We should add a option to Settings.xml to control the graphics quality of the game. The option, called graphicsQuality will have three value, each corresponding to increasingly higher graphics quality.
Auto
There should be an auto setting which does a quick (~100 ms worst case) test at the beginning of the game and uses it to decide which of the three settings below to use. This should be the default.
Maximum
This value turns on all graphical effects.
Standard
This value is the recommended fallback for lower-performance machines. It implements the following performance-saving policies:
- Disable starshine: The starshine effect washes out the space background when near a star.
Minimum
This is the lowest graphical quality, suitable only if the machine cannot handle the other quality levels. This implements the following policies:
- Disable space backgrounds: We paint a normal starfield background (as in older versions of the game).
- Disable star glow: We don't paint the star glow on the system map.
I think it would be better to have separate options for each feature, rather than a single "quality level". People might want to turn specific ones off for reasons unrelated to performance. (Speaking of which, can we disable the 3d system map?)
@nms: I'll do that as needed, but we still need a way to set all the options to various defaults.
Also, you're not the only one asking to turn off the 3D map, so I've added that as an option too: http://ministry.kronosaur.com/record.hexm?id=1191
This is implemented in 1.6.