Graphics settings

The settings interface for Graphics

Graphics settings are a set of options that allow customisation of the display of RuneScape.

NXT client

Manual Setup

There are preset options called min, low, mid, high and ultra with increasing graphical fidelity for each of the changeable graphics settings. There is also the option for auto setup that tries to select optimal settings for your hardware. The following advanced settings can be manually customised and doing so changes the preset to "custom".

Preset Table

Setting	Preset
	Min	Low	Mid	High	Ultra
Brightness	Does not change
Remove roofs	Does not change
Draw distance	Low		Medium	High	Ultra
Shadow Quality	N/A	Low	Medium	High	Ultra
VSync	Does not change
Anti-aliasing Mode	Off		FXAA	MSAA
Anti-aliasing Quality	N/A		Low	Medium	High
Water	Low		Medium	High	Ultra
Lighting detail	Low		Medium	High	Ultra
Ambient Occlusion	Off				HBAO
Bloom	Off		Low	Medium	High
Textures	Off	Compressed
Anisotropic Filtering	Off		x2	x4	x8
Volumetric Lighting	N/A	Off			High
Foreground FPS	Does not change
Background FPS	Does not change
Flickering effects	Does not change
Shadows	Off	On
Custom cursors	Does not change
Loading screens	Does not change
Ground decoration	Off	On
Terrain blending	On

Brightness

Brightness controls the level of overall lighting and shade. It is changed with a slider.

Al Kharid on the lowest (left) and highest (right) brightness settings

Remove roofs

This setting controls when roofs are removed.

• Never - Never removes roofs.
• Always - Always removes roofs regardless of location or camera.
• Selectively - Only removes roofs that lie between the camera and the player.
• All - Removes all roofs when any roof lies between the camera and the player.

A building with its roof

A building without its roof

Draw distance

Draw distance determines the maximum distance objects will render from the player.

• Low
• Medium
• High
• Ultra

The view from the Wizards' Tower on "low" draw distance

The view from the tower on "ultra" draw distance

VSync

VSync controls the frame rate by synchronising it with your monitor's refresh rate.

• Adaptive - Only enables VSync when the frame rate is greater than or equal to the monitor's refresh rate.
• Off
• On - Always enables VSync, helps eliminate screen tearing.
• Half - Synchronises frame rate to half the monitor's refresh rate.
• Quarter - Synchronises frame rate to quarter the monitor's refresh rate.

The frame rate as seen on the developer console on the "off", "on"/"adaptive", "half" and "quarter" VSync settings, respectively, on a monitor with a refresh rate of 60Hz

Shadow Quality

Shadow quality controls the realism and render distance of object and scenery shadows. Changing this requires shadows to be on.

• Low
• Medium
• High
• Ultra

A tree's shadow on "low" shadow quality

A tree's shadow on "ultra" shadow quality

Anti-aliasing Mode

Anti-aliasing is used to remove aliasing (pixelated edges) when rendering objects.

• Off
• FXAA - Fast approximate anti-aliasing, lower quality but better performance.
• MSAA - Multisample anti-aliasing, better quality but lower performance.
• FXAA+MSAA - Combines both techniques, slightly blurrier.

A wall section with no anti-aliasing

A wall section with "FXAA" anti-aliasing on "ultra"

A wall section with "MSAA" anti-aliasing on "ultra"

A wall section with "FXAA+MSAA" anti-aliasing on "ultra"

Anti-aliasing Quality

Anti-aliasing quality determines the level of performance for anti-aliasing. Changing this requires Anti-Aliasing Mode to be on something else than "off".

• Low
• Medium
• High
• Ultra

Water

The water setting controls how realistic water looks including refraction and reflection.

• Low
• Medium
• High
• Ultra

The River Elid on the "low" water setting

The river on the "ultra" water setting

Lighting detail

Lighting detail controls ambient lighting. There is no option to turn lighting "off".

• Low
• Medium
• High
• Ultra

The light from the lantern does not show on the wall on "low" lighting detail

The light shows properly on "ultra" lighting detail

Ambient Occlusion

Turning on ambient occlusion is only available on certain graphics cards. It controls shading of smaller and more intricate models with a greater specificity in detail.

• Off
• SSAO - Screen space ambient occlusion, less accurate but better performance.
• HBAO - Horizon based ambient occlusion, more accurate but lower performance.

The steps in the Tower of Voices with no ambient occlusion

The steps with "SSAO" ambient occlusion

The steps with "HBAO" ambient occlusion

Bloom

Bloom is a lighting graphics setting that controls additional brightness and impact of glowing effects.

• Low
• Medium
• High

The Lava Flow Mine on the "low" bloom setting

The mine on the "high" bloom setting

Textures

Controls the quality of textures.

• Off
• Compressed - Forces terrain blending on.
• Uncompressed - Forces terrain blending on.

The Rusty Anchor with textures "off"

The pub with textures "on"

Anisotropic Filtering

Improves the appearance of textures, particularly terrain, when viewed from extreme angles and distances.

• Off
• x2
• x4
• x8
• x16

The Tuai Leit pier with anistropic filtering "off"

The pier with anistropic filtering on the "x16" setting

Volumetric Lighting

Adds additional lighting effects, particularly crepuscular rays. Changing this requires Shadows to be on.

• Off
• Low
• Medium
• High
• Ultra

Menaphos watchtowers with volumetric lighting "off"

The watchtowers with volumetric lighting on "ultra"

Foreground and Background FPS

Sets the maximum frames per second that can be rendered when the game is the focused or unfocused window, respectively. These options can be set at intervals of 5, between 5 and 300 inclusive.

Flickering effects

Flickering effects are fullscreen flashes that provide dramatic ambience to an area. An example of such an area is the Killerwatt plane. This option can be switched either off or on.

It is recommended that players who are prone to epileptic seizures play with flickering effects turned off.

Shadows

The shadows setting controls whether or not shadows appear. This setting controls NPC, player and scenery shadows. This option can be switched either off or on.

Custom cursors

Main article: Cursor

Custom cursors are mouseover cursors that are specific to certain actions. This option can be switched either off or on.

Loading screens

This setting controls whether or not loading screens are used. This option can be switched either off or on.

The loading screen on NXT

Ground decoration

This setting controls whether or not ground decoration such as grass and rocks are shown. This option can be switched either off or on.

The ground with decoration turned off

The ground with decoration on

Terrain blending

Terrain blending determines whether or not textures on tiles can blend with other adjacent tiles for a more fluid appearance. Turning this option off forcibly disables textures.

A pathway with terrain blending turned off

Terrain blending turned on (textures are "off")

Screen Sizing

Either resizable, fixed or fullscreen game windows can be selected.

Resolution

Controls the display resolution when in fullscreen. Options are dependent on the display resolution of your monitor.

Java client

Manual Setup

There are preset options called min, low, mid and high with increasing graphical fidelity for each of the changeable graphics settings. There is also the option for auto setup that tries to select optimal settings for your hardware. The following advanced settings can be manually customised and doing so changes the preset to "custom".

Preset Table

Setting	Preset
	Min	Low	Mid	High
Display Mode	Does not change
CPU usage	Maximum
Remove roofs	Always		Selectively
Idle animations	Few		Many
Scenery shadows	N/A		Static	Dynamic
Lighting detail	Low		High
Water detail	N/A		Low	High
Anti-aliasing	None
Particles	Low		Medium	High
Max screen size	Does not change
Brightness	Does not change
Ground decoration	Off		On
Flickering effects	Off		On
Character shadows	Off		On
Fog	Off		On
Custom cursors	Does not change
Ground blending	Off	On
Textures	Off		On
Skyboxes	Off		On
Bloom	Off

Display mode

Display mode chooses which API the client will use to render graphics:

• Direct-X
• OpenGL

CPU usage

CPU usage controls how much of your computer's resources the game can use. Despite the name, it appears that CPU usage refers to resources from the CPU and the graphics card.

• Very low
• Low
• Normal
• High
• Maximum

Remove roofs

This setting controls when roofs are removed.

• Always - Always removes roofs regardless of location or camera.
• Selectively - Only removes roofs that lie between the camera and the player.
• All - Removes all roofs when any roof lies between the camera and the player.

A building with its roof

A building without its roof

Idle animations

Idle animations are animations that play when characters are not performing an action. This setting controls how many players can have idle animations playing.

• Few
• Many
• All

Scenery shadows

Scenery shadows are shadows from non-character models. Scenery shadows require textures to be on.

• None - No piece of scenery will produce a shadow
• Static - Scenery will have shadows, but these shadows will be stationary
• Dynamic - Scenery will have shadows, and these shadows will change with the object

No scenery shadows

Static scenery shadows

Dynamic scenery shadows

Lighting detail

Lighting detail controls ambient lighting. There is no option to turn lighting "off".

• Low
• High

Low lighting detail

High lighting detail

Water detail

Water detail controls how realistic water appears. High water detail requires fog to be on. Proper display of high water detail also requires lighting detail to be high.

• Low
• High

Low water detail

High water detail

High water detail with lighting

Anti-aliasing

Anti-aliasing is used to remove aliasing (pixelated edges) when rendering objects. The Java client uses Multisample anti-aliasing.

• None
• 2x
• 4x

No anti-aliasing

2x anti-aliasing

4x anti-aliasing

Particles

Particles are extra fuzzy or small effects that are created without polygons or textures. This setting determines how many objects are allowed to generate particles.

A chimney's particle effects

Max screen size

Max screen size determines what resolution the game will be rendered for when using fixed mode. It has no effect on the other modes.

• Any - Changes the screen sizing mode to resizable
• 800x600 - Changes the screen sizing mode to fixed
• 1024x768 - Changes the screen sizing mode to fixed

Brightness

Brightness controls the level of overall lighting and shade. It is changed with a slider.

Min brightness (low lighting detail)

Max brightness

Ground decoration

This setting controls whether or not ground decoration such as grass and rocks are shown. This option can be switched either off or on.

Ground blending with no decoration

Ground blending with decoration

Ground blending and textures, but no decoration

Ground blending and textures, with decoration

Flickering effects

Flickering effects are fullscreen flashes that provide dramatic ambience to an area. An example of such an area is the Killerwatt plane. This option can be switched either off or on.

It is recommended that players who are prone to epileptic seizures play with flickering effects turned off.

Character shadows

Character shadows are shadows that appear under NPC and player models. This option can be switched either off or on.

A player's shadow

Fog

A fog appears at the edge of the render distance to obscure unloaded objects.

Fog off

Fog on

Custom cursors

Main article: Cursor

Custom cursors are mouseover cursors that are specific to certain actions. This option can be switched either off or on.

Ground blending

Ground blending determines whether or not textures on tiles can blend with other adjacent tiles for a more fluid appearance. This option can be switched either off or on. Turning this option off forcibly disables textures.

Ground blending off

Ground blending on

Ground blending on with textures

Textures

Textures are extra skins that are placed over models to give an appearance that polygons or other graphics cannot. Textures requires ground blending to be on.

Textureless ground

Textured ground

Skyboxes

Main article: Skyboxes and filters

Skyboxes are backgrounds added to the main backdrop, behind the overworld. Skyboxes paste an image over the blank canvas background that creates a fuller ambience for the setting. While not all areas have specific images to add as a skybox, this setting also controls blending and sky colour, to an extent. This option can be switched either off or on.

Morytania without a skybox

Morytania with a skybox

Nighttime skybox in a Player-owned house

Bloom

Bloom is a lighting graphics setting that controls additional brightness and impact of glowing effects. The effect was mentioned in the developer blog for RuneTek 5 as one of the additional graphical effects that will be possible in HD mode with the new engine. Bloom requires lighting detail to be high. This option can be switched either off or on.

Bloom lighting off

Bloom lighting on