Draw distance

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In computer graphics, draw distance (render distance or view distance) is the maximum distance of objects in a three-dimensional scene that are drawn by the rendering engine. Polygons that lie beyond the draw distance will not be drawn to the screen.

Draw distance requires definition because a processor having to render objects out to an infinite distance would slow down the application to an unacceptable speed.^[1] As the draw distance increases, more distant polygons need to be drawn onto the screen that would regularly be clipped. This requires more computing power; the graphic quality and realism of the scene will increase as draw distance increases, but the overall performance (frames per second) will decrease. Many games and applications will allow users to manually set the draw distance to balance performance and visuals.