does not distinguish between a player's model and that of an enemy.

It is therefore usual that during a fight with a "model culling" set on low or very low the player can no longer even see any enemies because the game will only select the models of the closest players especially when you are in squad, with more than 25 players.

 

## Proposed modification

 

To improve the game for people who use a "culling model" other than very high, the game should differentiate between players' and enemies' models and assign a different limit to them according to their level of importance.

 

In this modification the system acts in the same way as at present on the players' models.

But for enemies the game makes sure to always keep the enemies display or at least as much as possible by making sure that for example in the case where more than X enemies are present, the game will keep displaying regardless of the distance the main enemy like a champion or a boss.

 

It is indeed not normal that on a World boss fight, for example, the player cannot even see a boss who is a monstrous size and has only the circle on the ground as a reference and even if he has managed to target it. Thus the player will always have in the worst case the important enemy to attack visually. I don't even understand that since all the years that the "model culling" has been modified Anet who plays I suppose at their game didn't experience the thing and understood that there was a problem in their system.

 

So much for the proposal that should be commented on, or marked as useful so that it can have a real hope of being read and taken into account by Anet.

Thank you.

 

> * "model culling": Limit of character models (_Quantity of players from which the game no longer displays all models_)

[Derdzvero.7051]

That's a great proposal, if applicable.

I think however (I'm not graphic programmer so take all with grain of salt!) the issue with rendering is the game engine getting overloaded, thus never sends the info to frame buffer. Or doesn't have enough throughput to process the data and can't keep up the refresh rate constant or draw objects. Which also explains why changing graphic settings brings no performance impact. CPU is definitely not maxed out during the problematic times. Also, when I enable Vsync in game, i get ~5 -8 fps hit. Why would the game struggle when vsync is enabled-no other game I have does that? Vsync should pretty much offload the graphic engine since it's by Microsoft, if activated from the game, right? If that's thr case, then the game engine itself is struggling with data processing, but why? Object details around? Don't think so. Trying to render something on other end of the map and then figures out it's not relevant and gets it discarded? Might be. Physics? Make a setting as in Borderlands 2 to set it to off/low, if that's the case.

 

For example when the problem is caused by a small/narrow point on the map as at Lion's arch fountain or thunderhead peaks north - we see specific angle of fov to cause stable drop in FPS. Stay there, fps won't increase/drop. Move 2m aside- 30% increase/drop. And hw utilisation is low/idle during that time!

Now , I believe the problem is the same, but getting worse during some events. When i see for example a big & messy bounty hunt, during which I hold 60fps and then some event where i get 35, there is nothing obvious on screen that can justify that.

 

Can Anet comment on that and at least explain where the issue is coming from?

[ReActif.9251]

Namely that this could quite possibly be proposed as an option checked in order to activate the fact that the enemy or enemies remain displayed, so those refractory to changes would not be disrupted.

 

And this would not systematically pass everyone under this new mode, although in my opinion there is no advantage to remaining in confidence or we no longer see any enemy or allied models.

[Skotlex.7580]

What if the reason culling isn't working as one would expect is related to the way objects come into view? When a character moves towards a boss location, what's going to happen is that nearby players will come into sight first, and it'll apply said culling until the limit is reached. And then the boss comes into view... or not, because the model limit was already reached. :D

 

If the issue is something along these lines, I see a potential solution in reserving one object slot for event bosses, so that they will always be rendered regardless of cull limit settings.

[ReActif.9251]

If you have read this message and are of the opinion that it is useful, don't forget to click on the thumbs up under the first message, thank you, it's that like that it will be taken into consideration !

[Lexi.1398]

This already does happen to some extent; i use the absolute lowest possible graphics settings, and during things like DS meta and AB gate pre i often see 0 players- but do see a lot of enemies- even when i am in squad. I wanna say that it already DOES prioritise enemies, but I cannot remember if this was said by anet or not.

 

Obviously however it doesn't do it consistently. Often during a busy AB gate pre ALL the enemies during the "kill the amassing mordrem" will load and most players won't- there is no massive enemies here, but also the maximum players id be surrounded by would be 30-40. However when attacking the gate It's rare I see any enemies load at all while only a few player models will remain on screen, and the mordrem frogs once inside only ever unload for me when its absolutely packed with players.

 

DS almost never fails to provide me a disappearing thornheart, but the 4 snipers all thornhearts spawn with rarely ever unload before they die while the thorn often unloads immediately. also, having player models loaded during later lane events is rare for me- the maximum players i'd be around here is 60 or so, often over 40- and if it's packed sometimes the elites and champions also disappear during lane events but this is less frequent (during second spirtfyre however only the spit loads consistently and that's because it's not even a true enemy.)

 

Rarely during raids the big boss unloads, I rarely have encounters where the boss isn't targetted (the thing you have selected will always be forcably loaded) so I can't say if there's a pattern, but i remember it happening during sabir/air djinn and cairn. i don't think it's ever happened to me during a fractal, and for that matter i've never seen players unload in fractals either, even during siren's reef.

 

Both serpent's ire bosses /always/ unload however, between 40 and well over 100 players on my observations in this. Most of the time the sparks load and remain on screen just fine though, and when only 40~ people overall are in the meta the zealots don't always unload, but always do if an approach is used where the zealots are zerged.

 

From that, the only pattern i see is with LARGE enemy models unloading. Possibly also ability effects could impact it, as they don't unload with character models- and in these observations, it would seem when a lot of people are in a small space attacking one thing, way more stuff unloads/doesn't load at all than with similar amounts of people but most of them aren't attacking anything. Maybe it culls large enemy models- despite them being often the most important- in order to show the most amount of things on screen it can?

[Jski.6180]

They realty need to add in a skill effect as well nothing worst then getting hit by something not knowing something was coming your way and to be downed to death with out any info but the dmg log.

 

Skills that should be easy to deal with become op when you cant see them because of culling.