Tip for creating smooth landscapes (any possible side-effects?)

I just noticed something interesting. I was playing Operation Flashpoint and realised how smooth and sweeping the landscapes were, and how much more realistic they looked.

So I thought I'd try something. I created an island, which was fairly rugged and jagged, and changed the following line in the mission file:

Quote:squareSize = "8";

to:

Quote:squareSize = "32";

The result was a much smoother landscape with nice sloping, gradual hills that looked much more realistic.

I don't know what the processing/performance hit is by doing this. Anyone know anything bad side effects of doing this?

Thanks

Edit: one side effect is that the quality of the terrain textures is reduced as they stretched even more than usual. Still if you can live with that, it should be ok eh?