Thoughts on hardware vertex shaders

README.md

@@ -1,8 +1,8 @@
 # Revisiting EverQuest
-This document exists to remind of what to do when I will inevitably try to play this game again (and again, and again..)
+Whenever I play this game, I invariable change most of the default settings. This document exists to remind of what to do when I will inevitably try to play this game again (and again, and again..). While keeping a copy of eqclient.ini has been sufficient at times, I've noticed the game client tramples much of the config after merging updates.
 
 ### Maximized Fullscreen
-The game client can be coerced to run in a borderless windowed mode. Window resizing must be disabled first, otherwise the mouse will be offset incorrectly.  You can find this setting in game under:
+The game client can be coerced to run in a borderless windowed mode. Window resizing should be disabled first, otherwise the mouse will be offset incorrectly.  You can find this setting in game under:
 
 *Options* > *Display* > *Allow window resizing*
 
@@ -11,7 +11,14 @@ Or in eqclient.ini:
 AllowResize=0
 ```
 
-Now the window borders can be properly removed by a third party utility such as this [autohotkey script](http://gaming.stackexchange.com/a/17307/7413). Just make sure to perform the resize after logging into the character. If the resize occurs on the character selection screen, the renderer won't realize and you'll need to reset the resolution to fix screen stretching.
+An alternative way to do this is to leave window resizing enabled, and manually fix the mouse offset. Might be useful if you really want to resize the window to something less than full screen (maybe to run more than one eq client).
+```ini
+WindowedModeXOffset=2
+WindowedModeYOffset=1
+AllowResize=1
+```
+
+The window borders can be removed by a third party utility such as this [autohotkey script](http://gaming.stackexchange.com/a/17307/7413). Just make sure to perform the resize after logging into the character. If the resize occurs on the character selection screen, the renderer won't realize and you'll need to reset the resolution to fix screen stretching.
 ```autohotkey
     ^!h::
     IfWinExist EverQuest
@@ -24,7 +31,7 @@ Now the window borders can be properly removed by a third party utility such as
 ```
 
 ### Graphics
-I like to tweak the default FPS settings to 60/60. Other higher quality graphics settings can be enabled in game. Parameters are stored in eqclient.ini.
+I like to tweak the default FPS settings to 60/60 (same FPS whether or not the game has focus). Other higher quality graphics settings can be enabled in game, most of which cause noisy visual artifacts.
 ```ini
 MaxFPS=60
 MaxBGFPS=60
@@ -35,6 +42,12 @@ The windowed gamma feature should be off by default now, but just in case:
 WindowedGamma=0
 ```
 
+At some point the eqclient got hardware vertex shader support, which radically improves framerate.  Unfortunately it also causes a fair amount of graphical defects. For example, a robe wearing Iksar will periodically contort into odd shapes while sitting. The trade-off for disabling hardware shaders is that busy scenes (like a raid or a city zone like Cabilis) will result in very bad framerate drops. This can be mitigated by reducing the clip plane and reduce how far you can see. Neither choice is very good, so it seems reasonable to suffer the graphic artifacts with the shaders on. Your mileage may vary.
+```ini
+VertexShaders=1
+```
+The irony is that EverQuest is a classic Windows game, but in the original zones it runs like a poorly emulated Playstation game or even a bad console port. And I love it all the same; maybe someday the engine will be faithfully reimplmented in Vulkan. One can only dream.
+
 ### Controls
 Mouselook sensitivity can be adjusted under mouse options. The camera mode can be toggled with F9. Roll the mousewheel while in the default first person camera mode to freely adjust it into a reasonably comfortable third-person mode.
 
@@ -61,7 +74,7 @@ Chat colors are stored as separate RGB values in eqclient.ini [TextColors] secti
 I have experimented with [gradient backgrounds for chat windows](http://i.imgur.com/LwK7kyO.jpg), but the result wasn't great because I could only get 10 levels of transparency from a tga texture ingame.
 
 ### (Optionally) Reorganize game data
-There's over 4.3 thousand files sitting in the root game directory. If that triggers your OCD (or you hate having to look for the same file over and over again), you can [reorganize everquest](//www.eqinterface.com/forums/showthread.php?t=21379) using symlinks. This made a little more sense back when I used a spinning disk rather than striped ssd storage.
+There's over 4.3 thousand files sitting in the root game directory. If that triggers your OCD (or you hate having to look for the same file over and over again), you can [reorganize everquest](//www.eqinterface.com/forums/showthread.php?t=21379) using symlinks. This made a little more sense back when I used a slow spinning disk rather than striped ssd storage.
 
 ### Extras
 Useful information can be found at various third party websites: