Graphic Settings and their definitions.
Posted: Fri Dec 31, 2004 3:06 pm
Heres some imformation I posted here before but it seems to have got lost in the sauce.
1) Texture Mipmap filter:
bilinear, trilinear, anisotropic. What is the difference between these?
Texture filtering is the feature that makes the textures look blured rather than blocky. But besides the normal filtering there are also extra filters that make the textures look even more blurred as they get more distant from the point of view.
Bilinear is the standart filtering system but as the ground gets farther away there are lines showing the clear separation between the levels of texture blur. On older games like Quake this is very noticeable.
Trilinear creates an extra level of filtering blur on the seperation levels of the bilinear making the transition to the horizon smooth and without any noticeable separation. But there is still a slight distortion in the nearest textures.
Anisotropic is the best of them all. It creates an average algorith based on the trilinear filtering result making everything look uniformely smooth, but it's bandwidth intensive.
In bandwidth I mean the ammount of data being exanged through the PCI or AGP Bus. The number of pipelines is crutial for this too. Budget cards like the Gforce MX are cheaper mainly because they only have half the pipelines compared to the high end boards.
(2) Texture Compression:
none, 16bit, SCTC
This has good points and bad points.
No compression means high quality but also lots of data. As before the number of pipelines is significant in terms of performance. Everything from the Bus speed, the hardrive speed, the memory speed and the ammount of insystem or GFX card memory can have an impact on this. Badly configured systems, or unexpected bugs in the drivers, or de program code, can slowdown the speed of the data exange and thus cause slowdowns normaly known as stutter.
Lowering the texture depth to 16bit, meaning from millions of colors to just thousands, lowers the stress on the bandwidth but also lowers quality. This is more notisable in smoke textures as they will not have as many colors as they should to render the transparencies. That will cause strange efects like purple smoke for example, in some cases.
S3TC (Not SCTC) is a compression algorithm that reduces the amount of data, and as before, lowers the amount of strees on the bandwidth, but rises the amount of calculations necessary. So whatever the benefits is may have by lower the bandwindth demand they may be offset by the need of the high processing capabilities needed either by the GPU or the CPU. Besides that, it also lowers the overal quality. Still in some cases it may do more good than bad.
(3) Use Dither
It's used in the 16bit mode creating a pattern between two diferent colors to smooth out the transition from one to the other.
(4) Use Vertex Arrays
An array is a string of data. In this case it contains the coordinates of the Vertexes that define the the 3d shapes we see on screen. They are the heart of the 3D engine so to speak. Each API has it's on way of using them. When this option is checked the 3D API, either OpenGL or DX, will use it's own arrays, if not checked it will use a software created array. The efects of this are umpredictable. It depends on each system.
(5) Polygon Stipple
Polygon or Line stippling is the ability to create lines or polygons made up of dotted or dashed lines. This is done when you are looking at an object from a very closed angle or long distance. The polygon lines will be more or less stippled at certain angles so that they don't saturate the object making it a big messy blob.
When used in conjunction with AA it makes the lines look more smooth.
Look at the radio wiring from Me109 for exampe. At certain angles it almost dissapears and when AA is on it looks much smoother.
(6) What are all the extensions? Multitexture, Combine, Secondary Color, Vertex Array Extension, Clip Hint, Use Palette, Texture Anisotropic Extension, Texture Compress ARB Extension.
Multitexture: as the name says is the ability to combine textures by layers in order to create a single more complex texture with more detail. You need 32bits to get good results it also like before has some strain on the bandwidth. This must be used with the "Combine" feature.
Vertex Array Extension: As before it is API specific. It also depends on the GFX card having this features.
Clip Hint: Image or object clipping is the ability to cut or remove objects that are obscured by others or outside the field of view in order to save processing time and resorces. This is a feature that tries to guess what objects have more chances of being cliped or removed from view before they do.
Secondary color: I'm not 100% sure on this one but one thing I sure of: anything that uses colors is bandwidth intensive. This is most likely to do with transparencies and multitexturing. Basicaly I belive it adds an extra color palette in order to create a better blending. Use it with the "Use Palette".
Texture Anisotropic Extension, Texture Compress ARB Extension: They should only be used when the anisotropic filtering and the texture compression are on. They add extra features that impact on quality, but only if the GPU can handle them.
1) Texture Mipmap filter:
bilinear, trilinear, anisotropic. What is the difference between these?
Texture filtering is the feature that makes the textures look blured rather than blocky. But besides the normal filtering there are also extra filters that make the textures look even more blurred as they get more distant from the point of view.
Bilinear is the standart filtering system but as the ground gets farther away there are lines showing the clear separation between the levels of texture blur. On older games like Quake this is very noticeable.
Trilinear creates an extra level of filtering blur on the seperation levels of the bilinear making the transition to the horizon smooth and without any noticeable separation. But there is still a slight distortion in the nearest textures.
Anisotropic is the best of them all. It creates an average algorith based on the trilinear filtering result making everything look uniformely smooth, but it's bandwidth intensive.
In bandwidth I mean the ammount of data being exanged through the PCI or AGP Bus. The number of pipelines is crutial for this too. Budget cards like the Gforce MX are cheaper mainly because they only have half the pipelines compared to the high end boards.
(2) Texture Compression:
none, 16bit, SCTC
This has good points and bad points.
No compression means high quality but also lots of data. As before the number of pipelines is significant in terms of performance. Everything from the Bus speed, the hardrive speed, the memory speed and the ammount of insystem or GFX card memory can have an impact on this. Badly configured systems, or unexpected bugs in the drivers, or de program code, can slowdown the speed of the data exange and thus cause slowdowns normaly known as stutter.
Lowering the texture depth to 16bit, meaning from millions of colors to just thousands, lowers the stress on the bandwidth but also lowers quality. This is more notisable in smoke textures as they will not have as many colors as they should to render the transparencies. That will cause strange efects like purple smoke for example, in some cases.
S3TC (Not SCTC) is a compression algorithm that reduces the amount of data, and as before, lowers the amount of strees on the bandwidth, but rises the amount of calculations necessary. So whatever the benefits is may have by lower the bandwindth demand they may be offset by the need of the high processing capabilities needed either by the GPU or the CPU. Besides that, it also lowers the overal quality. Still in some cases it may do more good than bad.
(3) Use Dither
It's used in the 16bit mode creating a pattern between two diferent colors to smooth out the transition from one to the other.
(4) Use Vertex Arrays
An array is a string of data. In this case it contains the coordinates of the Vertexes that define the the 3d shapes we see on screen. They are the heart of the 3D engine so to speak. Each API has it's on way of using them. When this option is checked the 3D API, either OpenGL or DX, will use it's own arrays, if not checked it will use a software created array. The efects of this are umpredictable. It depends on each system.
(5) Polygon Stipple
Polygon or Line stippling is the ability to create lines or polygons made up of dotted or dashed lines. This is done when you are looking at an object from a very closed angle or long distance. The polygon lines will be more or less stippled at certain angles so that they don't saturate the object making it a big messy blob.
When used in conjunction with AA it makes the lines look more smooth.
Look at the radio wiring from Me109 for exampe. At certain angles it almost dissapears and when AA is on it looks much smoother.
(6) What are all the extensions? Multitexture, Combine, Secondary Color, Vertex Array Extension, Clip Hint, Use Palette, Texture Anisotropic Extension, Texture Compress ARB Extension.
Multitexture: as the name says is the ability to combine textures by layers in order to create a single more complex texture with more detail. You need 32bits to get good results it also like before has some strain on the bandwidth. This must be used with the "Combine" feature.
Vertex Array Extension: As before it is API specific. It also depends on the GFX card having this features.
Clip Hint: Image or object clipping is the ability to cut or remove objects that are obscured by others or outside the field of view in order to save processing time and resorces. This is a feature that tries to guess what objects have more chances of being cliped or removed from view before they do.
Secondary color: I'm not 100% sure on this one but one thing I sure of: anything that uses colors is bandwidth intensive. This is most likely to do with transparencies and multitexturing. Basicaly I belive it adds an extra color palette in order to create a better blending. Use it with the "Use Palette".
Texture Anisotropic Extension, Texture Compress ARB Extension: They should only be used when the anisotropic filtering and the texture compression are on. They add extra features that impact on quality, but only if the GPU can handle them.