Mineral Render Distance

What it does

This is a test build. Applying the distance in new missions has been tested in game; this build has not been fully tested yet. Changing a setting does not change the crystals already built in the current stage; it applies from the next mission or Deep Dive stage. If something goes wrong, disable it and let me know.

Many players lower View Distance for performance: fewer far-away things drawn, more FPS. The catch is that minerals are affected too. Each vein is really two things: a flat pattern on the cave wall, plus lots of small 3D crystals. Vanilla draws those crystals only within 45 m × your View Distance multiplier; on Low (multiplier 0.6) they vanish beyond about 27 m and only the flat pattern is left, so from a distance the vein looks low-poly.

Mineral Render Distance changes only how far these mineral crystals are drawn. Everything else (enemies, terrain, effects) follows the game's View Distance, so you keep the performance of a low View Distance and still see minerals from afar.

• Distance: 10–300 m, default 60 m.
• What the distance means: "Real distance on screen" (default): 60 m is 60 m whatever your View Distance is; the mod cancels out the multiplier. "Scaled by View Distance": like vanilla, the game multiplies it by your View Distance multiplier.
• Which minerals: one switch each. Nitra and morkite are on by default; gold, croppa, dystrum, aquarq, bittergem, compressed gold and enor pearl can be switched on. Minerals switched off keep the vanilla distance.
• When it applies: from the next mission or Deep Dive stage. Crystals already built in the current stage don't change right away.
• Settings page: a "Mineral Render Distance" page in the Mod Hub or Unified UI menu: the settings above, your current View Distance multiplier and the resulting distance, language (English or Chinese), and a button to this site. Settings are saved automatically.

What it doesn't do

• It doesn't change the draw distance of enemies, terrain, effects or anything else; those follow the game's View Distance.
• It doesn't update crystals that are already built during a mission (tried; it didn't work, so this build removed it). Wait for the next mission or stage.
• Crafting minerals such as Bismor, Umanite and Magnite are painted into the cave wall and have no such crystals, so they're not listed (they're already visible from afar).
• It sends nothing to the host and changes nobody else's game; a vanilla host is fine.

How it works

• Each mineral's crystal settings (for example DBR_Nitra) store how far its crystals are drawn (vanilla 4500 units = 45 m, then multiplied by the View Distance multiplier). Every time the game generates a cave it copies that number onto the new crystals. On the Space Rig and at the start of every mission, this mod sets that number to your distance, so crystals generated afterwards use it.
• With "Real distance on screen" the mod reads the game's current View Distance multiplier (r.ViewDistanceScale) and divides it out, so after the game multiplies it back you get exactly the metres you chose.

Install

1. Fully close the game.

2. Download MineralRenderDistance-0.1.0-alpha.2.pak, add it to your mod manager (MintCat) and enable it.

3. For the settings page you need Mod Hub or Unified UI (without them it still works with the defaults: on, 60 m, nitra and morkite).

4. Play as usual. To adjust it, open the mod menu (Unified UI: B by default, Mod Hub: H) and find the "Mineral Render Distance" page; changes apply from the next mission.

New to MintCat or Unified UI? See the original CD2 setup steps.

Idea from Fayree (Discord): keep a low View Distance for performance without nitra and morkite turning low-poly in the distance.