|
Updated
on March 19, 2001 by Thomas
McGuire
Visuals
(Continued)
gl_wateramp "x". A value of
1 enables waves in the water. 0 may improve frame rate in
areas with normally wavy water.
gl_ztrick "x". Setting x to
1 may improve performance, although it may cause flickering with
distant objects. 0 will eliminate the flickering although can lower
performance.
r_decals "x". x sets the
maximum amount of decals that can be active in a singleplayer game.
Reducing this number may help improve performance, especially in areas where
there is a lot of action. 4096 is the default. Once this amount is
reached the oldest one(s) is removed & new one(s)
placed.
r_displayrefresh "x". With this
you can force a specified refresh rate. Replace x with the desired
refresh rate you want to use, e.g. 85. Don't set it above your monitor refresh
rate though or you may damage your monitor.
r_drawviewmodel "x". A value of
1 for x enables your weapon model to be shown on screen.
Setting this to 0 will remove the weapon model from view. This has 2
beneficial effects; A. You gain a few FPS & B. You can see
more of the screen (especially with larger weapons). There are 2 disadvantagous
side-effects however; A. It looks strange (e.g. Bullet casings are
ejected from nowhere) & B. In the heat of battle you may have
difficultly knowing weapon you have (e.g. Accidentally using a Rocket Launcher
up close). As a result I'd recommend leaving this set to
1.
r_dynamic "x". A value of 1
for x enables dynamic lighting. You shouldn't set this to 0
for any reason. Probably the best example of a dynamic light in the game is your
HEV suits Flashlight. As you can guess, playing without the flash light can be
very awkward.
r_fullbright "x". Leave this set
to 0. Other values, 0 - 4 (Of which 3 & 4
affect software renderer only), will affect visuals
adversely.
r_lightmap
"x". A value of 0 for x will enable Lightmap lighting (real-time)
of levels. Setting x to 1 will enable Vertex
lighting instead, which is faster, but uses static lighting of
levels.
r_norefresh "x". Not a tweak as
such although setting x to 1 will freeze the screen. Leave it set
to 0 at all times. This is included here more as a warning than anything
else.
r_novis "x". The default value for
x is 0. When set to 1 underwater polygons are rendered.
Seeing as underwater items generally cannot be seen until you are underwater it
is quite futile to enable & will effect performance adversely when
near areas with non-transparent water. See r_wateralpha "x" if you decide
to set this to 1.
r_mirroralpha "x". A value of
1 enables reflective textures (e.g. The alien warriors armour).
0 disables them, which can improve
performance.
r_shadows "x". A value of 1
enables support for shadows, which looks ok, but reduces performance. I'd recommed
leaving them disabled, 0.
r_traceglow "x". A value of
1 will make player models non-transparent with regards to light
halo's, e.g. If there is a scientist in front of you & a lamp behind him you
should not be able to see any light halo from the lamp through his body.
While this is graphically realistic, it results in a fairly significant
performance hit. 0 is the default & recommended for most
users, as from the earlier example, this setting would let the light halo from
the lamp be seen through the scientists body.
r_wateralpha "x". If you
previously set r_novis "1" you should also set this to 0. This
will make all water transparent & as a result you will be able to spot
underwater enemies with ease. Leave this set to 1 if you set r_novis
"0".
vid_wait "x". x is
used to enable/disable Vsync. Vsync effectively limits the
frame rate to your current refresh rate at a given resolution. Performance can
improve with vsync disabled (Frames are rendered as fast as they can be
regardless of refresh rate), although you can experience image tearing &/or
controller lag as a result. With vsync enabled you won’t experience
either image tearing nor controller lag, although frame rate will be limited to
your refresh rate. As such I’d recommend enabling vsync for best image
quality & disabling it when you intend to benchmark Half-Life
performance.
violence_ablood "x".
A value of 1 for x enables standard blood effects.
Setting x to 0 can improve
performance.
violence_agibs "x". A
value of 1 for x enables standard gibs. Setting
x to 0 can improve
performance.
violence_hblood "x".
A value of 1 for x enables extra blood.
Setting x to 0 can improve
performance.
violence_hgibs "x". A
value of 1 for x enables extra gibs. Setting
x to 0 can improve
performance.
brightness "x".
x controls the brightness (glare) level in the game. Setting
x to higher values can
increase the brightness level, which can make textures look
more washed out, & vice versa. Adjust this setting to suit your own needs.
The default setting is 1, although there are other settings related to
this which need to be edited too. These other 3 settings are listed
below.
gamma "x". x
can be used to adjust the RGB colour intensity. Higher values can reduce
texture detail by brightening up textures, & vice
versa.
lightgamma "x".
x sets the lighting gamma value. Higher values can
increase lighting brighness levels, & vice versa.
texgamma "x".
x sets the texture gamma level. I'd recommend leaving this setting
at the default also.
Certain weapons in Half-Life can fire
Tracers, these display the path/trail a bullet takes & where/what it hits.
The 4 settings beneath can be used to change a tracers colour & other
effects.
traceralpha "x". x
sets the transparency level of Tracer ammo. Valid values for x are 0 –
1. The higher this value is the less transparent Tracer ammo is,
& vice versa. Setting this to 1 will
disable the
transparency effect, while 0 will make it completely transparent
(defeating the purpose of the Tracer).
tracerred "x". x
controls the intensity of the colour Red in Tracer
ammo. Raise this value a slider
to increase the intensity of the Red element
of Tracer ammo, & vice versa.
tracergreen "x". x
controls the intensity of the colour Green in Tracer
ammo. Raise this value a slider
to increase the intensity of the Green element
of Tracer ammo, & vice versa.
tracerblue "x". x
controls the intensity of the colour Blue in Tracer
ammo. Raise this value a slider
to increase the intensity of the Blue element
of Tracer ammo, & vice versa.
lambert "x". This setting controls
model lighting. I'd highly recommended you leave this setting at the
default value.
precache "x". When
x is set to 1 this enables the precaching of textures in Video memory before
loading a level. This can improve performance on many graphics cards (In the
sense that Textures aren't loaded during a level if the Graphics card has sufficient texture
memory), although it will also increase loading time. When x is set to
0 textures are
loaded during levels
instead, which will improve level loading time, although can adversely effect performance in levels
as textures are loaded into Video memory.
tripplebuffer "x".
Triple buffering allocates a 3rd frame buffer. This frame buffer can
improve performance by allowing the hardware to render at the same time that the
3D application performs other tasks. Set x to 1 to
enable Tripple buffering
for improved performance. However, Tripple buffering requires extra video
memory, so on older Graphics cards (Low Video memory) you can improve
performance by setting this to 0 instead.
Make sure to take a look at
the TNT/GeForce,
Voodoo3 or Voodoo4/5 Tweak guides for information on how to optimize the
performance/visual quality of those cards in Half-Life. These can help you
improve image quality/performance even further than in-game & config tweaks
can.
|
