Setup Options

From AfterWiki

Contents 1 Video Tab (fullscreen, gamma, resolution, and more) 2 Audio Tab (sound) 3 Controls Tab (keyboard and mouse) 4 Graphics Tab (terrain, shadows, vegetation, sky, and more) 5 Miscellaneous Tab (language, logs, and more)

There are many graphical, sound, controls, and other options available for modifying and viewing within the game's Setup Options window. Hold CTRL and press 'o' to open this window. Below are descriptions of what each option does.

There are three different methods for choosing options:

• On/off buttons - dark green when off, bright green when on
• Sliders - left is less, right is more
• Pull-downs - click the box and click the option from the list

In addition, some options will take effect immediately, some will take effect after clicking the Apply button, and some do not take effect until zoning or logging out of the game and back in.

• One star (*) next to an option means it will be applied immediately - sometimes after clicking Apply, sometimes before
• Two stars (**) next to an option means it will be applied after changing zones or logging out and back in

Video Tab (fullscreen, gamma, resolution, and more)

The Video tab is the first tab displayed when opening the options window. In addition to the settings below, this tab shows what video card and driver you have installed in the right-hand section.

Video modes (on/off buttons at the upper-left section):

• Safe Mode Video - Use when having problems viewing the game correctly.
• Disable Vertical Sync - This used to produce more stable game play, and may help on computers with low-end video cards.
• Fullscreen Video - Enable to have the game take over the entire screen, but this causes problems when if it is necessary to switch to another window while playing, often causing the game to crash. Leave disabled to have the game open in window mode, which can be minimized and maximized with no problems in most cases, making this the ideal mode for running other programs (such as a Web browser to view this Wiki) at the same time.

Video display (sliders at the lower-left section):

• Anisotropy - Affects the amount of blocky, stair-step appearance at the edges of everything, but puts more strain on the video card. Slide all the way left for low-end cards, all the way right for top-of-the-line cards.
• Frame skip - Similar to Disable Vertical Sync above, increasing this option helps with low-end video cards.
• Gamma - Changes how bright everything is and is helpful to increase on darker monitors.

Other options (in the middle section, on/off button for first option, pull-downs for the rest):

• Texture Compression - Difficult to discern what difference this option makes. Default is off.
• Compression Level - Also difficult to tell what difference this makes, but can cause crashes when changes are made. The choices are:
  • Automatic (default)
  • Fastest
  • Nicest
• Display Driver - Currently only has one option, OpenGL, so is not changeable.
• Resolution - As with other games and Windows as well, lower resolution results in larger display of all elements, higher resolution results in smaller display of all items, but with more room available for open windows. The higher the resolution, the more available screen space, and at very high resolutions, players can have Inventory, PDA, chat, map, control panel, and other windows open at the same time with plenty of room to see the landscape as well.
• Bit Depth - Difficult to discern the difference between the options:
  • 16
  • 32
  • Default, which is actually 32
• Screenshot format - Determines the image format of screenshots taken in-game by pressing CTRL and 'm':
  • PNG
  • JPG

Texture filtering (at the bottom-right) - Two options as on/off buttons, where selecting one de-selects the other (could be replaced by a pull-down):

• Bilinear Filtering - Produces mild improvements in the game's display of items when choosing low resolution and maximizing the game window to a large screen. Puts less load on video cards, resulting in better performance for low-end cards.
• Trilinear Filtering - Produces better improvements in the game's display of items when choosing low resolution and maximizing the game window to a large screen. Puts more load on video cards, resulting in worse performance for low-end cards.

Audio Tab (sound)

The Audio tab has only a few actual options, but gives detailed information about the audio driver in the right-hand section.

Audio Driver - Pull-down that controls which driver to use in order to produce game sounds

• OpenAL - The software-only audio driver that is the sound counterpart to the OpenGL video driver
• none - Disables all game sounds

Volume sliders

• Master Volume - Controls all audio levels
• Shell Volume - Controls audio levels for game music (needs confirmation)
• Sim Volume - Controls audio levels for in-game sounds including weapons, creatures, and terminals (needs confirmation)

Sound speaker button - Presumably disables or enables all game sounds, but does not seem to do anything

Controls Tab (keyboard and mouse)

The Controls tab contains options for both the mouse and the keyboard, but because of the list of control bindings (key assignments), there are far more keyboard options than mouse options.

Mouse - The left section of the window

• X-Axis - Slider control that affects the sensitivity of mouse movements to the left and right
• Y-Axis - Slider control that affects the sensitivity of mouse movements going up and down
• Link X and Y - On/off button that makes moving either the X-Axis or Y-Axis slider cause the other slider to move the same amount in the same direction
• Invert Mouse - On/off button that reverses the up and down movement of the mouse so the moving the mouse down make the cursor move up and vice versa

Keyboard - The right section of the window; there are 38 different controls that can be changed for customized game controls. To change the key that performs a particular function, double-click the function's line in the box on the right, then either press BACKSPACE to remove the current key assignment, or press the new key or key combination to make a second assignment for the same function. If a key or key combination you've chosen has already been assigned, you must first remove that key assignment for the current function, then assign the key/combo to the new function. To reset all key assignments to the default configuration, click the Restore Defaults button. There is no way to undo this action and no confirmation dialog.

NOTE: After re-assigning keys/combos, the F1 window is not updated to show your changes. It always shows the default keys/combos for the functions is displays.

Graphics Tab (terrain, shadows, vegetation, sky, and more)

The Graphics tab contains options for a wide variety of in-game graphical settings, broken into three columns. Reducing and/or disabling any of these options may result in better performance, especially for low-end video cards and processors.

Left column - Sliders

• Terrain Quality - Controls how smooth (low quality) or hilly (high quality) the terrain appears, but does not actually change the terrain; thus, with the slider at the left end, it is possible to see part of the player's avatar as being underground.
• Shadow Detail - Controls the quality of detail displayed from avatar and creature shadows.
• Shape Detail - Controls the quality of detail displayed in some shapes (needs confirmation).
• Buildings Detail - Controls the display quality of building textures.
• Visible Distance - Controls the viewable distance from the avatar, including trees, terrain, and distance landscapes.
• Precipitation Density - Controls the amount of rain, fog, and snow displayed when in zones that have those features.

Center column - Sliders and one on/off button for the last option

• Global MipMap Quality - Controls the overall visible quality of the game, but there is not a lot of variation between far left and far right.
• Terrain textures detail - Controls the amount of visible details of the ground, including grass and dirt, but not plants that stick up from the ground.
• Building textures detail - Controls the amount of visible details of buildings, including things like chips and small rocks in building walls.
• Sky textures detail - Controls the amount of visible details in the clouds and other sky elements.
• Vegetation Visibility - Controls how far plants and shrubs are visible from the avatar, but not trees or terrain.
• Vegetation Density - Controls how many plants and shrubs are visible (slider not shown if the next option is disabled)
• Vegetation Enabled - Controls whether plants and shrubs are visible at all or not.

Right column - On/off buttons and one pull-down for the last option

• Decals - Enables or disables decal images
• Shape Environment Maps - Enables or disables a method of displaying the environment that is more efficient, causing less load on video cards.
• Terrain Details - Enables or disables finer details in the terrain, such as grass and rocks.
• Dynamic Terrain Lights - Enables or disables lighting that changes with the terrain, causing more video card load and better visuals.
• Buildings - These options only affect how building are displayed:
  • Vertex Lighting - Enables or disables an improved method of displaying lighting and reflections on buildings that may not be implemented in AW Alpha.
  • Dynamic Lights - Enables or disables lighting that changes based on the avatar's position in buildings in relation to light sources.
  • Environment Maps - Enables or disables high-quality but efficient reflections on buildings that may not be implemented in AW Alpha.
  • Textured Fog - Enables or disables seeing building textures through fog.
  • Advanced Details - Enables or disables seeing more and higher-quality building details.

Sky view - Pull-down that controls how much detail will be displayed in the sky:

• Full Sky - Maximum sky details, including multiple cloud layers visible that move independently
• Two Cloud Layers - Medium-high details, with only two layers of clouds visible that move independently
• One Cloud Layer - Medium-low details, with only one layer of clouds visible that move slowly
• Sky Box Only - Low details, with no clouds visible at all
• No Sky - Only gray is displayed from horizon to horizon

Miscellaneous Tab (language, logs, and more)

The Miscellaneous tab has a variety of other options that do not fit on any of the previous tabs. They are broken down into three columns and are all on/off buttons.

Left column

• Disable graphic chat emoticons - Enables or disables turning off emoticons in all chat windows
• Disable enhanced screen effects - Enables or disables turning off the blur effect seen when being damaged
• Enable in-world item outlining on HUD - Enables or disables a thin box that surrounds the names of players and creatures when selected
• Do not show PVP warning window - Enables or disables turning off the notification message that appears in the Personal Informer window (F11) when crossing the border between PvP and non-PvP areas; system messages above the chat window are still displayed if enabled
• Do not inform about SAU gains - Enables or disables turning off the system messages above the chat window that tell you how much SAU is gained when performing any activity
• Remember which containers were open and auto-open it - Enables or disables whether containers that were left open when Inventory and Storage windows were closed are opened when Inventory and Storage are opened in the future

Center column

• Language of dialogs - Controls what language is displayed for NPC dialog; selecting one de-selects the other
  • English (default)
  • Russian
• Use Shift+Number to switch quick-bar presets - Enables or disables being able to change quick bar sets by holding SHIFT and pressing 1 through 0 for sets 1 through 10
• Inventory icons' size - Controls the size of icons and spots in all inventory and storage windows; selecting one de-selects the other
  • Small - Uses smaller icons and spots so that six spots fill in a row, reducing the need to scroll
  • Big - Uses larger icons and spots so that four spot fill in a row, making icons more visible, but increasing the need to scroll

Right column

• Disable chat logging into text files - Enables or disables turning off the saving of all chat channels into .txt files in the AfterWorld\logs game folder on the hard drive
• Do not log SAU gains - Enables or disables turning off the saving of all SAU gain messages into .txt files in the AfterWorld\logs game folder on the hard drive
• Do not log skill gains - Enables or disables turning off the saving of all skill gain messages into .txt files in the AfterWorld\logs game folder on the hard drive
• Save all global messages to log file - Enables or disables saving all global system messages into .txt files in the AfterWorld\logs game folder on the hard drive as "global_log.txt" unless the option below is enabled
• Tag log file names by date - Enables or disables creating new log files in the AfterWorld\logs game folder on the hard drive for each date that the game is logged in by any avatar, naming each log file as "[log_file_type]_log_[yyyy-mm-dd].txt"