[Q] Graphics Settings the Pros Use - Page 2

[B]On November 08 2010 07:47 SlapMySalami wrote

I think they may have because I personally don't see a difference in them. Also to test it you can just make an observer float around a computer's base and have it stand still and have it walk around on visible grass and then visible buildings and whatever other tests and then just watch the replay from his point of view.

On November 08 2010 08:23 Geovu wrote:
PS: Modifying your game files is illegal and goes against the T&C's, so yeah don't do it, ESPECIALLY if you want to go pro.

On November 08 2010 08:23 Geovu wrote:
PS: Modifying your game files is illegal and goes against the T&C's, so yeah don't do it, ESPECIALLY if you want to go pro.

On November 08 2010 17:17 Alpina wrote:
You are playing game for fun after all, why would you lower settings just to get a very small advantage?

Even pros are playing on all kinds of settings - from lowest to highest.

On November 09 2010 20:27 myzael wrote:
Thank you MalVortex, but is that common sense you are referring to (as I did) or do you have some kind of official Blizzard's response on that matter? The concern for me is that some of the settings in the variables.txt file are not visible/customizable through in-game GUI, meaning that Blizzard could have possibly wanted them to be hidden to users.

T&C are 80% just 'scaring you off', a variety of things therein do not stand up in court. It would be a first if Blizzard could actually sue you and win if you edit a text file on your computer. It's just to scare you off.

On November 09 2010 20:59 MalVortex wrote:


No, I avoid the bnet forums. I don't have some blue post saying "yes, you can modify plain text files so you don't have to replace you shiny new radeon".

But if you do ever get an answer, that's what they would say. If they wanted the options hidden, they would not be in a plaintext file in your \documents folder. Its plaintext. If you modify your settings ingame, the changes are saved there. If you open it in a text editor, it is literally no different. Even if blizzard wanted to doll out bans for having the audacity to modify your resolution manually, they couldn't even track the source of the changes, cause, you know, its a plaintext file.

I already explained the reason why many of the settings aren't visible in the GUI. The GUI is written last, the game engine, and all its variables, take up years of programming time. By comparison, making a shiny blue menu with a dropdown list takes a week. A month, if you want it to be intuitive. In the intervening time, some of those variables will no longer be used (but kept, because you don't go delete old cold lest something ever references it), some are too technical in nature to ever warrant a GUI coding (99% of endusers don't need to modify rendering rate caps), and many can be bundled together under one heading. If doodad textures and terrain textures are both just called "terrain", 99% of end users don't care - having better or worse doodads than the terrain wont usually matter, they are both background.

That's why you don't see every little variable listed. They are still open to modification though, because its not exactly changing the way the game behaves in any unexpected way. Honestly, go play through oblivion, compare its ingame settings, and then compare its .ini configuration file. The ingame settings can tweak 20 or 30 variables at once because "terrain quality" includes things like trees, and grass, and shadow maps for the terrain, and how many blades of grass each clump of grass gets, things like that.

Of course, if you wanted to modify your blade of grass count, you could. I did, because at the time, my old 6600GT hit a lot of memory bottlenecks. With the proper tweaking, you could get a very customized render of oblivion that kept visually stunning things like HDR, while pruning gratuitous detail like "blades of grass count" that just ATE memory but had little visual difference.

Again folks, variables.txt is no different than /command line code or a .ini configuration file. While the commands might be obscure and relevant only to those who need to seek them out, using framerate cap commands or manually tweaking some shader setting is NOT a bannable offense. Its not an offense at all. Even if it were, its a plaintext file in your \documents folder. Blizzard couldn't track the changes to that file if their corporate lives depended on it.

Sadly, this isn't quite the case anymore, at least in the US. A number of recent court cases have given considerable more legal standing to EULAs, even if you don't agree to them (looool). Blizzard's lawsuit against one of the WoW bot programs was based around the argument that the program, which modified unencrypted WoW data in system memory, was a violation of its copyright on WoW because they didn't give permission to the company to modify it. Which is hilarious of course, because your operating system, BIOS, Anti-virus, etc. all modify that memory data, move it from place to place, etc., all the fracking time.

The lesson is that Judges are really bad at computers. That can of worms is really for a different thread though.

On November 09 2010 20:59 MalVortex wrote:


No, I avoid the bnet forums. I don't have some blue post saying "yes, you can modify plain text files so you don't have to replace you shiny new radeon".

But if you do ever get an answer, that's what they would say. If they wanted the options hidden, they would not be in a plaintext file in your \documents folder. Its plaintext. If you modify your settings ingame, the changes are saved there. If you open it in a text editor, it is literally no different. Even if blizzard wanted to doll out bans for having the audacity to modify your resolution manually, they couldn't even track the source of the changes, cause, you know, its a plaintext file.

I already explained the reason why many of the settings aren't visible in the GUI. The GUI is written last, the game engine, and all its variables, take up years of programming time. By comparison, making a shiny blue menu with a dropdown list takes a week. A month, if you want it to be intuitive. In the intervening time, some of those variables will no longer be used (but kept, because you don't go delete old cold lest something ever references it), some are too technical in nature to ever warrant a GUI coding (99% of endusers don't need to modify rendering rate caps), and many can be bundled together under one heading. If doodad textures and terrain textures are both just called "terrain", 99% of end users don't care - having better or worse doodads than the terrain wont usually matter, they are both background.

That's why you don't see every little variable listed. They are still open to modification though, because its not exactly changing the way the game behaves in any unexpected way. Honestly, go play through oblivion, compare its ingame settings, and then compare its .ini configuration file. The ingame settings can tweak 20 or 30 variables at once because "terrain quality" includes things like trees, and grass, and shadow maps for the terrain, and how many blades of grass each clump of grass gets, things like that.

Of course, if you wanted to modify your blade of grass count, you could. I did, because at the time, my old 6600GT hit a lot of memory bottlenecks. With the proper tweaking, you could get a very customized render of oblivion that kept visually stunning things like HDR, while pruning gratuitous detail like "blades of grass count" that just ATE memory but had little visual difference.

Again folks, variables.txt is no different than /command line code or a .ini configuration file. While the commands might be obscure and relevant only to those who need to seek them out, using framerate cap commands or manually tweaking some shader setting is NOT a bannable offense. Its not an offense at all. Even if it were, its a plaintext file in your \documents folder. Blizzard couldn't track the changes to that file if their corporate lives depended on it.