Should I enable hardware vertex shader?

[starcraftagent]

I want to play this game at the highest quality, I don't know what that hardware vertex shader is though, will i see a noticeable difference?

And how about render target, on or off?

Mipmapping, on or off?

Device, HAL or REF?

[sorathecrow]

I have everything on (no idea what HAL or REF does, though), but it's an old game--I've never really noticed a difference. It has been shown in another thread that downsampling the game from a higher resolution can smooth out some of the jaggies on objects in the world, but it's still a pretty minor difference.

[Vyse of Arcadia]

Old now, but FWIW the game was pretty crashy when I turned on hardware vertex shading. It is perfectly stable with it off.

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

Seems like Hardware Vertex Shading can cause problems with Intel Integrated graphics cards and having it off makes no difference.

[Ghaleon]

yeah if you enable hardware video anything.. it helps to have actual videocard hardware and not a built-in thing...

Basically hardware anything is always a good option to click if you have hardware for that component.

I can't remember what mipmapping is but I seem to recall it's something where off is better. like scanlines or whatever, I could be wrong though.

[tej]

Mipmapping lowers the resolution of textures that are farther away from the camera so they shouldn't look as sharp as stuff that is closer. I can't see any difference between on and off. HAL and REF is another hardware vs software option and I think the only consideration (since the game is old anyway) is which one works on your machine.

[Ghaleon]

Originally posted by tej:

Mipmapping lowers the resolution of textures that are farther away from the camera so they shouldn't look as sharp as stuff that is closer. I can't see any difference between on and off. HAL and REF is another hardware vs software option and I think the only consideration (since the game is old anyway) is which one works on your machine.

Ahh, yeah I thought mipmapping was something that took away quality somehow.

So uhh.. it's basically the opposite of anisotrophic filtering...Not sure why you would want that =P... What happens if you have both on?

[Vyse of Arcadia]

Originally posted by Ghaleon:

Originally posted by tej:

Mipmapping lowers the resolution of textures that are farther away from the camera so they shouldn't look as sharp as stuff that is closer. I can't see any difference between on and off. HAL and REF is another hardware vs software option and I think the only consideration (since the game is old anyway) is which one works on your machine.

Ahh, yeah I thought mipmapping was something that took away quality somehow.

So uhh.. it's basically the opposite of anisotrophic filtering...

Not really. Anisotropic is for making textures look better when seen from oblique angles, regardless of distance.

[Ghaleon]

Yeah but isn't distance what causes an oblique angle in a game unless it's top straight down type of camera?