ATI & NVIDIA Video Card Tweak Guide - Page 10

Driver Settings > Customize OpenGL Settings

The OpenGL sections of Rivatuner are laid out in much the same way as the Direct3D portions, but with a slightly different tab layout. This time, the available options include mipmapping, rendering quality, anti-aliasing, among others. As with our Direct3D examination, we're sticking with the most important tabs, since many are quite rudimentary and have been covered in previous sections.

Mipmapping Tab

Just like we did in the Direct 3D area, we can set the mipmap LOD for OpenGL applications using the slider. Negative values offer a sharper and more aliased texture at the cost of some performance, whereas positive values offer smaller, faster, and low-quality images.

Rendering Quality Tab

Here is where we can set a multitude of image quality or speed enhancing tweaks. Under the S3TC quality settings, check "Compress DXT3 instead of DXT1" to allow for greater image quality. If you check the next option "Disable dithering when decompressing DXT1 textures," it will provide for slightly better performance in games at the expense of image quality.

Next, we can set the anisotropic quality settings from Level 1 (off) all the way to Level 8, with Level 8 offering the highest image quality. You can also set the filtering quality preference to either performance or quality, we recommend setting it to quality if you have a GeForce3 or later as they are better suited to handle the additional bandwidth required to properly run anisotropic filtering.

Antialiasing Tab

On this tab, take note of the little checkbox that allows you to enable texture sharpening when FSAA is used. If you check that, when FSAA is applied to a scene Rivatuner will double the amount of anisotropic filtering to help combat the blurriness associated with FSAA, which can be very useful with Quincunx anti-aliasing.

That pretty well rounds up our ATI and NVIDIA Video Card Tweak Guide, and we hope this helps out in not only achieving the highest performance and overclock settings, but gives you an added edge on the image quality front as well. Remember that each video card and system configuration is different, and only through detailed testing can you find that perfect tweak setup that's just right for you.