Graphics settings

Eggy lets you and your players choose how the game is drawn: graphics backend, graphics card, window, vertical sync, frame rate, render scale, antialiasing, mipmapping, texture filtering and shadows. There are three places to set them, and each is saved on its own.

Where	Who	Saved in
File > Project Settings > Graphics	You, as the game's shipped defaults	`eggy.zon`, under `.graphics`
Edit > Preferences..., Graphics section	You, for the editor's own Scene view	Your Eggy data folder
The in-game Graphics menu	Your players	The game's user-data folder

A player's saved choices win over the shipped defaults. Nothing else touches them, so changing your project's defaults never overwrites what a player picked.

The options

Only choices this computer supports are listed.

Graphics API and Graphics card: which backend and GPU draw the game. These, and vertical sync, take effect after the game restarts, and are labelled so.
Window mode and Window size: windowed or borderless fullscreen, and the size the window opens at (desktop only).
Vertical sync: waits for the screen to refresh to avoid tearing, at the cost of some delay. Low latency and Off trade smoothness for responsiveness. Needs a restart.
Frame rate limit: frames per second up to 1000, where 0 is unlimited.
Render scale: 0.25 to 2, the resolution the 3D scene is drawn at. Below 1 draws fewer pixels and runs faster; above 1 is crisper. The interface always stays at the window's native resolution.
Antialiasing: Off, 2x, 4x or 8x MSAA (sharper, costs more), or FXAA (cheaper, softens textures a little). Only sample counts the graphics card supports are listed.
Mipmapping: a chain of smaller copies of each texture for distant surfaces. Less shimmer for a little extra memory.
Texture filtering: Nearest is blocky, Linear is smooth. Linear with mipmapping is trilinear.
Anisotropic filtering: keeps textures sharp at a slant, up to what the graphics card reports. It needs Linear filtering, so choosing Nearest turns it off.
Shadow quality: Off, Low, Medium or High, the size of the shadow map. Higher is sharper and costs more GPU time and memory; sizes the graphics card can't hold aren't listed. Only one directional light casts shadows.
Shadow distance: 1 to 10000 metres from the camera that shadows are drawn. A shorter distance looks sharper. The slider goes to 1000; write a larger value in eggy.zon.
Shadow bias: 0 to 0.1, how far shadows are pushed off the surface that casts them. Raise it if surfaces speckle, lower it if shadows seem to float. Distance and bias show only while shadow quality is not Off.

New projects start with automatic backend and card, 4x MSAA, linear filtering and mipmaps on. A value that isn't valid is never silently changed: you get an error message saying what to fix.

Choose your game's defaults

Open File > Project Settings and use the Graphics cards. Changes are written to eggy.zon as you make them and Edit > Undo takes them back. The editor's Scene view and any exported game start from them. You can also write them by hand:

.graphics = .{
    .anti_aliasing = .msaa_8x,
    .texture_filter = .linear,
    .anisotropy = 8,
    .frame_limit = 120,
},

Settings you leave out keep their defaults.

Change the editor's own settings

The Graphics section of Edit > Preferences... has the same options for the editor, kept in your Eggy data folder and separate from every project. Apply saves and uses them, Restore defaults loads the project's shipped values into the form, and Revert drops edits you haven't applied. If a saved choice can't be used when the editor starts, a message says so.

Let players choose

Every game has a Graphics menu. Players press F10 to open it and F10 or Escape to close it. While it is open it takes the keyboard and mouse, and the game doesn't see them. Apply saves the choices and uses them, Restore defaults loads your shipped values, and Cancel closes the menu. Anything that needs a restart is labelled.

Change the key, or turn it off to open the menu from your own button, through app.graphics_settings_ui:

pub fn gameUi(self: *Game, app: *eggy.App, ui: *eggy.ui.Context) !void {
    // A button in your own pause menu.
    if (ui.buttonVariant("Graphics", .outline)) app.graphics_settings_ui.open();
}

// Somewhere that runs once, such as init: null turns the key off.
app.graphics_settings_ui.toggle_key = .func10;

open, close, toggle and isOpen are all there. Phones and tablets have no F10, so give them a button.

Change settings from code

For your own menu, use the same calls the Graphics menu does:

const result = try app.saveGraphicsSettings(settings); // validates, saves, applies
if (result == .restart_required) {
    // tell the player the backend, graphics card or vertical sync changes after a restart
}

app.setGraphicsSettings applies without saving. Both fail with an error for an unsupported or out-of-range value, so show or log it. Changes apply at the start of the next frame, not in the middle of drawing. app.graphics.render_settings holds what is in use, app.graphics_options.requested the player's last choice, and app.graphics_options.defaults your shipped values.

Limits

Backend, graphics card and vertical sync changes apply after a restart; everything else applies live.
Metal is not offered.
Borderless fullscreen is a borderless window, not exclusive fullscreen.
Window mode, size and frame rate options are hidden where the platform can't use them. The Project Settings form always shows them, since it sets the shipped defaults.
The editor opens the Graphics preferences from the menu; it has no F10 menu.

The options​

Choose your game's defaults​

Change the editor's own settings​

Let players choose​

Change settings from code​

Limits​