Graphics Options Screen suggestions

[Mythos_Ruler]

Here's a suggested feature I'd like to see in our graphics options menu:

Updates based on the graphics options selected by the user.

[Lion.Kanzen]

[historic_bruno]

Here's a suggested feature I'd like to see in our graphics options menu:

Updates based on the graphics options selected by the user.

Interesting idea, we could render a scene from 0 A.D. I would recommend not loading an actual map due to the delay involved, the screen should appear instantly. We could possibly do that with COLLADA if we extended the importer and renderer to handle more complex data formats. I do think it's best to have graphics options take up the full screen, because there's no way we can fit them into a smaller dialog without appearing cluttered (see: current in-game settings).

Another recommendation I would make is to have simple and advanced modes. "Simple" would be the default and offer high/medium/low quality presets, "Advanced" would be like the above examples. Most people won't care about antialiasing/AO/etc. and there's the chance they'll just mess things up if they don't understand them. The average player will want the game to detect the best configuration for their system, and have a way to change things later if they so choose.

Which brings up two further concerns: 1) we need a way to set the best default configuration for the user's system, and 2) we need a way to detect and disable or "gray-out" certain options not supporting by their GPU/drivers.