gecko
Charter Member
I did have a functional way of making "LODs" for clouds where a less detailed version of the cloud was rendered at all distances, and at closer distances "the rest of the cloud" was rendered as a separate cloud at the same positions. Unfortunately, performance was even worse. It seems that the number of clouds has as much or even more impact than the quality of the clouds.
If you bring the horizon distance in with the cloud distance, it isn't quite as jarring. However, having that far horizon it turns out was worth sacrificing a lot of FPS for me. Going from 150km to 125km helps a little because an awful lot of terrain doesn't get rendered, but it doesn't do much for the clouds, since most are limited to less than 125km. You should notice a decent difference going from 125km to 100km, but you also really notice the closer horizon too.
If you bring the horizon distance in with the cloud distance, it isn't quite as jarring. However, having that far horizon it turns out was worth sacrificing a lot of FPS for me. Going from 150km to 125km helps a little because an awful lot of terrain doesn't get rendered, but it doesn't do much for the clouds, since most are limited to less than 125km. You should notice a decent difference going from 125km to 100km, but you also really notice the closer horizon too.