video options

[taulph88]

I am utterly confused on the many video options. I don't know if this is the right place to place this topic, but here it goes:

I understand all the options about shadow, fog of war, Anti-Aliasing, and Leader detail, but what about Overlay detail, terrain detail, tessellation level, and texture quality? What makes them so different from one another?

Which one of these four (overlay, terrain detail, tessellation, texture quality) are the most important so my game won't start stuttering when I pan from one end of the map to the other?

 

[kamex]

I also would like to know this. i think terrain detail is the biggest offender, but I may be mistaken.

 

[Sjru]

Which one of these four (overlay, terrain detail, tessellation, texture quality) are the most important so my game won't start stuttering when I pan from one end of the map to the other?

Well; Overlay quality should be the quality of the UI, no?, the same with terrain detail, is how detailed the terrain is; this uses Video Memory though and as such if you have a vcard with low memory you should keep it at low, it doesn't have much effect on FPS if you have enough memory, the same with texture quality, but this time instead on focusing on the terrain it focuses on everything else (Cities, units, and the like).

Tessellation... well wikipedia says that they're often used to manage datasets of polygons and divide them into suitable structures for rendering. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tessellation), it's a Dx11 feature however, but somehow can be changed on dx9, dunno if it works though.

 

[taulph88]

So Overlay is the main thing, followed by terrain detail then texture quality. My video card supports 256 MB of VRAM. What is the best setting for texture quality?

 

[Sjru]

256mb video ram? Look at the minimum requirements: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=374130;; you have the bare minimum, to avoid problems just use the lowest settings possible. Try to buy a new vcard if you want better graphics and you are able to do so.

 

[taulph88]

Thanks for the help. I found a way to reduce the video "chopping". Please remove.