Render Tab Page

Use

You can use this tab page to modify the display renderer properties for the graphics cards installed on your computer. This is helpful if you want to optimize file rendering. The configuration options differ depending on the selected renderer. For example, if you select Software Z-buffer, you can select to use a second processor if one is installed on your computer, refine the static geometry, and render scenes in high quality.

Features

• The following table lists the functions shown in the Render tab page:

  Fields and Checkboxes	Functional Description
  Common Renderer Properties	Used to modify the properties common to all renderers. 2-Sided Lighting for Back-Facing Polygons: Lights all back-facing polygons where possible Do not Redraw Scene on Window Expose: Displays a copy of the scene from the information in the graphics card back buffer without regenerating the whole scene Incremental Window Update: Uses the incremental window update when rendering; only the updated window region is repainted. Z-buffer: Selects the Z-buffer bit type with which to render files (16 bit, 24 bit, or 32 bit)
  Drivers	Lists all the available display renderers
  Configure	Opens the selected renderer’s Properties window and is used to modify the renderer’s properties.
  Legacy FPS Calculation	Uses the legacy calculation for frames per second, but doesn’t transfer that image to the screen.

• The following table lists the functions shown in the MS DirectX Properties window:

  Fields and Checkboxes	Functional Description
  Driver	Displays, and is used to update the driver’s properties. Automatic Configuration: Configures the display renderer settings automatically Pure Device: Uses the pure device mode for rendering. This is a variant of the HAL device and supports hardware vertex processing only. It allows only a small subset of the device state to be queried by SAP 3D Visual Enterprise Author. In addition, the pure device is available only on adapters that have a minimum level of capabilities. HAL: Uses the Direct3D HAL device mode for rendering. The Direct3D HAL is implemented by the chip manufacturer, board producer, or OEM. The HAL implements only device-dependent code and performs no emulation. If a function isn’t performed by the hardware, the HAL doesn’t report it as a hardware capability. Additionally, the HAL doesn’t validate parameters. Direct3D validates before the HAL is invoked.
  Vertex Processing	Selects the vertex processing mode for the MS DirectX 9.0 HAL device. Hardware: Enables the device to perform hardware vertex processing. The performance of this type of processing is comparable to that of software vertex processing. Mixed: Enables the device to perform both software and hardware vertex processing. Software: Enables the device to perform software vertex processing. This provides a guaranteed set of vertex processing capabilities, including an unbounded number of lights and full support for programmable vertex shaders.
  Store Geometry in Video Memory	Speeds up rendering if there’s enough memory on the computer’s graphic card. Geometry is stored in the video memory using the index and vertex buffers. Antialiasing: Allows anti-aliasing to be applied to rendered scenes. Anti-aliasing is the smoothing of the staircase effect that occurs when diagonal or curved lines, or borders are drawn on raster illustrations consisting of square or rectangular pixels. The higher the value, the smoother the rendered output Enable Custom Shaders: Allows shaders to be displayed in scenes Enable Shader Model 2.0: Allows model 2.0 to be used

• The following table lists the functions shown in the OpenGL Video Driver Properties window:

  Fields and Checkboxes	Functional Description
  Use ARB_vertex_buffer_object Extension	Allows various types of data to be cached in high-performance graphics memory, increasing the rate of data transfer. Limit Memory Usage To: Allows a memory usage limit to be set.
  Anisotropic Textures Filtering	Improves the anti-aliasing of surfaces that diminish in the scene rapidly. For example, a tiled Floor that extends to infinity. Note that this increases calculation time, causing a drop in FPS.
  MipMap Textures Filtering	Improves visual quality by making scaled filtered copies of the map for use at different distances. This operation is handled by the driver.

• The following table lists the functions shown in the Software Z-Buffer Properties window:

  Fields and Checkboxes	Functional Description
  Use Second Processor	If a second processor is present on the computer, attempts to increase rendering performance. This can be up to 10-40% depending on the computer’s hardware and the current model geometry.
  Refine Static Geometry	If the scene hasn’t been rotated or modified, this option applies an anti-aliasing pass in the background. Anti-aliasing is the smoothing of the staircase effect that occurs when diagonal or curved lines, or borders are drawn on raster illustrations consisting of square or rectangular pixels. It’s used to improve the quality of the rendered output.
  High Quality Render Triangles Number Less Than	Always renders the scene in full-screen anti-aliasing mode.
  Use Extra Maps: Opacity, Emission, Ambient Occlusion	Renders the scene using extra maps for opacity, emission, and ambient occlusion.

Activities