Resolution. Selecting a lower setting will improve performance & should maintain a higher frame rate. Higher resolutions will look better (sharper graphics), although they generally run slower. You also set the colour depth with this setting, set this to 16 bit for optimal performance also (albeit it with more banding in graphics). If your card supports it you can select 32 bit for best image quality (less image banding), although performance will be reduced as a result.

Now select the Image Quality tab.

Overall image quality. This slider bar may be used to select from a variety of pre-defined graphics configurations. Slide the bar to the Left for a more performance oriented setup (i.e. Many visual effects disabled or lowered to improve frame rate) & slide to the Right for an image quality oriented setup (i.e. More visual effects enabled or increased to improve visual quality). I’d recommend ignoring this slider & instead using a Custom setup.

DEM density level. The world of CFS 2 is constructed from digital elevation data (DEM). The DEM density level sets the maximum resolution of the DEM to be displayed. Slide this bar to the Right to increase the level of complexity of scenery in the game (Less distance between vertical points used to shape the terrain). This will improve visual quality (more realistic terrain), although performance can be reduced as a result (More polygons needed to be rendered). The further the slider bar to the Left the simpler terrain textures will appear (Less complex shapes due to a greater distance between the vertical points used to shape the terrain), although performance will be improved as a result. These shots below illustrate the difference by High & Very Low DEM settings.

As you can see the smaller the distance between the vertical points the more realistic terrain can appear, e.g. in the shots above you have basic hills when the distance is large & where the distance between vertical points is small the hills appear much more natural, sloping at many angles.

Max. terrain texture size. Moving this slider to the Right (Higher) will allow the use of sharper textures for terrain in the game, although performance can be lowered (Especially on low memory graphics cards). The Lower this setting the more blurred textures will appear in the game. Selecting a lower setting can improve performance on graphics cards with low video memory.

Terrain complexity level. Sliding this bar to the Right will increase the complexity of the outer lines of scenery shapes. This will improve visual quality (more realistic terrain), although performance may be reduced as a result. The further the slider bar to the Left the simpler terrain textures will appear (Less complex shapes), although performance will improve in such areas.

Max. object texture size. Moving this slider to the Right (Higher) will allow the use of sharper textures in the game for objects, although performance can be lowered (Especially on low memory graphics cards). The Lower this setting the more blurred textures will appear in the game. Selecting a lower setting can improve performance on graphics cards with low video memory. NOTE – Some graphics cards have a limit on maximum texture resolution, e.g. with 3dfx cards older than the Voodoo 4 cards you shouldn’t set this above 256 as its limited to 256*256 texture sizes.

Maximum visibility level. This setting controls the maximum viewable distance in CFS 2 in Unlimited visibility situations (Obviously depending on weather conditions in missions this can be reduced substantially). Moving this slider to the Right will increase the amount of visiblity, which can improve visual quality & improve your visibility, although it will run slower. Move this slider to the Left for improved performance with reduced visibility. 25 – 35 miles should provide a great amount of visibilty while not impacting too heavily on performance on all but the oldest graphics card.

Aircraft shadows. Tick this setting to enable ground shadows for aircraft. Unticking it will disable the plane’s shadows. Shadows may come in useful for landing’s, although you will spend most time in the air so I’d recommend Unticking this setting for a performance boost.

Ground scenery shadows. Tick this setting to enable ground shadows for buildings & dynamic scenery. Unticking this setting will disable these shadows, this can improve performance as they serve no really useful purpose (unlike Aircraft shadows which can).

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