Client Configuration

Introduction

This page will explain the configuration options available in the Wurm Client login screen. Currently this is just a placeholder until people fill it in. Please split the options into sections that match the tabs in the login screen. Ideally there should also be some annotated screenshots of the various screens that would be hosted on the Wiki site, let me (Egal) know if you have some suitably annotaed screenshots and I can upload them.

Click on the Options button on the Wurm Client Login screen to display the configuration options screens. Thanks to Taiho for the performance recomendations.

Game Tab

Resolution

Choose from the resolutions that are supported by your graphics card, which may include: 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, 1280x960. A setting of 800x600 is best for performance, most newer graphics cards have that as the optimal resolution, setting to 640x480 will sometimes decrese performance.

Fullscreen

Play Wurm in a window or use all of the screen. Windowed and Fullscreen does not have much difference, fullscreen yields alittle more performance, not really noticable unless on an old computer.

Bob viewport when walking

Checked tickbox means that camera will bob up and down to simulate walking. This has been said to annoy you as you cannot click objects while walking at the cost of performance, nothing good coming from it, turn it OFF.

Outline hovered objects

Make the ouline of objects under the cursor glow. Outline hovered objects: Minimal, if any negative effect on performance, have it on so you will have it easier to see what you are actually having under your mouse (sometimes you actually don't know without reading the text). Have it ON.

Censor bad language

Will censor bad language in a chat message. Turn it OFF unless you are really sensitive to swearing. No effect on performance.

Timestamps in chat

Checked tickbox means that any chat windows will have the time printed next to a message. Turn it ON, it helps keep track of when someone said something in the chat window. Minimal or no effect on performance.

Loglevel

set to Console only unless you want to log what people say, then choose the apropriate option to what you need. Setting to Everything will have effect on performance because there are more writes to the harddrive.

Graphics Tab

Terrain Polygon Count

Choose from Low, Medium, High, or Extreme. Set to Low. This has some effect on performance and affects the quality. More means smoother landscapes I believe and models might get smoother, little effect compared to performance drop.

Water reflection

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 atleast) and a good CPU (AMD athlon 2000+, 2GHZ P4). It has a great effect on performance, turning it on will use alot, but with a good comp it only gives a small drop in performance and it does make the water look nice.

Tile Decoration

Choose from None, Sparse, Normal, Dense, or Extreme. Have this set to NONE. It makes it 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.

Trees

Choose from Singles, Sparse, Normal, Dense, or Extreme. The amount of trees you can see. Have set to Single to have best performance and ability to see stuff farther away in a forest ;) But Sparse or Normal are optimal for quality versus performance. Only use the better options if using a good computer.

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.

Pretty trees (models near player)

Have it ON unless it really makes the game unplayable. Performance versus Quality is worth it here.

Render Distant Terrain

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

Render tile transition

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.

Fullscreen glow/haze

Set to OFF. Very pretty, makes the game look great, but has a large effect on performance. Makes the game look...well, more lifelike, look at the sun and you will not see much :P

Pretty weather

Have OFF. Performance will drop a great deal when it starts to rain, but on will make weather look more nice, but weather is really nice anyways so it is not needed.

Sound Tab

Sound Engine

Choose from None (silent) and Software. This will cause sounds to be played for certain actions. The base.jar includes only sounds for walking and water but there are some custom sound packs available and the number of sounds is continually being increased. Your own preferance. ON and you will hear when someone is walking near, water running and alot of other noises.

Advanced Tab

Use Large Textures

looks nicer but takes more video ram if enabled. Turn it OFF for a performance gain, but on if you want it prettier. If you have a lot of videoram use it! The gain in quality is great.

Use PBuffers

Use OpenGL (http://www.opengl.org/) hardware pixel buffers (http://oss.sgi.com/projects/ogl-sample/registry/ARB/wgl_pbuffer.txt) when rendering the display. Using PBuffers should give better performance as there is less data to be transferred between the CPU and graphics card. However, some graphics cards implement PBuffers in such a way that Wurm can crash. If this happens try disabling PBuffer support. Look in your console.log and check the "PBuffer support" and "PBuffer inited" lines. Refer to Client Log Messages for details of other console.log messages.

Terrain bumpmapping

Gives the terrain tiles a slight 3D look. Turn it OFF! The performance drop is so large that it may not be worth it for you.

Use occlusion culling

Will give a performance boost on some computers, mainly if you're inside buildings or behind larger objects. It spares the rendering of objects you can't see. On computers where it doesn't work, turn it OFF for a small performance gain.

Use GLSL shaders if available

With newer graphics card that supports it, this will make waves on water and make it look much more real and nice. If this gives you problems or you have a very slow computer, turn it off for a small performance gain.

Fast Yield

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.