How does simulation-distance (a new 1.18 setting) effects chunk loading distance?

Before 1.18 there was a rule for chunk loading distance that said "the chunk loading distance is equal to the view-distance" (you can read this Minecraft Wiki page at the section "player ticket".

The same is answered in this reddit question or this Stackoverflow question about chunk update radius

But since 1.18 there is a new config setting called "simulation-distance". I already know that this setting effects in what range entities and liquids will be loaded and calculated, so that is not the question.

But I wonder if or how this new setting affects the chunk loading distance.

e.g. if settings are:

view-distance=5
simulation-distance=10

What will be the chunk loading distance (will it be 5, 10 or something else)?

or with

view-distance=10
simulation-distance=5

The wiki about server.properties does yust say [more information needed] for simulation distance.

Solution 1:

I'm not fully sure on what it does either, but to my knowledge, it loads the chunks in the simulation distance range, but does not load models. This can save a bit of resources if you don't have a (good) GPU. So Mojang basically split the rendering process into two bits:

• Loading models and visuals (view-distance or render distance)
• Loading physics and entity movement (simulation-distance)

Whichever is the highest will determine how many chunks you load, but having simulation distance lower than view-distance while having things outside of that range is very interesting (but ultimately quite useless). Entities will stop moving the moment they cross the simulation-distance border, and water will stop flowing if it flows outside of this border. If you have a lower end PC or laptop without a GPU, make sure to set your view-distance low. However, if you would still like to load things, just set your simulation-distance slightly higher than the view-distance.

Hope this clears stuff up! Again, this is what I can tell from watching some stuff on YouTube and testing around myself. Maybe this is inaccurate!