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Updated
on October 05, 2001 by Thomas
McGuire
Scalability settings
Select Options,
then Scalability Settings. Much of the Graphical
Scalability settings have been already set so (As shown
in the previous section) scroll down to the Number Of
Decals setting.
Number
Of Decals. This slider controls the maximum amount of bullet holes/explosion scars
in a level, where sliding this to the right position will
increase the maximum number available & vice versa. Once
this limit is reached the oldest decal will be removed,
& so on. Moving to the left can improve game
performance, although this is semi-determined by how bad
your aim is (& that of the enemies). Given the little
need to backtrack in most levels I’d personally recommend
setting this to the middle position only.
Effect Overdraw.
Use the slider to adjust the amount of pixels rendered
before culling out. The further you slide it to the Right
the more detailed effects can be, e.g. Explosions, however
performance can be lower as detail increases, particularly
on low fill rate Graphics cards. If you have a card with a
low fill rate (Voodoo 3 or earlier) then lower this setting.
Corpse Duration.
Use this to set the number of, & how long enemy/NPC
corpses remain visible. Options available are Low, High,
Very High. Performance can be effected with Higher
setting as, if there's a lot of activity going on in an area
with corpses visible (Corpses require as much polygons &
textures rendered as living models do).
Model
Expressions.
Use this to set the amount of facial expressions that can be
used by enemy models.
Options available are Very Few, Few, Normal,
Plenty. Each setting will require increasingly
greater texture memory. If you have a video card with a high
amount of texture memory (16MB or more) you should be able
to set this to Plenty without any performance loss.
Skin
Variety.
Use this to set the variety of skins available for enemy
models. Options available are Very Few, Few, Normal,
Plenty. If
you have a video card with a high amount of texture memory
(32MB+) you should be able to select Plenty without
any performance loss, this will allow for a wide variety of
enemy appearances, setting it lower will result in more
clone like enemies.
Graphics
Configuration settings
Open your Config
file. Search for/ Add the following lines & edit the x
value as appropriate;
gl_bitdepth
"x". This setting
sets the colour depth for Soldier of Fortune. Set
x to 16 for best performance, but reduced
visual quality (More apparent banding). Set x to
32 for best visual quality (Less apparent banding),
although performance will be reduced – especially on older
graphics cards. Using a 32-bit colour depth will also reduce
rendering errors as it uses a higher Z-Buffer precision for
performing depth calculations.
gl_clear
"x". A value of 0
for x enables the filling of
cracks between textures, 1
makes these visible. 0
is slower performing than 1
although more pleasing visually.
gl_cull
"x". Setting x
to 1 enables the rendering of visible objects only. 0
renders all regardless which will reduce performance. I'd
recommend setting this to 1.
gl_displayrefresh
"x".
x sets the refresh rate to be used in the game. It is
recommended that you set this to the highest refresh
rate that your monitor can handle at a given resolution.
With vsync enabled this value also limits the highest frame
rate you can achieve. You shouldn’t set it any higher than
the highest refresh rate your monitor can sustain at a given
resolution.
gl_ext_multitexture
"x". Set x to
1 to enable Multi-texturing support, this will improve
performance on all modern Graphics Cards. You shouldn’t
need to set this to 0 for any reason.
gl_fogmode
“x”.
Not a tweak as such, although you should leave x set
to 0 at all times. Any other value may cause image
artefacts wherever fog is to be rendered.
gl_lightmap
"x". A value of 1
for x will enable real-time
lighting of levels. Setting this to 0
will enable vertex lighting, which is static lighting, this
looks uglier although will improve performance a lot –
Useful perhaps if you are attempting to play on a very old
system.
gl_ztrick
"x". Setting x
to 1 may improve performance, although it may cause flickering
with distant objects. 0
will eliminate the flickering although is slightly slower.
gl_ext_swapinterval
"x". Set x to
1 to allow the setting below – gl_swapinterval
- to be enabled/disabled. 0 disables changing the
setting below.
gl_swapinterval
"x". This is the
Soldier of Fortune equivalent to vsync. Set x to 1
to enable vsync (Recommended – Although frame rate will be
limited to refresh rate). Only
set it to 0 when you are benchmarking game
performance. This (enabling it) will remove the tearing
& controller lag that can occur when it is disabled,
resulting in a better gaming experience.
r_fullbright “x”.
Leave x set to 0.
Other values, 1 - 4 (Of which 3
& 4 affect software renderer only - when gl_allow_software
"1”), will affect visuals adversely & you
don’t want that.
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 items are rendered. Seeing as underwater items
generally cannot be seen until you are underwater this is
quite futile to enable & will affect performance
adversely when near areas with non-transparent water.
ghl_mip “x”.
A setting of 0 for x gives best image quality.
Setting it higher (up to 4) may improve performance
but reduce image quality. I’d recommend leaving this at
either 0 or 1.
ghl_precache_texture
"x".
Set x to 1 to enable the precaching of
textures. This can improve performance, although will
increase loading time. Setting x to 0 will
reduce loading time of levels although performance may be
reduced if textures are to be loaded during a level.
ghl_specular
"x". A setting of 0
for x disables specular lighting, 1 enables
it. Enabling it will allow for shiny models – this will
yield improved visuals, although performance may be lowered
slightly.
ghl_shadows
"x". A setting of 0
for x disables shadows. 1 enables simple
circular shadows. 2 will enable volumetric shadows.
Enabling shadows will reduce performance, particularly
setting it to 2, leave it on 0. Depending on
your CPU you may be able to enable shadows without too much
of a performance drop.
ghl_player_shadow
"x". A setting of 0
for x disables shadows for your Character model. 1
enables your shadow. Enabling shadows will reduce
performance. I'd recommend setting this to 0 as you
never will really be looking at/for your own shadow.
When shadows are enabled
the following 3 settings are used. The default settings are
fine so you shouldn't need to experiment with the values at
all (These are included in case you accidentally change them
& require the original values).
ghl_shadow_darkness
".75”
ghl_shadow_tilt
".25"
ghl_shadow_dist
"25"
ghl_light_method
”x”.
x sets the lighting method to be used in Soldier of
Fortune. Where;
0.
A single light source is used for the entire model. This
will yield greatest performance but worst visual quality
& is only recommended for those on below Minimum spec.
machines.
1.
This uses 4 lights sources interpolated over the entire
model & enables the use of specular lighting on Models
also. This will provide good quality lighting, & should
be used with systems that have average CPUs (400 - 600Mhz)
or slow Graphics Cards.
2.
This uses 4 lights sources interpolated over the entire
model, enables the use of specular lighting & dynamic
lights on Models. This will provide great quality lighting,
& should be used with systems that have above average
CPUs (600 - 800Mhz).
3.
This options uses the OpenGL T&L routine, which will
yield highest quality lighting effects & possibly
performance as well (On Hardware T&L supporting Graphics
cards anyway, e.g. Geforce 2). This option may also be used
on non-Hardware T&L Graphics cards as long as you have a
sufficiently fast CPU. Certainly select this option if you
have a Hardware T&L supporting Graphics Card.
ghl_gllight_max_lights"x".
This sets the Maximum amount of Hardware
light sources used during rendering (ghl_light_method
“3”). Those with first
generation onboard Hardware T&L Graphics Cards are
recommended to set this to 6 at most, while others
may try 8. This setting is ignored this setting if
you selected ghl_light_method
“0/1/2”
previously, i.e. Software lighting.
The next 3
settings are all used for Hardware lighting, leave these at
their default values. They are included here so you won't
mess with them accidentally.
ghl_gllight_attenuation
"1"
ghl_gllight_directional
"0"
ghl_gllight_local_viewer
"1"
ghl_max_lights
"x". x sets
the maximum amount of Software light sources used in Soldier
of Fortune. The default is 3. Higher values will
result in improved lighting effects on Models, although
performance will be reduced, particularly on slower CPUs. 6
is the maximum recommended value. This setting is ignored
this setting if ghl_light_method
“3”
has been set, i.e. Hardware lighting.
ghl_fast_lights
"x". Setting x
to 1 may improve performance slightly. 0 will
use full lighting effects/calculations for best image
quality. Those of you with a Hardware T&L supporting
Graphics Card or fast CPU should leave this set to 0
for best lighting quality in levels.
shownames
"x". Set x to
1 to enable the name of a targeted person to appear. 0
will disable this. I’d recommend enabling this as it can
warn you of a player around corners, i.e. If facing the
right way an opponents name may appear when they are not
visible.
cl_gun
“x”.
Set x to 1
to enable your current weapon to be drawn on the screen. A
setting of 0 will improve frame rate & visibility a little, but you won’t
see which weapon are using of course. I’d recommend
leaving this set to 1.
cl_showfps
"x".
A value of 1 for x enables the display of a
counter showing your current frame rate in the top-left
corner. 0 disables this. This is useful for testing
the effects of changing Graphics settings & finding a
good trade-off between performance & visual quality.
Make
sure to take a look at the TNT\GeForce,
Voodoo
3, Voodoo
4/5 or Kyro
1/2 Tweak guide for information on how to optimize the
performance of those cards. That may help you improve image
quality/performance even further than the config
tweaks.
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