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 pre-set 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 pre-setting into "custom".

Preset Table

Setting	Preset
	Min	Low	Mid	High	Ultra
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
Brightness	Does not change
Textures	Off	Compressed
Anisotropic Filtering	Off		x2	x4	x8
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

Remove roofs

This setting controls when roofs are removed.

• Always - removes roofs regardless of location or camera.
• Selectively - removes the roofs that lie between the camera and the player.
• All - removes all roofs when any roofs lie 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 enabled when the frame rate is at least the same value as the monitor's refresh rate.
• Off
• On
• Half - synchronises frame rate to half the monitor's refresh rate.
• Quater - 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" settings respectively, on a 60Hz monitor

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 ocean near an uncharted isle on the "low" water setting

The ocean near the island 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

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

Textures

Controls the quality of textures.

• Off
• Compressed
• Uncompressed - currently provides minimal graphical improvement compared to "compressed", it is not recommended to use this setting.

The Rusty Anchor with textures turned off

The pub with textures turned 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 no anistropic filtering

The pier with anistropic filtering on the "x16" setting

Flickering effects

Flickering effects are full screen 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.

Textures

Textures are extra skins that are placed over models to give an appearance that polygons or other graphics cannot. 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 no decoration

Ground decoration adds small details such as blade of grass

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 (while textures are off)

Screen Sizing

Either resizable or fullscreen game windows can be selected.

Resolution

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

Java client

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 RuneScape can use. Despite this option's name, it appears that CPU usage refers to resources from the CPU and the graphics card.

Remove roofs

This setting controls when roofs are removed.

• Selectively: Removes roofs when you are inside the building
• All: Removes roofs when your camera is focused inside the building
• Always: Removes roofs regardless of location or camera

A building shown with its roof

A building shown 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.

Scenery shadows

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

Scenery shadows has 3 options:

• 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 the ambient lighting. Lighting detail is not required for areas to have darker or brighter ambient lighting, as there is no "off" setting. Setting lighting detail to "low" will simply give less impact to the lighting than "high" would. Lighting detail is required for bloom. Lighting detail also affects the maximum performance of water detail.

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. Without lighting detail, high water detail just makes the environment slightly darker.

Low water detail

High water detail

High water detail with lighting

Anti-aliasing

Anti-aliasing is a blending of edges to give objects a less jagged appearance. RuneScape uses Multisample anti-aliasing. Anti-aliasing with this method is done by looking at surrounding pixels, combining their colours to create a blend. 2x and 4x refer to the number of iterations that are performed for sampling. 4x anti-aliasing is not necessarily twice as good as 2x, but it is noticeably better.

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 full screen mode. It has no effect on the other modes.

Brightness

Brightness controls the level of overall lighting and shade.

Min brightness (low lighting detail)

Max brightness

Ground decoration

Ground decoration is the placement of extra models to make the overworld feel less bare. Ground decoration does not require ground blending or textures to be on; however, it is affected by the latter.

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 full screen flashes that provide dramatic ambiance to an area. An example of such an area is the Killerwatt plane.

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.

A player's shadow

Fog

Fog is a blur that makes the background appear as if it's too far away, rather than unloaded.

Fog off

Fog on

Custom cursors

Main article: Cursor

Custom cursors are mouseover cursors that are specific to certain actions.

Ground blending

Ground blending is an option that merges the gridlines of the overworld to create a smoother appearance. Ground blending is also required to use 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

Skyboxes are backgrounds added to the main backdrop, behind the overworld. Skyboxes paste an image over the blank canvas background that create a fuller ambiance 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.

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.

Bloom lighting off

Bloom lighting on