[SUGGESTION] Add r_showsurfaces 3 as a checkbox in the settings GUI

This could be named something like:
"Simplified Rendering (looks terrible, but gives extra frames per second - might not display all game content correctly - use at own risk!)"

   

To achieve this look open your Xonotic console and type:

Code:

r_showsufraces 3

To disable this, type:

Code:

r_showsurfaces 0

To me this is perfect, as I can play the game with 60 FPS instead of 40 (whitch is too slow!) and I can be competitive!

With resolution 1366x780 - I tried 640x480 and 800x600 but some time is wasted on resizing the frames (LCD screens suck about this) to display's native resolution - plus they are just too small to be precise and quick with aiming. That's my feeling.

I think some poeple would appreciate this as an extra option in the GUI, they won't find it otherwise, but this might really save their asses on the battlefield.

What do you think? Should be clutter the GUI with another checkbox?

You're saying time is being wasted resizing the frames. Is that not done by the screen itself? And if not, why not play in windowed mode?

I've seen tZork claim gl_picmip(_<world/other>) (I use 16, the bigger the slower it gets) being much more effective than r_showsurafaces.

I always thought that gl_picmip_world was using values between 0 and 10, and everything above 10 is treated as 10 (so you can use 1337 to feel pro)...

If we are to have a checkbox for this, we could make it selectable between r_showsurfaces, gl_picmip_world and gl_picmip (for picmipping all), since the effect may be different depending on hardware and gl_picmip_world leaves you at least with proper weapons and pickups.

If you want crazy graphics it's already available in settings>misc enable 'developer mode',
Restart xonotic
Now there should be 'show surfaces' option in settings>effects

I've seen tZork claim gl_picmip(_<world/other>) (I use 16, the bigger the slower it gets) being much more effective than r_showsurafaces.

I said it can be faster.

If it is or not depends on your hardware (or rather why its rendering slow on it). The rule of thumb is (or at least was, perhaps sth changed): showsurfaces is for old stuff, intel igp's and similar. most discrete and amd/nv integrated are faster with picmip.

You're saying time is being wasted resizing the frames. Is that not done by the screen itself? And if not, why not play in windowed mode?

As I have an LCD screen (laptop, never seen a laptop with a CRT screen) - fullscreen 640x480 gets scaled up, not sure how and where, but I heard it might suck out some processing power.

I don't use that with windowed mode, because the pixels are too small to see anything.

Anyway - I now found out that Windowed fullscreen (<1366x768) works fine and renders very quick with r_showsurfaces 3. I haven't tried the gl_picmip_world or gl_picmip_other thing though yet.