New Horizons Treelines

New Horizons: Treelines

New Horizons: Treelines is a visual-only BepInEx mod for Valheim that extends forests and distant terrain far beyond the game’s normal render distance.

In vanilla Valheim, trees and land eventually stop rendering, which can make forests, mountains, and coastlines appear to end suddenly. New Horizons fills those empty areas with lightweight distant tree cards and extended terrain, creating a fuller and more natural-looking horizon.

As you move closer, the mod hands the scenery back over to Valheim’s native trees and terrain.

The mod does not edit your world, save file, buildings, enemies, loot, or gameplay. It only adds extra visual geometry on top of the world Valheim has already generated.

All config options affect visuals and performance only. Changing them cannot damage your world or save.

SUPPORTED BIOMES

Distant tree cards are currently supported in:

• Meadows
• Black Forest
• Mountains

All other biomes are currently unsupported.

FEATURES

Distant forests

Lightweight billboard-style tree cards extend Meadows, Black Forest, and Mountain forests several kilometres into the distance.

This prevents forests from visibly ending in the middle of the landscape.

Extended distant terrain

A matching distant terrain mesh extends the visible ground, helping prevent faraway land from suddenly disappearing into fog or empty space.

Native tree handoff

Distant tree cards begin around the distance where Valheim’s native trees stop rendering.

This distance is known as the native treeline radius, or H.

A small overlap can be used so the distant tree cards and Valheim’s native trees meet without leaving a visible empty gap.

Biome-specific controls

Meadows, Black Forest, and Mountains have separate controls for tree density, size, coverage, and appearance.

Performance-friendly generation

Distant forests and terrain are generated gradually using a limited amount of work each frame.

The mod can reduce its workload when the game is under heavy load, helping prevent large frame drops while new distant areas are being created.

REQUIREMENTS

• Valheim
• BepInEx 5.4.x for Valheim

OPTIONAL COMPATIBILITY

render_limits

When installed, New Horizons can read the extended view-distance settings used by render_limits.

This allows the native handoff radius to match your actual tree render distance automatically.

BetterContinents

BetterContinents is detected for compatibility but is not required.

INSTALLATION

1. Install BepInEx 5.4.x for Valheim.

2. Place DonegalHorizonLift.dll inside your BepInEx plugins folder:

BepInEx/plugins/

1. The following four atlas files must be placed directly beside DonegalHorizonLift.dll in the same folder:

• nh_mixed_treeatlas.png
• nh_mixed_canopyatlas.png
• nh_mountain_biome_atlas.png
• nh_swamp_biome_atlas.png

Your plugins folder should look like this:

BepInEx/ └── plugins/ ├── DonegalHorizonLift.dll ├── nh_mixed_treeatlas.png ├── nh_mixed_canopyatlas.png ├── nh_mountain_biome_atlas.png └── nh_swamp_biome_atlas.png

1. Use the marc.donegalhorizonlift.cfg file provided with the mod.

2. Place the provided config file inside:

BepInEx/config/

Your config folder should contain:

BepInEx/ └── config/ └── marc.donegalhorizonlift.cfg

The provided config has already been set up for the mod and should be installed before launching Valheim.

Do not place the atlas PNG files inside the config folder. All four atlas files must remain beside the DLL inside the plugins folder.

IMPORTANT SETTINGS

Quality Preset

Controls the overall render distance and the performance budget used by the mod.

Named presets apply a matching extension distance, forest tile limit, tree-card budget, canopy-card budget, and mesh upload limit.

Select Custom to control those settings manually.

New Horizons Extension Distance

Controls how far the distant forests and terrain continue beyond Valheim’s native tree render distance.

This setting only takes effect when:

Quality Preset = Custom

Native Treeline Calibrated Radius

This is the native tree handoff radius, also called H.

It tells New Horizons where Valheim’s normal trees are expected to stop rendering.

Matching this value to your native or render_limits draw distance creates the cleanest handoff.

Native Treeline Seam Overlap

This is the overlap distance, also called O.

Distant tree cards begin at H minus O, slightly inside the native tree radius, helping prevent a visible empty gap.

Biome tree scale

Black Forest and Mountain trees have separate height and width multipliers.

These settings can be used to better match the size of distant tree cards to Valheim’s nearby native trees.

Maximum Coverage Gap

Each distance ring has a maximum allowed gap between accepted tree cards.

The available rings are:

• Handoff
• Near
• Mid
• Far
• Horizon

Lower values create denser and more continuous-looking forests but may have a greater performance cost.

QUALITY PRESETS

VeryLow

• Distance beyond native trees: 500 m
• Forest tiles: 220
• Tree cards: 50,000
• Canopy cards: 35,000
• Mesh uploads per frame: 2

Low

• Distance beyond native trees: 1,000 m
• Forest tiles: 320
• Tree cards: 70,000
• Canopy cards: 50,000
• Mesh uploads per frame: 2

Balanced

• Distance beyond native trees: 2,000 m
• Forest tiles: 500
• Tree cards: 100,000
• Canopy cards: 75,000
• Mesh uploads per frame: 3

Medium

• Distance beyond native trees: 4,000 m
• Forest tiles: 800
• Tree cards: 140,000
• Canopy cards: 105,000
• Mesh uploads per frame: 3

High

• Distance beyond native trees: 7,000 m
• Forest tiles: 1,400
• Tree cards: 190,000
• Canopy cards: 145,000
• Mesh uploads per frame: 4

Ultra

• Distance beyond native trees: 10,000 m
• Forest tiles: 2,600
• Tree cards: 260,000
• Canopy cards: 195,000
• Mesh uploads per frame: 5

Horizon

• Distance beyond native trees: Maximum world range
• Forest tiles: 2,800
• Tree cards: 340,000
• Canopy cards: 255,000
• Mesh uploads per frame: 6

Custom

• Distance, tile limits, card budgets, and mesh uploads are set manually.

When a named preset is selected, it overrides the individual range and budget settings each time the mod loads.

Select Custom for complete manual control.

TREE CARD DENSITY PRESET

The Tree Card Density Preset is separate from the Quality Preset.

It controls how densely forests are filled rather than how far they render.

It adjusts settings such as:

• Cluster size
• Candidate counts
• Maximum coverage gaps
• Per-biome density
• Near, mid, far, and horizon coverage

Leave this setting on Custom when manually tuning forest density and coverage.

KNOWN LIMITATIONS

Limited biome support

Distant tree cards currently support Meadows, Black Forest, and Mountains only.

All other biomes are currently unsupported.

No visual fade yet

The handoff between distant tree cards and Valheim’s native trees currently uses a hard geometric edge.

A fade-width setting exists in the config but currently has no effect.

Distant scenery fills in gradually

Distant terrain and forests are generated as you explore.

A newly extended area may take some time to fully populate rather than appearing instantly.

Visuals only

The trees drawn by New Horizons are not real Valheim objects.

They cannot be chopped down, harvested, interacted with, or used by enemies. They do not affect loot, creature spawning, navigation, world generation, or gameplay.

Press F8 in-game to view diagnostics and the exact build name or build ID.

UNINSTALLING

Remove:

• DonegalHorizonLift.dll
• nh_mixed_treeatlas.png
• nh_mixed_canopyatlas.png
• nh_mountain_biome_atlas.png
• nh_swamp_biome_atlas.png
• BepInEx/config/marc.donegalhorizonlift.cfg

Uninstalling the mod will not damage your worlds or characters because no save or world data is changed.