Level of detail

[provocating]

I just wanted to throw this out there.

WTF is Level of Detail under your graphic settings ? I have clicked this thing off and on since it appeared and never noticed a difference.

[lerxst2112]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level_of_detail

[Tabasco]

LoD is a technique for decimating meshes based on distance without distorting UV's, similar to mip-mapping with textures. The idea is that a geometrically complex object is already obscure past X distance (or X1, X2, X3, etc. for various levels), so we either use an algorithm to generalize the surface and UV's (that's texture coordinates) or store pre-decimated meshes that get displayed at the specified visual ranges.

If you don't see a difference you might not be looking at distant enough objects, or the function is doing its job really well. Since many EQ models are extremely low-poly by today's standards, it stands to be more noticeable in newer zones with fancier geometry and textures.

http://habibs.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/level_of_detail.jpg

Edit: What he said ^^

[provocating]

Interesting, I will check it a little further tonight.