What to the Video Settings Mean? Little Help

[kpi]

I am running BNW on a brand new top of the line laptop, and the performance is still sluggish. I was wondering what combination of the settings below do, so I can start to experiment to get better performance


Anti Aliasing 8X MSAA
What is this? what is the difference between 2X 4X 8X?



VSync
What does this setting do?


High Detail Strategic View
Does this just mean I can zoom in more in Strategic View?



GPU Texture Decode
What does this setting do?


Leader Scene Quality
I struggle with this one, on the highest setting, the Leader Screens look great, but there is a bit of choppiness in the animations, on medium it is ok, but I am wondering what other settings do I need to fix to keep it on High?



Overlay Detail
What is this setting?


Shadow Detail

Fog of War
Is this just the clouds?


Terrain Detail Level

Terrain tessellation level
What is this setting relate to?

Terrain Shadow Quality

Water Quality

Texture Quality

 

[darkskies]

I'm not going to go into details, one of the best things you can do is try the various levels, can you see a difference? If yes and it doesn't cause problems like crashes or slow speed than leave it otherwise drop back. Strategic view is worth increasing, if it doesn't cause problems, if you like to zoom in and see extra details though this may get tiresome after the novelty wears off.

 

[otaman1]

Just set the settings to low but don't do it for leaders and clouds because the clouds will be a black whatever the hell it is, and there'll be no leader animations.

 

[n00bxqb]

I am running BNW on a brand new top of the line laptop, and the performance is still sluggish. I was wondering what combination of the settings below do, so I can start to experiment to get better performance

Well, your definition of top of the line and my definition of top of the line may vary greatly, so you may want to post the laptop's specifications if you want more help. Judging from your description, I'm guessing your definition isn't really all that powerful.

Anti Aliasing 8X MSAA
What is this? what is the difference between 2X 4X 8X?

Multi-Sample Anti-Aliasing (MSAA) reduces the "stair" effect on diagonal lines and texture edges. The higher the value, the smoother images on screen will look.

The higher the MSAA value, the slower the performance.

VSync
What does this setting do?

Vertical Sync (VSync) limits the framerate to the refresh rate of your monitor. It helps reduce a "screen tear" effect when the camera moves.

The effect on performance should be minimal, to the point of unnoticeable on most machines unless your graphics processor has a small amount of memory and/or very slow memory.

High Detail Strategic View
Does this just mean I can zoom in more in Strategic View?

High Detail Strategic View increases the texture resolutions when using Strategic View. This will allow you to see more detail when you zoom in.

I'm not sure how much this affects performance since I don't use Strategic View.

GPU Texture Decode
What does this setting do?

No idea

Leader Scene Quality
I struggle with this one, on the highest setting, the Leader Screens look great, but there is a bit of choppiness in the animations, on medium it is ok, but I am wondering what other settings do I need to fix to keep it on High?

Anti-Aliasing, Shadow Detail, and Texture Quality would affect leader scenes as well. Perhaps a couple other settings may, too.

Overlay Detail
What is this setting?

Affects the graphical quality of texture overlays. The higher the setting, the more detailed textures will be, but will slow performance.

Shadow Detail

Affects shadow detail. Higher setting results in more realistic shadows, but slows performance.

Fog of War
Is this just the clouds?

Yes, this is just the clouds. The higher the setting, the better the clouds look, but the slower the performance. On low settings, it will just black or grey those hexes out rather than using clouds.

Terrain Detail Level

The higher the setting, the better terrain will look, but with reduced performance.

Terrain tessellation level
What is this setting relate to?

The tessellation level affects how "bumpy" the terrain looks. The higher the tessellation level, the more dynamic the appearance of the terrain. With tessellation off, the terrain will look very flat.

The higher the tessellation setting, the slower the performance.

Terrain Shadow Quality

See shadow detail, but only applies to terrain.

Water Quality

The higher the Water Quality setting, the better water will look at the cost of performance.

Texture Quality

Affects the overall texture quality. The higher this setting, the better all aspects of the game will look, but at the cost of performance.