Graphics options

Everything you see in the game is set in Menu → Options → Video. The tab mixes the game’s usual options with others we added (marked Ashenvale): this page goes through them top to bottom, in the same order as the window.

A few things apply to all of them:

• They are saved on your PC, not on the account: they work for any character that logs in from that PC.
• They are applied with Apply or Apply and Close Window. Cancel (or closing without applying) puts them back.
• They work the same with Vulkan, DirectX 9 and DirectX 12. The render mode is not chosen here but in the launcher: Render mode.

Default Settings

At the very top: the screen on the left, the image on the right, and the Distance and Color boxes below.

Display Settings

• Window mode: the three boxes are Full Screen Mode, Window mode and Full Window Mode (a borderless window the size of your desktop). In Full Window Mode the Resolution is grayed out, because it uses your desktop’s.
• Resolution and Refresh Rate: the usual ones.

Image: Brightness, Contrast, Sharpness and Saturation

Option	What it does	No change
Brightness	The game’s usual brightness.	—
Contrast (Ashenvale)	The difference between light and dark areas.	middle
Sharpness (Ashenvale)	Left softens, right sharpens edges.	middle
Saturation (Ashenvale)	Color intensity.	middle

• While you drag the slider you already see the change, before applying.
• They change the scene, not the windows: the interface, the chat and the names always look the same.
• If you overdid it, Reset Settings puts them back to no change (see below).

Distance

• PC/NPC Range: how far away characters and NPCs are drawn.
• Display Limit: how many characters are drawn at once.

They are the game’s own, together in their own box. They are the ones that take the most load off your card in a packed town, a siege or an epic boss: fewer characters drawn, less work per frame.

Color (Ashenvale)

Tone changes the color of the whole scene without touching the brightness:

Tone	How it looks
Normal	Like the original game.
Cold	Bluer, with much less orange.
Natural	Slightly cooler than Normal, with less orange: the middle ground.
Warm	Redder and less blue.

Adjust RGB opens three sliders, Red, Green and Blue, for a fine adjustment on top of the tone you picked; the middle leaves them unchanged. Restore puts them back in the middle and Hide RGB closes them.

Left to right: Cold, Warm with more blue, Warm with more green and Normal with more red (with Adjust RGB).

Advanced Settings

Graphic quality

The Graphic quality bar (Low, middle, High) sets almost every option below in one go. You can then tweak any of them by hand. The Lower Detail box drops everything to the minimum to keep the frame rate up, and unticking it brings back what you had.

Option	High	Middle	Low	Lower Detail
Anti-Aliasing	the most your card allows	2X (if your card supports it)	none	none
Anisotropic Filter	16X	8X	4X	none
Texture	High	Average	Low	Low
Distant Textures	High	Normal	Normal	Normal
Modeling Detail	High	High	Low	Low
Motion Detail	High	High	Low	Low
Effect	High	Average	Low	Low
Shadows	on	off	off	off
Ground Detail	on	on	off	off
Weather Effects	High	Average	none	none
Shader	—	—	—	none
Terrain Range	Very Wide	Average	Very Narrow	Very Narrow
Reflections	All	Sky	none	none
Advanced Shader Effects	on	on	off	off
Use Out Focusing Effects	on	off	off	off
Use Realistic Water Effects	on	off	off	off

No level sets Distant Textures to Maximum: it is only chosen by hand.

Show Detailed Settings opens the three boxes below. Each has its own dropdown at the top (Performance Settings, Environmental Settings, Visual Effect Settings) that switches only that box to High, Average or Low.

The details open: Anisotropic Filter next to Anti-Aliasing and Distant Textures next to Texture.

Performance Settings

Option	What it does
Anti-Aliasing	Smooths the jagged edges of characters and objects. none, 2X or 4X, up to what your card supports.
Anisotropic Filter (Ashenvale)	Sharper floors and walls in the distance, especially at an angle. none, 4X, 8X or 16X (16X by default), up to what your card supports.
Texture	Texture quality: High, Average or Low.
Distant Textures (Ashenvale)	How much detail textures keep in the distance: Normal (the game’s), High (default) or Maximum.
Modeling Detail	The quality of character and object models.
Motion Detail	The quality of animations.
Effect	The quality of effects.
Shadows	Shadows of characters and objects.
Ground Detail	The scenery’s decoration objects.

Environmental Settings

Option	What it does
Weather Effects	Rain, snow and other weather: none, Low, Average or High.
Terrain Range	How far the terrain is drawn: from Very Narrow to Very Wide.
Reflections	What the water reflects: none, Sky or All. With Advanced Shader Effects ticked it is grayed out and reads Enhanced Shader effect in use.

Visual Effect Settings

Option	What it does
Advanced Shader Effects	Uses the game’s improved shaders.
Use Out Focusing Effects	Blurs the distant background.
Use Realistic Water Effects	More detailed water.

Misc. Settings

At the bottom of the tab, in Misc. Settings → Misc. The ones on the right and the two at the bottom left choose what you see of other players, and they are among the most helpful in crowded areas.

Option	What it does
Shader	Scene glow: none, Glow Effect A or B, and if your card supports it, HDR Rendering A, B or C.
GPU Animation	Animations are computed by the graphics card. Best left ticked.
Optimize Performance	Gives fewer resources to the programs you have open in the background.
Show Cloak	Show All Cloaks, Show My Cloak Only or Do Not Show Cloak.

Show Dress Me Armor (Ashenvale)

Chooses whose armor skins from Dressme you see:

Option	What you see
Show All Dress Me	Everyone’s armor dressme (default).
Show My Dress Me Only	Only yours; everyone else shows their real armor.
Do Not Show Dress Me	Nobody’s, not even yours: everyone in their real armor.

It only affects what you see: if you choose not to see it, others still see your skin. It applies at once, without relogging. Cloaks and mounts are not turned off.

View Private Stores (Ashenvale)

Private stores are the heaviest thing in a packed town. There are three modes:

Option	What you see
Show All Stores	Stores as always: character, box and sign with the title.
Hide Store Signs Only	The store character, without the box or the title sign. It takes quite a bit of load and rendering off.
Do Not Show Stores	Stores are not loaded: characters in store mode do not show up. It is the lightest mode.

Hiding them does not stop you from buying: listed stores can still be found from the Community Board (alt+b) → Private Stores, including the Go to Store button.

Visual Effects and Heal Animations (Ashenvale)

• Visual Effects: shows or hides other players’ cosmetic visual effects.
• Heal Animations: shows or hides the heal and recovery animations other players cast.

Turning them off clears up the screen a lot in raids, sieges and mass PvP. Your own effects are always shown.

Auto Target Radius (Ashenvale)

The level of detail of the Auto Farm ring: Low, Medium, High or Ultra. Lower means less load on your card.

Reset Settings

Reset Settings (at the bottom of the tab) puts everything back to default: 16X, Distant Textures at High, and contrast, sharpness and saturation in the middle. It does not kick you out of windowed mode: it keeps the window mode, the resolution and the refresh rate.

What depends on your graphics card

Some options only offer what your card can do. If you see fewer values than this page lists, that is why, and it is not a bug:

Option	What happens
Anti-Aliasing	The list goes up to what your card supports (2X or 4X). Without support, only none.
Anisotropic Filter	The list goes up to what your card supports. Without support, it stays at none and grayed out.
Shader	HDR Rendering A, B and C only show up if your card supports HDR.
Contrast, Sharpness, Saturation and Color	They use a Windows component. On a stripped-down Windows or an old Wine it may be missing: then they do nothing and everything else keeps working.
Reflections	Grayed out while Advanced Shader Effects is ticked (not card-related).
Resolution	Grayed out in Full Window Mode, which uses your desktop’s.

And the limits of our sliders, so you know how far each one goes:

Option	Far left	Middle	Far right
Contrast	20 % less	no change	40 % more
Saturation	20 % less	no change	30 % more
Sharpness	softest	no change	sharpest
Red / Green / Blue	15 % less of that color	no change	15 % more of that color

If the game runs slow

From what helps the most to what helps the least:

1. Display Limit and PC/NPC Range: lower them a couple of notches in crowded areas.
2. View Private Stores on Hide Store Signs Only or Do Not Show Stores.
3. Visual Effects and Heal Animations unticked.
4. Show Dress Me Armor on Show My Dress Me Only and Show Cloak on Show My Cloak Only.
5. Shadows and Anti-Aliasing off.
6. Graphic quality in the middle or at Low, and if that is not enough, Lower Detail.

If the problem is not the frame rate but the game not starting, closing or showing a black screen, that is the render mode: see Render mode in the launcher guide.