Technical support > Feature Requests

Video settings are unclear

(1/1)

Charlie:
This is not really feature request, but neither is it a bug. I guess it belongs here more than there.


The game's video settings are unclear, so in the end I'm not sure which options I want to enable for what effect, and which I'd rather keep turned off to not drop FPS too much. To correct this, the tooltips would need to be improved, and one or two labels too. All tooltips should say how much of an impact this setting will have on the FPS, and whether it affects geoscape, battlescape or both. Considering that a number of these settings require a game restart, it would be a major time saver if the items were improved on as I list below.


Resolution Cap: the tooltip doesn't really explain what implication this has or how to figure out a correct setting. I imagine it's correlated to GPU RAM.


Compression: same as above, what visual and FPS effect will this have? At what level of GPU RAM does this become irrelevant?


LoD: very informative tooltip, no issues here.


Anisotropy Level: what does 0 mean? Off, or some kind of automatic? It's not obvious to me that 0=off because 0 has a special meaning in Multisample Buffers/Swap Interval.


Vertex Buffers: the tooltip is black magic here. How high is the FPS impact and what will look nicer with it?


Multisample Buffers / Swap Interval: This is commonly called Antialiasing, and that is the name most games and GPU setting panels use. Multisampling is a technique of antialiasing, but the user doesn't care what technique is used under the hood - the end result is that the user wants (or doesn't want) antialiasing, and unless he knows what multisampling is, he won't find it. Please rename this to Antialiasing. The tooltip does mention that "multisample buffers provide a mechanism to antialias all GL primitives" but that's greek to non-coders (and non-greeks).


Post-Processing Shader Effects: more effects could be listed than just "glowing textures".


Lightmap Block Size: "Higher block size means more detailed lightmaps" ok, but what's a lightmap? I'm sure this could be expressed in layman terms.


Realtime Lighting / Max Dynamic Lights: "Maximum number of dynamic hardware accelerated lights allowed" what effect do they have, and what exactly are we talking about? Lights in a room, light given off by plasma shots, other? How do I figure out whats optimal for me?


Texture Normalmapping: like in Multisample Buffers, normalmapping is a technique of bump mapping, so you should use the more common term "bump mapping" and optionally have "normalmapping" mentioned in the tooltip.

Sandro:

--- Quote from: Charlie on October 31, 2012, 02:11:20 pm ---The game's video settings are unclear, so in the end I'm not sure which options I want to enable for what effect, and which I'd rather keep turned off to not drop FPS too much.

--- End quote ---

On this, I would agree; perhaps, settings should be made much simpler and more relating to the user's hardware/driver combo.

One by one:



--- Quote from: Charlie on October 31, 2012, 02:11:20 pm ---Resolution Cap: the tooltip doesn't really explain what implication this has or how to figure out a correct setting. I imagine it's correlated to GPU RAM.

--- End quote ---

If you mean the texture resolution, tt is. Also, using big textures slows down the rendering -- though, for UFO:AI that would require 10 year old  card to became significant.



--- Quote from: Charlie on October 31, 2012, 02:11:20 pm ---Compression: same as above, what visual and FPS effect will this have? At what level of GPU RAM does this become irrelevant?

--- End quote ---

Same as above :) But for some thing (like GUI images) it really breaks the picture :(



--- Quote from: Charlie on October 31, 2012, 02:11:20 pm ---Anisotropy Level: what does 0 mean? Off, or some kind of automatic? It's not obvious to me that 0=off because 0 has a special meaning in Multisample Buffers/Swap Interval.

--- End quote ---

Means "off".



--- Quote from: Charlie on October 31, 2012, 02:11:20 pm ---Vertex Buffers: the tooltip is black magic here. How high is the FPS impact and what will look nicer with it?

--- End quote ---

Atavism from the age when VBs functioned wrong sometimes. My opinion: remove that setting.


--- Quote from: Charlie on October 31, 2012, 02:11:20 pm ---Multisample Buffers / Swap Interval: ... Please rename this to Antialiasing.

--- End quote ---

Good point.



--- Quote from: Charlie on October 31, 2012, 02:11:20 pm ---Post-Processing Shader Effects: more effects could be listed than just "glowing textures".

--- End quote ---

That is only one PP effect we have so far.



--- Quote from: Charlie on October 31, 2012, 02:11:20 pm ---Lightmap Block Size: "Higher block size means more detailed lightmaps" ok, but what's a lightmap? I'm sure this could be expressed in layman terms.

--- End quote ---

"More accurate shadows", perhaps?


--- Quote from: Charlie on October 31, 2012, 02:11:20 pm ---Realtime Lighting / Max Dynamic Lights: "Maximum number of dynamic hardware accelerated lights allowed" what effect do they have, and what exactly are we talking about? Lights in a room, light given off by plasma shots, other? How do I figure out whats optimal for me?

--- End quote ---

Good question -- got no quick answer, will think about it.


--- Quote from: Charlie on October 31, 2012, 02:11:20 pm ---Texture Normalmapping: like in Multisample Buffers, normalmapping is a technique of bump mapping, so you should use the more common term "bump mapping" and optionally have "normalmapping" mentioned in the tooltip.

--- End quote ---

Cannot make a better wording ...


PS: I completely agree that wording at that menu page is quite bad at some places and should be made much more understandable.

Charlie:
Glad I'm not alone here :]
I mentioned these things not because I need them answered in the forum, but because I hope to focus attention on them to have them improved in the game so everyone benefits.

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