Graphics settings

This article is about the settings interface. For the general topic, see Graphics.

The settings interface for Graphics

Graphics settings are a set of options that allow customisation of the display of RuneScape.

NXT and Mobile client

Manual Setup

There are five graphics presets: "min", "low", "mid", "high" and "ultra", each increasing in graphical fidelity. Advanced settings can be individually customised; doing so turns on the "custom" option.

Preset Table

Setting	Preset
	Min	Low	Mid	High	Ultra
Brightness	Does not change
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
Reflections	Low		Medium	High	Ultra
Lighting detail	Low		Medium	High	Ultra
Ambient Occlusion	Off				HBAO
Bloom	Off		Low	Medium	High
Textures	Off	Compressed
Anisotropic Filtering	Off		x2	x4	x8
Volumetric Lighting	N/A	Off			High
Foreground FPS	Does not change
Background FPS	Does not change
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

Auto Setup

Auto setup selects the best settings for a balance between visuals and performance based on the computer's hardware. Auto setup runs when starting the client for the first time and can be run again at any time by selecting the "re-run auto setup" button.

Mobile Setup

On the mobile client, there are two presets: "power save" and "balanced". The balanced preset functions the same as auto setup, selecting the optimal settings for the phone's hardware. Manually adjusting individual settings will automatically switch on the "custom" toggle. Most settings excluding Game Brightness, Remove Roof, Flickering Effects and Loading Screens are hidden unless "advanced options" is toggled on.

Brightness

Brightness controls the level of overall lighting and shade. On the NXT client it is adjusted with a slider.

On the mobile client this setting is called Game Brightness which has the following settings:

• Darkest
• Dark
• Bright
• Brightest

• 

  Lumbridge Castle on the lowest (left) and highest (right) brightness settings

Remove roofs

Remove roofs controls when roofs are removed.

• None - Never removes roofs.
• Always - Always removes roofs regardless of location or camera.
• Selectively - Only removes roofs that lie between the camera and the player.
• All - Removes all roofs when any roof lies between the camera and the player.

• 

  A building with its roof.

• 

  A building without its roof.

Draw distance

Draw distance determines the distance objects and fog will render from the player.

• Low - Called Near on mobile.
• Medium - Not on mobile.
• High - Called Far on mobile.
• Ultra - Not on mobile.

• 

  View of White Wolf Mountain on low draw distance. Note the fog.

• 

  View of the mountain on ultra draw distance. The entire peak can be seen.

VSync

VSync (vertical synchronisation) eliminates screen tearing by synchronising the frame rate with the monitor's refresh rate. See also Foreground and Background FPS.

This setting is not present on mobile.

• Adaptive - VSync is only enabled when the frame rate is greater than or equal to the monitor's refresh rate. This is the recommended option.
• Off
• On - VSync is always enabled.
• Half - Synchronises frame rate to half the monitor's refresh rate. Recommended for early-era laptops.
• Quarter - Synchronises frame rate to quarter the monitor's refresh rate. Recommended for non-gaming laptops.

• 

  Frame rate viewed on the developer console with off, on/adaptive, half and quarter VSync settings, respectively, on a monitor with a refresh rate of 60Hz.

Shadow Quality

Shadow Quality controls the detail and render distance of object and scenery shadows. This option requires shadows to be turned on.

• Low
• Medium
• High
• Ultra

• 

  A forest of trees on "low" shadow quality. Note that the shadows do not render as far.

• 

  A forest of trees on "ultra" shadow quality. The shadows are sharper and render further away.

Anti-aliasing Mode

Anti-aliasingis used to remove aliasing (pixelated edges) when rendering objects. This option must not be set to off to adjust Anti-aliasing Quality.

• Off
• FXAA - Fast approximate anti-aliasing, lower quality but better performance.
• MSAA - Multisample anti-aliasing, better quality but lower performance. Does not allow for anti-aliasing of objects with bloom.
• FXAA+MSAA - Combines both techniques, slightly blurrier but allows for anti-aliasing of objects with bloom.

• 

  Part of a citadel with no anti-aliasing.

• 

  Part of a citadel with "FXAA" anti-aliasing on "ultra".

• 

  Part of a citadel with "MSAA" anti-aliasing on "ultra". Note that the bloomed section of the obelisk is still aliased.

• 

  Part of a citadel with "FXAA+MSAA" anti-aliasing on "ultra". This technique causes the image to be slightly blurry.

Anti-aliasing Quality

Anti-aliasing Quality controls the level of detail of anti-aliasing. This option requires that Anti-Aliasing Mode is not set to off.

This setting is not present on mobile.

• Low
• Medium
• High
• Ultra

Reflection

The Reflection setting controls how realistically reflections are rendered, especially in water. It also controls water effects such as refraction and caustics.

On mobile, this option is called Water reflections.

• Low
• Medium - Not on mobile.
• High
• Ultra - Not on mobile.

Lighting detail

Lighting detail controls ambient lighting. There is no option to turn lighting "off".

• Low
• Medium - Not on mobile.
• High
• Ultra - Not on mobile.

• 

  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

Ambient occlusion controls shading of smaller and more intricate models with a greater specificity in detail. It can only be enabled on supported hardware.

• 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 effect that controls additional brightness and impact of glowing effects.

This setting is not present on mobile.

• Low
• Medium
• High

• 

  The Lava Flow Mine on the "low" bloom setting.

• 

  The mine on the "high" bloom setting.

Textures

Controls the quality of textures. Enabling textures forces terrain blending on.

On mobile, this option is a toggle.

• Off
• Compressed - Lower quality textures, but higher performance.
• Uncompressed - Higher quality textures if available, but lower performance. Not on mobile.

• 

  The Rusty Anchor with textures "off".

• 

  The pub with textures "on".

Anisotropic Filtering

Anisotropic Filtering improves the appearance of textures, particularly terrain, when viewed from extreme angles and distances.

• Off
• x2
• x4
• x8 - Not on mobile.
• x16 - Not on mobile.

• 

  The Tuai Leit pier with anistropic filtering "off".

• 

  The pier with anistropic filtering on the "x16" setting.

Volumetric Lighting

Volumetric Lighting adds additional lighting effects such as crepuscular rays. This option requires shadows to be turned on.

• Off - Not on mobile.
• Low
• Medium - Not on mobile.
• High
• Ultra - Not on mobile.

• 

  Menaphos watchtowers with volumetric lighting "off".

• 

  The watchtowers with volumetric lighting on "ultra".

Foreground and Background FPS

Foreground and Background FPS controls the maximum frames per second that can be rendered when the game is the focused or unfocused window, respectively. These options can be set at intervals of five between 5 and 300 inclusive. Vsync bypasses this option if it is set to a lower synchronisation rate.

On mobile, both of these are consolidated into a single setting called Frames Per Second and can be set to the following:

• 15
• 30
• 60

Flickering effects

Flickering are fullscreen flashes that provide dramatic ambience to an area. An example of such an area is the Killerwatt plane. This option can be toggled 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 toggled off or on. This setting must be turned on to adjust Shadow Quality and Volumetric Lighting.

Custom cursors

Main article: Cursor

Turning this option on replaces the cursor with custom cursors when in game. This option can be toggled off or on.

This setting is not present on mobile.

Loading screens

This setting controls whether or not loading screens appear when the game world hasn't fully loaded in. This option can be toggled 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 toggled off or on.

• 

  The ground with decoration turned off.

• 

  The ground with decoration on.

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 (textures are "off").

Screen Sizing

Screen Sizing affects the size of the game window.

• Windowed - Allows the game to take up the entirety of a resizable window.
• Fullscreen - Allows the game to take up the entirety of the monitor in a borderless, non-resizable window. Includes a dropdown to select the screen resolution. Options are dependent on the display resolution of your monitor.

Java client

Manual Setup

There are preset options called min, low, mid and high 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 preset to "custom".

Preset Table

Setting	Preset
	Min	Low	Mid	High
Display Mode	Does not change
CPU usage	Maximum
Remove roofs	Always		Selectively
Idle animations	Few		Many
Scenery shadows	N/A		Static	Dynamic
Lighting detail	Low		High
Water detail	N/A		Low	High
Anti-aliasing	None
Particles	Low		Medium	High
Max screen size	Does not change
Brightness	Does not change
Ground decoration	Off		On
Flickering effects	Off		On
Character shadows	Off		On
Fog	Off		On
Custom cursors	Does not change
Ground blending	Off	On
Textures	Off		On
Skyboxes	Off		On
Bloom	Off

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 the game can use. Despite the name, it appears that CPU usage refers to resources from the CPU and the graphics card.

• Very low
• Low
• Normal
• High
• Maximum

Remove roofs

This setting controls when roofs are removed.

• Always - Always removes roofs regardless of location or camera.
• Selectively - Only removes roofs that lie between the camera and the player.
• All - Removes all roofs when any roof lies between the camera and the player.

• 

  A building with its roof

• 

  A building 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.

• Few
• Many
• All

Scenery shadows

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

• 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 ambient lighting. There is no option to turn lighting "off".

• Low
• High

• 

  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.

• Low
• High

• 

  Low water detail

• 

  High water detail

• 

  High water detail with lighting

Anti-aliasing

Anti-aliasing is used to remove aliasing (pixelated edges) when rendering objects. The Java client uses Multisample anti-aliasing.

• None
• 2x
• 4x

• 

  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 fixed mode. It has no effect on the other modes.

• Any - Changes the screen sizing mode to resizable
• 800x600 - Changes the screen sizing mode to fixed
• 1024x768 - Changes the screen sizing mode to fixed

Brightness

Brightness controls the level of overall lighting and shade. It is changed with a slider.

• 

  Min brightness (low lighting detail)

• 

  Max brightness

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.

• 

  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 fullscreen 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.

Character shadows

Character shadows are shadows that appear under NPC and player models. This option can be switched either off or on.

• 

  A player's shadow

Fog

A fog appears at the edge of the render distance to obscure unloaded objects.

• 

  Fog off

• 

  Fog 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.

Ground blending

Ground blending determines whether or not textures on tiles can blend with other adjacent tiles for a more fluid appearance. This option can be switched either off or on. Turning this option off forcibly disables 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

Main article: Skyboxes and filters

Skyboxes are backgrounds added to the main backdrop, behind the overworld. Skyboxes paste an image over the blank canvas background that creates a fuller ambience 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. This option can be switched either off or on.

• 

  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. This option can be switched either off or on.

• 

  Bloom lighting off

• 

  Bloom lighting on

Update history

The update history project is a work-in-progress – not all updates to this topic may be covered below. See here for how to help out!

• patch 25 November 2019 (Update):
  • The uncompressed texture setting has been temporarily disabled.

• patch 29 April 2019 (Update):
  • Re-enabled MSAA on mobile after it was previously temporarily disabled.

• patch 26 November 2018 (Update):
  • Graphics options with dropdown boxes will now displaying correctly if the resolution dropdown is opened first.

• patch 4 June 2018 (Update):
  • The remove roofs graphics option will now include hiding the chandeliers within a slayer player-owned dungeon spawn area.

• patch 3 April 2018 (Update):
  • The Visualise option will now allow you to change your Skybox/Filter anywhere you like (except for Araxxor's cave).

• patch 16 October 2017 (Update):
  • Players can now define their maximum foreground and background FPS in the NXT client via the graphics settings interface.

• nxt 10 July 2017 (Update):
  • Fixed medium+ water and SSAO on compatibility mode.
  • Certain particle physics should now work correctly.

• nxt 5 June 2017 (Update):
  • A new graphical feature: Volumetric lighting have been added to the game. Make your way to Menaphos to check them out!
  • A new graphical feature: Caustic water effects have been added to the game. Turn water details to “Ultra” to enable.

• nxt 16 January 2017 (Update):
  • A spelling error on the NXT Graphics Setting tab has been fixed.

• patch 30 April 2012 (Update):
  • The graphics options screen now fully displays in the lobby.

• patch 24 November 2010 (Update):
  • The custom graphics option screen has been simplified by removing three options that didn’t contribute anything meaningful: Visible levels, Texture Detail and Ground Textures.

Navbox JSON: {"groups":[{"title":"Engine","contents":[{"text":"RuneScript","link":"RuneScript"},{"text":"RuneTek","link":"RuneTek"}]},{"title":"Products","contents":[{"text":"Game Client","link":"Game Client"},{"text":"HTML5 client","link":"HTML5 client"},{"text":"NXT","link":"NXT"},{"text":"Mobile","link":"RuneScape Mobile"},{"text":"RuneScape Game Bar","link":"RuneScape Game Bar"},{"text":"RuneScape Companion","link":"RuneScape Companion"}]},{"title":"Performance","contents":[{"text":"Game square","link":"Game square"},{"text":"Game tick","link":"Game tick"},{"text":"Game world","link":"Game world"},{"text":"Map chunk","link":"Map chunk"},{"text":"Server","link":"Server"}]},{"title":"[[Graphics]]","contents":[{"text":"Graphics settings","link":"Graphics settings"},{"text":"Graphical updates","link":"Graphical updates"},{"text":"Skyboxes and filters","link":"Skyboxes and filters"}]},{"title":"Servers","contents":[{"text":"Download server","link":"Download server"},{"text":"Login server","link":"Login server"}]}],"name":"Mechanics","title":"Mechanics"}