System Configuration

Typical Video Driver Control Panels

(courtesy of NVidia and ATI)

Optimizing Letter Rack 3D Graphics and Performance
Letter Rack 3D has been tested on a range of commonly available graphics hardware and the following guide is based on those trials. As with most graphics intensive games, there is always a degree of compromise between performance and appearance and Letter Rack 3D is no exception and some optimization might be necessary.

To get the best visual appearance, it is recommended that Letter Rack 3D uses the highest possible screen resolution; at resolutions over 1024 x 768, enhanced features such as anti-aliasing become less important and there might be some benefit in disabling this feature whilst configuring Letter Rack 3D.

1.
 Refer to the notebook page 'VIDEO AND AUDIO SETTINGS'.
2.
 Disable 'Anti-Aliasing' and 'Vertical Sync'

These functions will be found from your display control panel and will look similar to the above pictures. To access the display control panel, right click the mouse on your desktop and, from the drop-down menu, select 'properties' to bring up the 'Display Properties' dialog.

Now select the 'Settings' tab and press the 'Advanced' button. This should now bring up the properties setting dialog for your video driver.

Find the anti-aliasing control and the vertical sync option and turn them off.

Run Letter Rack 3D again and check the performance index displayed on the notebook 'VIDEO AND AUDIO SETTINGS' page.

If the performance index is 'in the green' then you can try increasing the video resolution setting in the notebook and if it remains 'in the green' then you can experiment with the video driving settings by altering the anti-aliasing settings and also re-enable vertical sync.

(Anti-aliasing is a technique for smoothing an image and helps to remove jagged edges that can be especially noticeable on lines that are well defined. Anti-aliasing involves rendering the screen at 2 or 4 times normal size and then rescaling it back to normal size before displaying the resultant image. In hardware, this technique is very effective but at large screen resolutions it is costly in performance.

Vertical Sync controls when the screen is updated. When turned off, its absence can be noticeable when a large plain area moves across the screen and gives rise to an effect known as 'tearing'.)
3.
 Unacceptable Performance

If Letter Rack 3D is exceptionally slow then it suggests that you need to consider upgrading your hardware. If the performance is marginal then it might be worth ensuring that you have the latest version of your video driver software installed.

You can locate the latest drivers for your computer hardware by going to the web site of the hardware manufacturer. New drivers are released regularly for most hardware, with improvements in performance and bug fixes for previous driver issues.

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