GTA:SA Slowdown When I'm High

[ajbrun]

I've recently got my pilots license in GTA:SA, so one of the first things I did was to go as high as possible. When I get to cloud level though, I seem to get a HUGE drop in frames per second. This hasn't happened anywhere else, so I'm just wondering why then only? I'd have thought the gae would have more things to render down on the ground, than some clouds in the sky. I've set all the graphics options on as high as possible, but I think I'm going to have to lower the bits per second (I think that's what it is...).

Anyone know why it only happens at cloud level?

Thanks .

[Rys]

When you've got a large draw distance, you become (usually) fillrate limited, due to overdraw.

What you see on the screen (the coloured pixels) isn't 'drawn' just once by your 3D accelerator, since geometry is rarely sorted before rasterisation (conversion into pixel fragments) so that hidden geometry is discarded before it's rasterised. So there's a bunch of overdraw happening when draw distance gets large and the engine doesn't limit draw depth, slowing things down (consuming fillrate and memory bandwidth).

[ajbrun]

So would you say that lowering the bit per second (I think that's what it is) will do the trick?

1280x720x32 - like lowering the 32 to 16.

[Rys]

Nope. Reducing colour depth (bits per pixel) won't have an effect. You need to turn down the resolution you play at, to limit the problem. Or fly high less often...

[ajbrun]

OK - thanks .

[Snoopafella]

Originally Posted by Rys

Or fly high less often...

I'm not condoning it but Is that not illegal anyway?!?!?!