Angelwinged_Devil
08-25-2007, 01:18 PM
so, I made this thread for some helpful information, it would be nice to know what each option did so you could enchance your fps or use your systems power to full graphic performance.
At first it'll contain in game options, I'll look at the cfg later.
Edit: starting on the cfg file now, notice language, how I told it's location in the cfg :D
Start screen under options
Full screen: controls if the game will be played in full screen or not. Most people tell they got the best performance in full screen. I seem to be the only one getting the best performance in windowed mode. But it may depend on the resolution I'm running with. my suggestion to this is just to try it out, but start it up in full screen as it seems to mess up when you start it up in windows and then go to full screen. You change from full screen to windowed by alt+enter
Update all new resources at once: downloads all those resources (textures, models and so on) one time so you won't be downloading them over and over again. It would be nice not to have a lag while you enter the battle because you're downloading the opponents textures.
Enable sound:: with this on you will hear sounds from the enviroment, spells, weapons hitting something, winds etc. Turn this off if you're unable to get sound anyway. it improved my performance with fps.
Enable music: with this on you will be able to hear music from in game to give some sort of background enviroment. Turn this off if you're unable to get sound anyway. it improved my performance with fps.
Force Safe mode: Turns all graphic settings to minimum plus disables some other effects. (Will try to acquire that list later.)
Resolution: sets the pixels used on height and width, the last number is how many colours you'll use. A lower resolution and colour depth will result in a faster game.
Language: Choses which language you see the game text in (note that this won't change the chat input from other users.) This doesn't have any effect on performance.
cfg file option=cl_language
Renderer: Choses what should render the graphics, on windows I'll suggest you chose direct3d allthough I'm more a fan of opengl, but on linux you're forced to use opengl cause microsoft only made directx for windows ;).
Performance is a whole other discussion in this, it really depends on your computer, some gets a faster game with opengl others with direct3d. Although opengl definately looks prettier from this place it crashes more due to the microsoft/directx problem. Although I get some weird lines on grass if I view it on a long distance I can see it becoming striped brown/green.
detected GPU: The game detects your graphic card, all of these above are from an unsupported video card ;). This also has an impact on autodetect configuration for best performance (will be explained in advanced options.)
Advanced Options
Image Quality
Anisotropic Filter: Makes things at distance look prettier and more in depth. Turn the slider to the left for more performance and to the right for a prettier but slower game.
In 3D computer graphics, anisotropic filtering (abbreviated AF) is a method of enhancing the image quality of textures on surfaces that are at oblique viewing angles with respect to the camera where the projection of the texture (not the polygon or other primitive it is rendered on) appears to be non orthogonal. Like bilinear and trilinear filtering it eliminates aliasing effects, but introduces less blur at extreme viewing angles and thus preserves more detail. Anisotropic filtering is relatively expensive (usually computationally, though the standard space-time tradeoff rules apply)
Antialising: Makes the corners less edgy and more round, in nondirect lines it will be less edgy and a prettier line will be drawn. Turn the slider to the left for more performance and to the right for a prettier but slower game.
Level of detail: Predefined configurations for your game, there's low, medium high and custom, if post process is greyed out to you you can enable it by turning the slider to high and then adjusting it, but isn't recommended as it's turned on here because of the crappy computer I'm on now.
terrain detail: the detail showed in the terrain (ground you're walking on) Turn this up to view more stuff on the ground (grass for example ;.) Turn it down (to the left) for more performance.
Terrain quality: Adjusts the quality of the terrain, turn it up for some pretty and more in depth grassed terrain. turn the slider left for more performance and right for a more prettier but slower game.
water quality: Same as terrain quality this just applies to the water (mirror effects)
Texture quality: The quality of the textures, they will be less blurry and more clear if you turn it up but also slower. Textures is a layer put on the 3d figure to give him colours. This is why you sometimes see a white dude running around, he haven't put on his textures yet. To avoid this turn on download all resources at once ;).
turn the slider left for more performance and right for a more prettier but slower game.
View distance: Affects how far you'll see the scenary(trees, rocks) will be drawn, this doesn't affect mob and enemy distance for balancing issues (then a person with a better computer can see his enemies further away.)
turn the slider left for more performance and right for a more prettier but slower game.
terrain texture high: for a high terrain texture (will turn blurry grass into more high quality grass ;).
Turn it on for a prettier terarain but a slower gameplay.
Post process: It makes a blur effect. So the whole graphics look like an oil painting, takes a lot of system resources. (thanks to stefan1200 for this) And it only works with direct3d(Thanks to Jacek for this)
weather FXs viewing weather particles (I think) I've never had this on but sometimes I hear it rains inside houses. So I guess this enables you to view the weather ;). of course with this on it'll be a bit more enchanced surroundings with a feeling of a living world but will also make your game slower.
Lightning FXs I don't run with this on either but I guess it'll be the light. Just like the weather although htis just applies to light (beams from the sun as an example.) I'll try it out later unless I get the information elsewhere :D. Again with this on it'll be a bit more enchanced surroundings with a feeling of a living world but will also make your game slower.
Particle FXs Makes you ableto see different particles, with this off you won't be able to see a lot of spells being performed. and once again with this on it'll be a bit more enchanced surroundings with a feeling of a living world but will also make your game slower.
configuration file (LiveServer->game.cfg)
cl_language: set client language, same as the one in the options section. Choses which language you see the game text in (note that this won't change the chat input from other users.) This doesn't have any effect on performance. if you're english the value should be eng
vg_terrain_lod: Sharpness of the terrain textures, if you give it a higher value the terrains textures will be VERY blurry in a nonpretty way, but it'll definately turn up game speed. A very big value makes it white. The default value is 4
vg_texture_lod: Sharpness of the textures, if you give it a higher value the textures will be blurry in a nonpretty way, it's like giving it a plate of white on, and will be miscoloured (forts can be purple) None the less it speeds up the game. The default value is 2
I know I haven't done many in cfg yet, I need to test out what they do unless I get a faster response from a developer :D
Hope you can use this for a better gaming experience XD cheers
At first it'll contain in game options, I'll look at the cfg later.
Edit: starting on the cfg file now, notice language, how I told it's location in the cfg :D
Start screen under options
Full screen: controls if the game will be played in full screen or not. Most people tell they got the best performance in full screen. I seem to be the only one getting the best performance in windowed mode. But it may depend on the resolution I'm running with. my suggestion to this is just to try it out, but start it up in full screen as it seems to mess up when you start it up in windows and then go to full screen. You change from full screen to windowed by alt+enter
Update all new resources at once: downloads all those resources (textures, models and so on) one time so you won't be downloading them over and over again. It would be nice not to have a lag while you enter the battle because you're downloading the opponents textures.
Enable sound:: with this on you will hear sounds from the enviroment, spells, weapons hitting something, winds etc. Turn this off if you're unable to get sound anyway. it improved my performance with fps.
Enable music: with this on you will be able to hear music from in game to give some sort of background enviroment. Turn this off if you're unable to get sound anyway. it improved my performance with fps.
Force Safe mode: Turns all graphic settings to minimum plus disables some other effects. (Will try to acquire that list later.)
Resolution: sets the pixels used on height and width, the last number is how many colours you'll use. A lower resolution and colour depth will result in a faster game.
Language: Choses which language you see the game text in (note that this won't change the chat input from other users.) This doesn't have any effect on performance.
cfg file option=cl_language
Renderer: Choses what should render the graphics, on windows I'll suggest you chose direct3d allthough I'm more a fan of opengl, but on linux you're forced to use opengl cause microsoft only made directx for windows ;).
Performance is a whole other discussion in this, it really depends on your computer, some gets a faster game with opengl others with direct3d. Although opengl definately looks prettier from this place it crashes more due to the microsoft/directx problem. Although I get some weird lines on grass if I view it on a long distance I can see it becoming striped brown/green.
detected GPU: The game detects your graphic card, all of these above are from an unsupported video card ;). This also has an impact on autodetect configuration for best performance (will be explained in advanced options.)
Advanced Options
Image Quality
Anisotropic Filter: Makes things at distance look prettier and more in depth. Turn the slider to the left for more performance and to the right for a prettier but slower game.
In 3D computer graphics, anisotropic filtering (abbreviated AF) is a method of enhancing the image quality of textures on surfaces that are at oblique viewing angles with respect to the camera where the projection of the texture (not the polygon or other primitive it is rendered on) appears to be non orthogonal. Like bilinear and trilinear filtering it eliminates aliasing effects, but introduces less blur at extreme viewing angles and thus preserves more detail. Anisotropic filtering is relatively expensive (usually computationally, though the standard space-time tradeoff rules apply)
Antialising: Makes the corners less edgy and more round, in nondirect lines it will be less edgy and a prettier line will be drawn. Turn the slider to the left for more performance and to the right for a prettier but slower game.
Level of detail: Predefined configurations for your game, there's low, medium high and custom, if post process is greyed out to you you can enable it by turning the slider to high and then adjusting it, but isn't recommended as it's turned on here because of the crappy computer I'm on now.
terrain detail: the detail showed in the terrain (ground you're walking on) Turn this up to view more stuff on the ground (grass for example ;.) Turn it down (to the left) for more performance.
Terrain quality: Adjusts the quality of the terrain, turn it up for some pretty and more in depth grassed terrain. turn the slider left for more performance and right for a more prettier but slower game.
water quality: Same as terrain quality this just applies to the water (mirror effects)
Texture quality: The quality of the textures, they will be less blurry and more clear if you turn it up but also slower. Textures is a layer put on the 3d figure to give him colours. This is why you sometimes see a white dude running around, he haven't put on his textures yet. To avoid this turn on download all resources at once ;).
turn the slider left for more performance and right for a more prettier but slower game.
View distance: Affects how far you'll see the scenary(trees, rocks) will be drawn, this doesn't affect mob and enemy distance for balancing issues (then a person with a better computer can see his enemies further away.)
turn the slider left for more performance and right for a more prettier but slower game.
terrain texture high: for a high terrain texture (will turn blurry grass into more high quality grass ;).
Turn it on for a prettier terarain but a slower gameplay.
Post process: It makes a blur effect. So the whole graphics look like an oil painting, takes a lot of system resources. (thanks to stefan1200 for this) And it only works with direct3d(Thanks to Jacek for this)
weather FXs viewing weather particles (I think) I've never had this on but sometimes I hear it rains inside houses. So I guess this enables you to view the weather ;). of course with this on it'll be a bit more enchanced surroundings with a feeling of a living world but will also make your game slower.
Lightning FXs I don't run with this on either but I guess it'll be the light. Just like the weather although htis just applies to light (beams from the sun as an example.) I'll try it out later unless I get the information elsewhere :D. Again with this on it'll be a bit more enchanced surroundings with a feeling of a living world but will also make your game slower.
Particle FXs Makes you ableto see different particles, with this off you won't be able to see a lot of spells being performed. and once again with this on it'll be a bit more enchanced surroundings with a feeling of a living world but will also make your game slower.
configuration file (LiveServer->game.cfg)
cl_language: set client language, same as the one in the options section. Choses which language you see the game text in (note that this won't change the chat input from other users.) This doesn't have any effect on performance. if you're english the value should be eng
vg_terrain_lod: Sharpness of the terrain textures, if you give it a higher value the terrains textures will be VERY blurry in a nonpretty way, but it'll definately turn up game speed. A very big value makes it white. The default value is 4
vg_texture_lod: Sharpness of the textures, if you give it a higher value the textures will be blurry in a nonpretty way, it's like giving it a plate of white on, and will be miscoloured (forts can be purple) None the less it speeds up the game. The default value is 2
I know I haven't done many in cfg yet, I need to test out what they do unless I get a faster response from a developer :D
Hope you can use this for a better gaming experience XD cheers