Frustrating Unit Visual bug

**ASovietKittyCat** · February 06, 2017, 01:31 PM

This has been bothering me for a long time,it really ruins my atmosphere when playing Medieval 2 Total War battles,let me explain when i am in a battle and when there are units far from the camera's location they look like 8 bit units also when i zoom out to a large distance every unit in the field looks like a 8 bit poorly animated unit i will post a screenshot to show how it looks http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfile.../?id=858592865 http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfile.../?id=858592732 2865 It will be really appreciated if someone could help me fix this,this is the kind of stuff that ruins my experience with gaming,thank you

**Socrates1984** · February 06, 2017, 02:19 PM

I don't think this is a bug. The units you see far away are called sprites and they are as they should be. Don't forget that the game is more 10 years old and was built with less powerful PCs in mind. So the designers opted for less memory consuming units when the camera is far away to help having a smooth gameplay experience. This resulted in the 8-bit-like units you see there. I'm afraid you can do nothing about it, since it's not a bug and it's not moddable.

Also, welcome to TWC!

**ASovietKittyCat** · February 06, 2017, 05:09 PM

Oh so its meant to happen?

Well thank you good sir! And fortunately i have been able to find fixes for it.

**Socrates1984** · February 07, 2017, 12:15 AM

Oh, I didn't know there were fixes for it! Sorry if I misinformed you. Could you please share your findings?

**♔atthias♔** · February 08, 2017, 05:11 AM

Originally Posted by Socrates1984

Oh, I didn't know there were fixes for it! Sorry if I misinformed you. Could you please share your findings?

go to you MTW2 CFG file
under the [video] section
look for unit_detail = x
change whatever is there on the place of the x above to highest
so it looks like unit_detail = highest
save and make the CFG file read only

**Frunk** · February 08, 2017, 05:53 AM

Thread moved from Medieval II: Total War General Discussion.

**Gigantus** · February 08, 2017, 07:01 AM

That's the unit detail setting from the in game video advanced option. His beef is with the sprites - I responded to it on Steam:

Originally Posted by Steam discussion

If you have some patience, know your way around Notepad and want to put your machine through a stress test then simply change the LOD distance numbers in the modelDB file.

The last number (in case of mulitple LOD models) is the distance at which the 2D sprites are being used.

Example:
58 unit_models/Mounts/horses/horse_small_unarmoured_lod0.mesh 500
58 unit_models/Mounts/horses/horse_small_unarmoured_lod0.mesh 1200
58 unit_models/Mounts/horses/horse_small_unarmoured_lod0.mesh 6400

6400 is the default distance after which the sprites are being used. Be courageous and change this to 20000 (20K) for all model entries or even more

After all it's a simple seacrh and replace operation:
Search for: mesh 6400
Replace with: mesh 20000

**♔atthias♔** · February 09, 2017, 03:17 AM

Originally Posted by Gigantus

That's the unit detail setting from the in game video advanced option. His beef is with the sprites - I responded to it on Steam:

are you sure I was told it also overules spirites

**Gigantus** · February 09, 2017, 05:49 AM

Nope - just tried. Same distance as before when the (now really good looking) models turn into sprites.

**♔atthias♔** · February 09, 2017, 07:44 AM

Originally Posted by Gigantus

Nope - just tried. Same distance as before when the (now really good looking) models turn into sprites.

strange
do you know about a setting wich disables sprites in the CFG file

**Gigantus** · February 09, 2017, 08:27 AM

There is none - the appearance of individual sprites is governed by the LOD distance setting in the modelDB entries as I described earlier.

You might be confusing the 'bypass_sprite_script' setting with a setting for the appearance of sprites. It's used for the generating of sprites:

Code:

[misc]
bypass_sprite_script = 1

**♔atthias♔** · February 09, 2017, 08:32 AM

Originally Posted by Gigantus

There is none - the appearance of individual sprites is governed by the LOD distance setting in the modelDB entries as I described earlier.

You might be confusing the 'bypass_sprite_script' setting with a setting for the appearance of sprites. It's used for the generating of sprites:

Code:

[misc]
bypass_sprite_script = 1

strange
I remeber for sure having a certain setting enabled in the CFG file and never seeing sprites untill I reinstallend MTW2 last year
I guess it was some fluke of this old enginie

**Gigantus** · February 09, 2017, 11:41 AM

I have added these two [video] entries to my Bare Geomod's CFG file after setting all video settings via options to the highest possible:

sprite_buffers_per_node = 16
unit_detail = highest

While it doesn't stop the sprites from appearing it does seem to improve their quality, the default value for node is 4

Edit: setting the node value to 32 gives the impression that the sprites are not being used, at least I can't see the 'curtain' that indicates the change over when you are scrolling away. Haven't tested this extensively nor did I try to actually fight a battle with these values.

**♔atthias♔** · February 10, 2017, 06:57 AM

Originally Posted by Gigantus

I have added these two [video] entries to my Bare Geomod's CFG file after setting all video settings via options to the highest possible:

sprite_buffers_per_node = 16
unit_detail = highest

While it doesn't stop the sprites from appearing it does seem to improve their quality, the default value for node is 4

Edit: setting the node value to 32 gives the impression that the sprites are not being used, at least I can't see the 'curtain' that indicates the change over when you are scrolling away. Haven't tested this extensively nor did I try to actually fight a battle with these values.

will try this ASAP