|
Updated
on October 05, 2001 by Thomas
McGuire
More Display Options
Detail Texturing.
3 options are available for this setting - On, Ranged
& Off. A detail texture is a very small, fine pattern that is faded in as you
approach a surface, for example wood grain, or imperfections
in stone. Set this to On (Applied to the entire game world) or Ranged (Only applied at a certain distance from your viewpoint) for
improved visual quality. Setting it to Off disables
Detail Textures altogether, this is only recommended for
very old Graphics Cards as visual quality will suffer.
Detail Texturing Range.
You can ignore this setting if you set Detail Texturing
to On. Use this setting to set the range at which
detail textures are applied to the game world. Moving the
slider to the Right has the effect of applying detail
textures further away for improved visual quality, &
vice versa. This distance will directly affect performance.
Slide it to the Left for improved performance.
Texture
Mode. This
option controls the texture filtering method used in Soldier
Of Fortune. Options available are None, Bilinear,
Mipped Bilinear & Trilinear. Those with
3dfx Cards are recommended to set this to Bilinear
only as they cannot perform Multi-texturing & Trilinear
texture filtering simultaneously. Most other Graphics Cards
should be able to use Trilinear without issue. The
screenshots below illustrate each of the Filtering modes in
operation (In particular pay attention to the ground &
wall texture).
None
|
Bilinear
|
|
|
|
Mipped
Bilinear
|
Trilinear
|
|
|
As you can see, each
filtering mode offers progressively better texture quality.
Anisotropic Filtering.
For even greater texture quality you should set this to On
to enable Anisotropic Texture filtering. Anisotropic
filtering will yield significantly reduced texture aliasing
& maintain texture sharpness/detail over greater
distances. Beneath is a screenshot of this filtering mode in
operation.
As
you can see, compared to just Trilinear texture
filtering, this offers far greater texture sharpness, in
particular pay attention to the wall in the far distance,
& to the wall near the Center left of the image. That
said, with many Graphics Cards the performance hit from this
may be too severe, so set it to No if this is the
case. NOTE – Anisotropic Filtering can be set
independently of the Texture filtering mode, e.g. You can
have Bilinear & Anisotropic enabled, or Trilinear &
Anisotropic. Although the latter combination will yield best
image quality.
Video Driver.
This
option controls the renderer used for Soldier Of Fortune.
Those with older 3dfx Graphics Cards (Voodoo 2 or earlier)
should select Voodoo, while all others should set
this to Default OpenGL.
Resolution.
Selecting
a lower resolution can improve performance & maintain a
stabler, higher frame rate. Higher resolutions look better
(sharper & smaller jagged edges), they also tend to run
slower. This all depends on how slow/fast your system
(Particularly Graphics card) is of course. 1024 x 768
would be ideal in Soldier Of Fortune for most.
Full Screen.
Set this to Yes to enable full screen rendering of
Soldier Of Fortune. This is recommended for all Graphics
Cards, lest you wish to run in a Software rendering mode.
Bitdepth.
Select
16 Bit for best performance, but reduced visual
quality (More apparent banding). Select 32 Bit for
best visual quality (Less apparent banding), although
performance will be reduced – especially on older graphics
cards. Using a 32-bit colour depth will also reduce
rendering errors as it uses a higher Z-Buffer precision for
performing depth calculations.
Alternate Simple
Textures. Setting this to On
will replace some environmental textures, e.g. Graffiti,
with regular wall textures instead. This can reduce Texture
memory requirements for levels, which will improve
performance on low Video Memory Graphics Cards (16MB or
lower), those with 32MB or more Video Memory should set this
to Off to enable the display of these extra
environment textures.
Texture Quality.
Options available are Very Low, Low, Medium
& High. The Higher this setting the
sharper textures in the game will appear, although
performance can be lowered (Especially on low memory
Graphics Cards). The Lower the setting the more
blurred textures will appear in the game. Selecting a lower
setting can improve performance on Graphics Cards with low
video memory.
Skin Texture Quality.
Options available are Very Low, Low, Medium
& High. The Higher this setting the
sharper textures on player models will appear, although
performance can be lowered (Especially on low memory
Graphics Cards). The Lower the setting the more
blurred textures on player models will appear. Selecting a
lower setting can improve performance on Graphics Cards with
low video memory. This setting only affects player models.
Texture Format.
Use this to select the format for textures in Soldier of
Fortune. Options available are - Low, Medium, High,
S3TC Compressed & DXT Compressed.
Performance can be improved on low Video memory Graphics
Cards by setting this to Medium or Low. High
will produce best texture quality, although isn’t
recommended unless you have a Graphics Card with 32MB+ of
Video memory &/or AGP Texturing enabled. Should your
Graphics Card support S3TC or DXTC then you should select S3TC/DXT
Compressed for optimal performance, albeit with some
minor texture quality degradation. This is the recommended
option for all Graphics Cards with 32 MB of Video memory.
Translucent Texture
Format. Use this to select the
format for Alpha textures in Soldier of Fortune. Options
available are - Low, Medium, High, S3TC
Compressed & DXT Compressed. Performance can
be improved on low Video memory Graphics Cards by setting
this to Medium or Low. High will
produce best texture quality, although isn’t recommended
unless you have a Graphics Card with 32MB+ of Video memory
&/or AGP Texturing enabled. Should your Graphics Card
support S3TC or DXTC then you should select S3TC/DXT
Compressed for optimal performance, albeit with some
texture quality degradation. This is the recommended option
for all Graphics Cards with 32 MB of Video memory. NOTE –
The texture quality degradation can be more apparent with
these textures given their transparent nature.
These next 4 settings can
have a significant impact on visual quality so it would be
wise to play around with there settings until you find ones
which you feel gives you the best quality.
Intensity.
Move the slider to the Right to make the game brighter. The
brighter the visuals the more washed out the textures will
look. Adjust this to suit your own needs, performance
isn’t affected either way.
Contrast.
Use this slider to adjust the contrast level in the game.
Move the slider to the Right to make the game
brighter & vice versa. The brighter the visuals the more
washed out the game can appear. Adjust this to suit your own
needs, performance isn’t affected either way.
Brightness.
Use
this slider to set the game brightness (glare) level.
Sliding the bar to the Right will increase brightness &
vice versa. The further this is to the Right the more washed
out textures may appear (Less detailed).
Gamma.
Use
this slider to adjust the level of RGB colour intensity.
Moving the slider to the Right will increase the colour
intensity, which may reduce texture detail by brightening
textures too much if slid too far to the Right & vice
versa.
|
