Client Configuration

Main Page / Client Configuration

Introduction

This page explains the configuration options available in the Wurm client launcher.

Click on the Settings button on the Wurm client launcher to display the configuration options screens.

Game tab

Game renderer

You here have the choice between JOGL + AWT and LWJGL. If you have an ATI graphics card (Radeon series), you will want to use LWJGL renderer, or you will get a lousy fps no matter what you do.

DisplayResolution

Choose from the resolutions that are supported by your graphics card. Choosing a too low or too high resolution might effect performance. Some monitors have an optimal resolution. Wurm looks much better at higher resolutions so compare the performance at different settings.

Fullscreen

Play Wurm in a window or use all of the screen. Windowed and fullscreen does not have much difference, fullscreen yields a little more performance, not really noticeable unless on an old computer; this may depend on your graphics card.

Advanced..

Opens the advanced display options dialogue.

GUI window opacity

The opacity of the interface windows. This can make screens like the inventory see-through, completely solid, or something in between.

Outline hovered objects

Make the outline of objects under the cursor highlighted. This can have a huge impact on framerate (since it has to go from thick to thin for some reason, instead of staying the same thickness--very thin) but depends on the system--have it on so you can see what is actually under the cursor. Recommended setting is ON.

Censor bad language

Will censor bad language in a chat message. No effect on performance.

Invert mouse

Inverts the mouse's Y-Axis for looking up and down.

Prefetch inventory contents

TODO

Note: The following actions can be bound to keys in the console and are used to tidy up the context menu. You can examine objects in the world by double-clicking them, too.

Don't display Examine in menus

Removes the Examine item from the context menu (right-click).

Don't display No target in menus

Removes the No target item from the context menu

Don't display Spam mode in menus

Removes the Spam mode item from the context menu

Don't display Stop in menus

Removes the Stop item from the context menu. If you have Stop 2 times in the context menu, enable this to display it only once. (bug)

Advanced display options

File:WurmClient-Options-Advanced-display-options.png

Monitor

Choose the display you want Wurm to be displayed on if you use more than one monitor.

Window mode

Choose from windowed, a maximized window or fullscreen.

DisplayResolution

Choose a resolution that is supported by your monitor and satisfies your performance needs.

Custom

Choose a custom resolution. Only works with JOGL+AWT renderer.

Colour depth

Choose 16 bit or 32 bit colour depth. Only available in fullscreen mode, otherwise the desktop settings are used.

Refresh rate

Choose a refresh rate. Only set this to a rate your monitor supports!

Text tab

Default Font Size

Todo

Header Font Size

Todo

HugeHeader Font Size

Todo

Event message logging

Logs all messages from the event tab.

IRC message logging

Logs all messages from the ingame IRC client.

Other message logging

Logs all other messages such as local chat, kingdom chat and private messages.

Timestamp messages

Adds a time stamp in front of all messages including chat, events, and the combat log for example. It helps to keep track of when someone said something in the chat window or an event occurred. No effect on performance.

Log obscure error messages

Enabling this will log various trivial error messages to the console. No reason to enable unless you plan to monitor your console logs and report them to a developer.

Save skills on exit

When activated, dumps all your skill-values to a textfile in your profile's directory under dumps\.

Send client data?

TODO

Skillgain tab updates

TODO

Sound tab

Sound engine

Choose from none (silent), software or hardware (OpenAL). This will cause sounds to be played for certain actions, if you have downloaded the optional packs. Your own preference.

OpenAL Volume

Modifies the volume sounds will be played at.

Use ambient sound

Plays ambient sounds specific to the current area and time of the day around your avatar (Twittering birds, howling wolves, etc).

Use weather sounds

Plays sounds specific for the current weather around your avatar.

Use background buzz sound

Todo

Buzz level (2 = normal)

Todo

Play music scores

Choose to have the client play music on startup and occasionally throughout the game.

Play footsteps

Choose to play footsteps of yourself and others.

Footsteps level (10 = normal)

Choose the volume of the footsteps.

Graphics tab

Note that setting all the graphics settings on the extreme settings is not recommended. It will result in poor frame rate on even the fastest systems.

Terrain resolution

Choose from low, medium, or high. This has some effect on performance and affects the quality. More means more detailed landscape far away from you. If you appreciate a good view then use high unless your computer can't handle it. Settings medium and high also show rocks in the terrain.

Water reflections (pixel shader effect)

Choose from "None", "Sky only", "Sky and terrain", "Sky, terrain, and trees", "Almost everything". Have set to none unless you have a semi-old card (FX5600 or better at least) and a good CPU (AMD Athlon 2000+, 2GHz P4). It has a great effect on performance, turning it on will use a lot, but with a good comp it only gives a small drop in performance and it does make the water look nice.

Tile decorations

Choose from extremely sparse, sparse, normal, dense, or extreme. Have this set to extremely sparse for a performance boost. Using higher settings makes the game much prettier, but you also have a harder time finding anything on the ground, unless it is on/in dirt, road, water, rock or sand. Large performance drop if used. Using the extreme setting is not recommended, it will effect performance greatly.

TreePosition render distance

Choose from very short, short, normal, far, or extreme. The amount of trees you can see. Have set to very short to have best performance. However, structures, items and animals will not be rendered beyond the tree limit. Short or normal are optimal for quality versus performance. Only use far or extreme when you have a good computer. Using the extreme setting is not recommended, it will effect performance greatly.

StructureData render distance

Choose from very short, short, normal, far, or extreme. The distance in which you can see structures. Set it to very short for a performance boost when you are in a (large) town. Set to extreme if you want to see towns from quite a distance away. The maximum setting of this option is the setting of tree render distance

Item/creature render distance

Choose from very short, short, normal, far, or extreme. Set this to very short for a performance boost. Setting this to extreme helps looking for items and creatures. The maximum setting of this option is the setting of structure render distance

Avatar's animations

Choose from all, walking only or none.

Sky detail

Choose from low, normal, high. Set to high for more detailed clouds, but much less performance. Set to low for very crude clouds, but heaps of performance.

Cave detail

Choose from very low, low, normal, high. Set to normal, the difference in performance from low to normal is minimal, and in a cave you don't need great performance mostly. Even set to the highest does not drop your performance too much. If you find your cave looks to spiky, set it to very low for flat walls.

Shadows (pixel shader effect)

Recommended setting: None. Setting this to the highest setting will cause the client to render everything twice, reducing performance greatly.

Render cloud shadows (pixel shader effect)

Turn this off for a noticeable performance increase.

Render distant terrain

Have ON unless it really makes the game unplayable. Great effect on performance, but good for spotting things early (like enemies).

Example screenshots: ON | OFF

Render tile transitions

ON is prettier but it isn't essential as it only makes the tile border between tiles blend between the tiles. Turn it OFF to increase performance slightly.

Example screenshots: ON | OFF

Render bloom ("glow", Bloom (shader effect)

Set to OFF for performance. Makes light objects glow.

The effects of this option depends greatly on your hardware (some users may experience a heavy performance drop, some close to none).

Render sun glare

If you have performance problems while looking at trees, turn this off.

Advanced graphics tab

Maximum texture size (normal textures)

Choose from 256, 512, 1024 and No Limit. This setting has a heavy impact on performance and graphics quality. It effects the quality of all models in the game. If your video card has lots of memory, choose a high setting. If you are having serious FPS issues (1 FPS or less), try choosing 256.

Maximum texture size (megatextures)

Choose from 256, 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, 8196 and No Limit. Do not change unless told to. It is currently only used for the loading screen image, and will reduce itself if needed.

Reflection quality

Choose from Low, Medium, High. Effects the quality of the water reflection. Has no effect if that is turned off. Can use quite some video memory. Turn this down for an FPS boost.

Terrain/shadow resolution

Choose from Low, Medium or High. Can use over 200Mb of Video RAM

Texture scaling hint, when not using large textures

TODO

Bumpy lighting (looks okay without, can be a lot faster)

TODO

Pretty trees (models near player)

Always enable. It's actually a performance boost as well as looking better.

Pretty weather

Have OFF for performance. Performance will drop a great deal when it starts to rain, but on will make weather (mostly fog) look nicer (but more annoying), but weather is really nice anyway so it´s up to you.

Use compressed textures

Use ON or OFF. Increases FPS but sacrifices texture quality

Use S3TC/DXT when using compressed textures

Use ON or OFF. Generally looks better then the standard OpenGL compression.

Screenshot image file format

Choose from higher quality and larger filesize PNG or lower quality and smaller filesize JPG image formats.

High resolution spyglass

Choose from ON or OFF. Set to OFF if you don't have a spyglass.

Birds, butterflies, fish and falling leaves

Choose from ON or OFF. ON looks nicer, OFF will give a trivial effect on performance.

Anisotropic Texture Filtering Level

More accurate texture filtering than bilinear but slightly slower.

Smooth points with anti-aliasing

Todo

Smooth lines with anti-aliasing (Can be very slow)

Todo

Smooth polygons with anti-aliasing

Todo

Model loading threads

Todo

Model Loader Thread Priority

Todo

Enable frame limiter

Choose to limit your framerate to anywhere from 30 to 120 FPS, this may help your graphics card running at lower temperature and not working full steam ahead.

Use Experimental Outline Picking Optimisation

Can reduce the effect of outline picking on FPS. Still under testing.

Use Experimental Birds, Leaves, Fish, Butterflies Optimisation

Can reduce the effect on FPS. Still under testing.

Use Experimental Frustrum Optimisation

Can increase FPS. Still under testing.

Compatibility tab

Do not change these options unless told to. Exceptions are marked in green.

MultiDraw support

Used for certain Intel workarounds.

GLSL shader support

Used for certain ATI workarounds. If this option is disabled, reflections will not work.

VBO support

Used for certain Intel workarounds. Disabling will reduce performance greatly.

FBO support

Used for certain ATI workarounds. Disabling will reduce performance, and reflections will not work.

Automatic mipmaps

Disabling will crash the game on startup.

Non-power-of-two textures

Used for certain ATI workarounds. Disabling will reduce performance.

Disable system clock protection

Deprecated. May cause your system clock to go too fast or too slow.

Disable color picking

Deprecated. May cause object outlining and selection to become buggy.

Use direct color picking (if enabled)

Direct color picking requires FBO enabled. May increase performance.

Use nanoTime timer

Used for certain Mac workarounds. May cause erratic time in-game.

Fast yield (May cause mouse and keyboard lag)

If turned on you can get a performance gain, but you can also have trouble writing and moving your mouse in-game, if no keyboard or mouse lag, have it on.

Debug mode (used for finding bugs)

Enabling this option will crash the game when certain error conditions are detected, making it easier for the developers to diagnose the problem. Only use if you're trying to reproduce a bug, or testing a new client. Is automatically enabled in test and unstable clients.

Release openGL context each frame

If you use LWJGL renderer, and/or have an ATI graphics card, you will want to enable this for a boost in fps.

Enable Nagle's Algorithm for combining packets

Increases latency and reduces bandwidth used. Recommended setting: disabled.