The first Tab we will take a look at is OpenGL.
OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is an API that was
originally used in CAD applications but has found it's way into a lot of
games (Quake 2 + 3, Soldier of Fortune to name a few). Here is an
Explanation of your OpenGL settings;
I will cover all the performance and compatibility options in a
moment , but now for those options underneath it.
Default Color Depth for Textures - Many Games have an
option for color depth as "Default" , the default color depth for textures is
altered here. The default color depth (everything not textures) is always
determined by your desktop color depth. I usually don't use the Default option
in games so the setting is of little use to me (as probably is with you too)
Buffer Flipping Mode - Always leave to auto select , if
you leave it to one some games may not function correctly.
Vertical Sync - Have you ever noticed that in some games
when the framerate gets high , a bit of flickering/tearing occurs. The cause of
this is that the frames being drawn every second is higher than your refresh
rate (the amount of times your monitor refreshes every second). By turning on
Vertical Sync (also known as Vsync) the driver limits the framerate to that of
your refresh rate to avoid these tearing effects from occurring.
In my opinion this should always be left on unless you are
benchmarking (because when benchmarking you don't want a limit on FPS)
Full Scene Antialiasing Method - This determines how much
anti-aliasing is performed (i.e. smoothing of the image). Take a warning though
that this results in a serious performance hit at times. Later on in the article
I will show exactly the difference with and without Antialiasing.
Use up to .....mb of Textures in PCI mode - A lot of
people confuse this with their AGP Aperture Size but it actually has nothing to
do with it. The fact of the matter is , if you have an AGP card , this does
.........(here it comes).......aboslutely nothing! If you do have a PCI card
then increasing this should increase performance.
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OK, onto those Performance and Compatibility option we all want
to know so much about (yeah , I can hear you cheering now).
Enable Buffer Region Extension and Allow Dual Planes
Extension to Use Local Video Memory - Always leave these two options on,
they are supposed to increase performance by using an OpenGL extension.
Use Fast Linear-MipMap-Linear Filtering - This gives an
increase a slight increase in performance in a tradeoff for a bit of image
quality. I can't notice any difference in image quality so I'd turn it on
Enable Anisotropic Filtering - This allows a special
filtering technique that is supposed to increase visual quality a lot at the
price of some performance. I leave it off but it's really a matter of
preference.
Alternate Depth Buffering Technique - Supposed to give
better image quality in 16 Bit Rendering. Try it on and off and use whatever
suits you best.
Disable Support for Enhanced CPU Sets - Leave this off!!
It disables SSE in Pentium Three Chips and 3DNOW in Athlon/K6-2 chips. Don't
ever turn it on unless you want to benchmark the difference.
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The Drivers also allow for you to save the settings in case you
want to use different setting schemes for different games.
