difference between visual quality settings?

[kionna]

what are the differences between

 

low med high highest

 

i use highest but i dont see the difference when i switch to medium.. it doesnt raise my fps either..

 

i turn off the frame limiter to see the fps difference.. but i play with it on..

 

 

[kionna]

did some more messing around..

 

i noticed there is a huge improvement to fps between low and medium.. medium high and highest dont really have much difference.. mainly because when you goto low the shadows are just blobs.. and i believe the textures are slightly lower resolution?? i couldnt even tell... and i doubt that it is..

 

i dont think the settings menu can allow you to change Visual Quality instantly and go right back into the game if the Visual Quality setting actually changes texture resolution.. wouldn't the game have to reload all the textures in the current scene at the very least???

 

so i think this setting is mainly an "effects" setting.. such as shadow and i dont know what else.. hope someone else does.. but visually the quality doesnt look much different to me between low and highest except for shadows.. but the 30-50% fps boost is awesome..

 

ensures a constant 25fps for sure and maybe you can even crack the resolution up... i know LOW sounds crappy.. but it doesn't look crappy.. all the effects are still there like the heat haze.. blur at high speed.. i really can't tell the difference..

 

????

[viperdude]

This was the exact question I was going to ask a few days ago but decided to wait and fiddle with the settings myself and see what happend. What I got was that playing the game on low means that you are using the PS2 shadowing and in the game. Medium is probally like a little bit less than Xbox quality, high is probally Xbox quality, and very high is above Xbox quality. I also thoughly tested this by looking at a texture at low quality and then to medium, high and very high and noticed no difference. So all it effects is lighting and stuff. For me I can run the game with not that much lag on very high quality 1280x1024. The frame rate drop can be annoying sometimes, but I like that lighting effect because to me it takes away that feeling you got in Vice City driving down the big road with the big casinos and hotels and having all this bland light around you, it should have an effect of WOW!, but in vice city it was not like that for me. The effect really gives life to the light of the world (that rymed). I can't use antialiasing with very high visual effects on, that is the tradeoff for me. So I either use the high quality lighting feature or antialiasing all the way up. My computer cant handle both, but it looks beautiful none the less. Honestly though I prefer framerate and smoothness to nice shadows because either way I set it I am satisfied. So if you are looking for smoothness and framerate turn the FX low. It really doesnt make a difference. I hope I was helpful to you.

Edited June 11, 2005 by viperdude

[Konoko45]

The detail settings have nothing to do with textures. This is what the different levels are:

 

Low = Standard PS2 shading, no grass details

Medium = Real-time shading on map objects and cars, grass/bushes added

High = Medium with dynamic shading on CJ and cutscene characters

Very High = High with dynamic shading for all peds and characters