Visuals (Advanced)

Next, go into the Advanced options menu & select the Display options. NOTE – Some of the options you have selected in Video menu will be set here so there is no need to reset some of these options as a result.

Brightness. Use this setting to adjust the brightness level in the game, setting it higher may well improve visibility, although can the game look washed out if you set it too high. It is better to set this in the game menu itself (mentioned earlier), where the effects can be seen immediately.

CaptureMouse. Set this to True if you use are using mouse (which most of you will be).

CurvedSurfaces. This should be set to False. This will improve performance & the difference to models is fairly unnoticeable anyway (only player models are affected). When set to True player model meshes are smoothed out (dynamically tesselated to up to 9X higher polygon counts) which will result in more aesthetically pleasing player models in the game.

Decals. Set this to False to improve performance, particularly with certain nVidia cards. Decals are the blood splatters or explosion marks that get left in terrain during a game. If you have a 3dfx based card you should be able to set this to True for improved visuals with little performance degradation.

MinDesiredFrameRate. Set this to equal to whatever you feel is the minimum for a playable game. 30 should be the ideal minimum frame rate for most users. This specifies the frame rate threshold below which Unreal Tournament will start dropping detail - reducing model detail and not drawing optional effects. If this is set higher than your normal frame rate, then you will never see reduced graphics almost always, but get the best possible performance. The ideal setting for this is about 10 frames below your average frame rate.

When benchmarking it would be best to set this to 0 to give a more accurate indication of real performance (see later on in the guide for how to benchmark Unreal Tournament).

NoDynamicLighting. Set this to False for better visuals. Set this to True to improve performance a little.

NoFractalAnim. This switch can be turned on for a performance improvement for cards that slowdown with pre-frame texture uploads, especially with OpenGL & to a lesser extent D3D. Glide, Metal & Software rendering will run perfectly with this set to False & gain nothing by setting it to True. Direct3d & OpenGL users may see a slight performance boost when set to True, although the game will appear more 2D as a result (water, torches, etc. textures aren’t animated).

NoLighting. Set this to False. Otherwise the game will look quite ugly. The difference in performance between both is extreme, turn the lighting off (True) if you are totally desperate for a frame rate boost. This should only really be considered on systems below the recommended minimum spec.

ScreenFlashes. Set this to True, this is used to change the screen colour, e.g. when you get hit, or are underwater. Setting is to False may marginally improve performance.

SkinDetail. I’d recommend setting this to Medium, the difference between High & Medium is fairly small, added to the fact this will free up video memory & you generally won’t be too close to player models this gives quite a decent performance improvement.

SlowVideoBuffering. Ignore this setting, unless you are using Software rendering. Set it to True if you are.

StartupFullscreen. If using a 3d card then you'll have no choice other than running in full screen, it is faster than running windowed anyway.

TextureDetail. Set it to High if you can, although a lower setting is advised if you need the extra performance (specifically cards with low texture memory, e.g. TNT1), it will give a more blurred look to the game though. Setting TextureDetail to High will improve visuals more than setting SkinDetail to High (& also have a greater effect of frame rate).

UseDirectDraw. Set this to True. It will improve performance on most systems.

UseDirectInput. Set this to True. It'll performance/smoothness with Input devices, e.g. mouse. Although should you experience any problems with input devices try set this to False.

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