Hard to find meteors when the world disappears

Same @DKPuncherello, that pic I sent was of me standing in the middle of a plains biome. It was invisible for a good 2 mins and I was only walking

This has actually been happening to me too but only on the Gleambow planets. Iā€™m on a PC and itā€™s far from having low specs or anything lol. Itā€™s very on/off when it happens, last night and today has been fine but the previous days it was bad.

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Itā€™s been doing this since I first started playing over a year ago. Some days itā€™s worse than others and boundless is the only online game I have that lags like this. That pic I sent was about 3 months ago but because of Gleambowā€™s racing nature it way more bound to happen because of how fast weā€™re moving

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Yep It happens to me too on PC and its always when Iā€™m moving too fast

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The issue is that the PS4 has a relatively slow CPU (8-core AMD x86-64 @ 1.6 GHz). Whilst the world meshing does run in parallel across many cores, meshing a single chunk is relatively slow. The new water->ice buff changes many chunks close to the player which then need to be remeshed. And/or youā€™re moving rapidly over the landscape which also increases the meshing demand. This would all be fine - but we dynamically reduce the draw distance to hide holes in the landscape. You will normally see the fog/far draw distance roll out as the world meshes. But if a chunk briefly fails to load or is particularly complex to mesh, then you could notice the far fog plane snap in, to hide the hole, then roll out once filled.

So the PS4 meshing gets behind, the fog/far draw distance is pulled in to hide the delay, and the player is left unable to see anything until the meshing catches up.

Significantly speeding up the meshing isnā€™t really an option as weā€™ve already spent lots of time on this - and itā€™s pretty efficient.

Disabling the fog/far distance animation would allow you to continue moving through the landscape at the cost of seeing the world load (as you do in Minecraft).

Weā€™ll take a look at it first thing next week.


For people commenting that theyā€™ve see it in the past - itā€™s most likely that a chunk has simply failed to download. And the client has needed to re-request it. So itā€™s normally a brief networking issue that causes the chunk to temporarily be missing and hence the reduce draw distance.

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Could we get some options to turn down the graphics on PS4 perhaps?

The PS4 automatically turns down the graphics settings using the same ā€œdynamicā€ system on the PC. The advantage of it being dynamic (like the vast majority of console games) is that the options are changed when required. Giving more performance when the environment is complex, and more visual quality when performance is available.

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Thank you for giving us some clarification @james
Unfortunately itā€™s something most of us already knew. I didnā€™t think there would be anything that could be done. Also unfortunate that consoles will always fall behind.

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Iā€™d be fine with a ā€œno fog of warā€ option

Yeah It freaks me out less to see the chunks load one by one than being in outer space.

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Another fix would be allow atlas to show metorsā€¦if put in rough ortā€¦oh I am still dreaming

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Ps5 will fix the problem :grinning:

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I captured how extensive the ā€œbattle fogā€ is when trying to hunt meteors and also the world disappearingā€¦ makes hunting for the meteors preetttyy difficult.

Context: PS4 Pro, max settings, 50mbps download 10mbps upload - hardwired.

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@james

What if you just prioritize the rendering of meteors no matter their distance from player? So they can still see the meteor and move in that direction?

As an odd man out I would rather see fog than a land riddled with holes. But if the meteor is always visible then you can still run in the right direction.

On PC the mod helps to see the right direction to the meteor but itā€™s not a lot of help if you donā€™t know there is a freaking mountain or a hole in the middle :laughing:

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True, but if you remove the fog. That hole or mountain still wont appear. Not sure removing fog is going to help. I wonder if direction of player vision prioritizing would help then?

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Not really a fix if they canā€™t transfer your account to another platformā€¦

Besides, am sure the PS5 will fix a lot too :wink:

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It usually happens when moving really, really fast, has been like that from the start but with gleambow racing due to the need of having to go as fast as possible it just shows up more often than during normal gameplay.

It also happens a heck of a lot in my big underground farm for instance when I visit it and it has to redo all the cropsā€¦

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Iā€™ve legit mentioned this during every gleambow event it makes no difference, still getting it on this event. Itā€™s kinda sad because it drains me from playing the game yet I really want to play this event, Iā€™m off work on weekends only so itā€™s the only time Iā€™ll get to play it. So I can only play this weekend and next but I know Iā€™ll continue to miss more than Iā€™ll be completing.
& my internet speed isnā€™t bad at all either it just doesnā€™t load in, in time and also wipes everything you can see for a few seconds. Makes you have to stop moving in order for it to load up. Then when it comes back you canā€™t see the meteor in the sky until it lands and even then you have no idea where itā€™s landed

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I havenā€™t really participated in most gleambow events due to this long-standing bug. Itā€™s frustrating to be left behind.

Iā€™ll admit Iā€™ve more or less resigned myself to feeling that this event is for PC players only.