Registry Keys

Registry keys are small DWORD or String Values placed in the registry which can enable the features of certain cards. While many cards enable/disable keys this way, this guide covers the Savage3D and Savage4. These are keys I know for certain work and have tested. Place them in the HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG\Display\Settings Registry directory. To edit the registry, go to Start\Run and type in "regedit".

String Value: AM
Simple Name: Auto Mipmapping
Purpose: Toggles the automatic use of mipmapping on and off.
Set by using: ON/OFF
Best Usage: ON. It increases visual quality and speed. A great combination!

String Value: AT
Simple Name: Auto Trilinear Filtering
Purpose : Toggles Trilinear filtering on/off
Set by using: ON/OFF
Best Usage: Enabled of course. The S3D and Savage4 boards usually incur about a 2% performance hit when using this and the image quality increase is dramatic.

String Value: ATB
Simple Name: Auto Triple Buffering
Purpose : Toggles auto-triple buffering on and off.
Set by using: ON/OFF
Best Usage: Enabled. Let's you use VSync OFF without causing visual distortion.

String Value: WV
Simple Name: Wait for VSync
Purpose : Toggles VSync ON/OFF
Set by using: ON/OFF
Best Usage: Mixed bag. Some games automatically disable VSync if they detect your board supports triple buffering, and switch it to OFF. Turning Wait for VSync off in these instances would cause the reverse effect and turn it back on! Make sure you set the game that's turning it off to ON for this to work.

String Value: AC
Simple Name: AutoS3TC
Purpose : Toggles automatic compression of all textures to S3TC format ON/OFF
Set by using: ON/OFF
Best Usage: Off. This seriously screws up D3D games and movies.

String Value: AP
Simple Name: AutoPalette
Purpose : Toggles the automatic usage of paletted textures ON/OFF
Set by using: ON/OFF
Best Usage: Off, since it doesn't work.

String Value: AA
Simple Name: AutoAGP
Purpose : Usages AGP for all textures if on.
Set by using: ON/OFF
Best Usage: Never even put this in the registry! It causes horrendously slowed down texture rendering and stability issues. It's slower in benchmarks too.

String Value: EF
Simple Name: DirectX Fog
Purpose : Toggles the usage of DirectX fog
Set by using: ON/OFF
Best Usage: Seeing as I have had no fog problems with this NOT in the registry, why turn it on?

String Value: ES
Simple Name: Eye Fog
Purpose : Toggles Eye Fog usage.
Set by using: ON/OFF
Best Usage: Seeing as I have had no fog problems with this NOT in the registry, why turn it on?

String Value: VO (for Savage4 / Savage3D only) , VT (for Savage2000 only)
Simple Name: VidTex Only.
Purpose : Uses the cards onboard RAM only for texturing and disables AGP texturing [AGP sidebanding and such still apply]
Set by using: ON/OFF
Best Usage: Causes performance increase in every test but 32MB rendering, from fill rate to filtering. However, if you have a board with less than 16MB of RAM, you may run into texture limitation issues. I recommend this OFF for all purposes. Don't even put it in the registry.

String Value: <None>
Simple Name: Vid/AGP
Purpose : Allows board caching and AGP caching of textures.
Set by using: You enable this by not having AA and VO/VT in the registry.
Best Usage: If you leave both VO/VT and AA strings out of the registry, your board will use both VidTex caching and AGP texture caching. If the game you are using can fit all the textures onto the board RAM, it will use only that, but if it can't, AGP texturing will be used for the remaining textures. This provides the best of both worlds, with fill rate, filtering, AND texture speed improvement while allowing you to render games with textures > 32MB.

String Value: FD
Simple Name: FastDraw
Purpose : Renders triangles faster
Set by using: ON/OFF
Best Usage: Turn it on. Performance increase, stability stays the same.

String Value: FB
Simple Name: FlipBlit
Purpose : Enables Flip Blitting
Set by using: ON/OFF
Best Usage: When combined with FastDraw, I saw a 5% speed increase, and it renders faster at higher resolutions. Enable it.

String Value: ZB
Simple Name: Enable 32-bit ZBuffer
Purpose : Toggles the use of 24-bit Zbuffer / 8-bit stencil buffer.
Set by using: ON/OFF, drivers based on 8.10.21 or higher!
Best Usage: Enables the use of a 24-bit Zbuffer and a 8-bit stencil buffer in Direct3D. Enable.

String Value: ZC
Simple Name: Fast Zbuffer Clear
Purpose : Enables fast Zbuffer clearing for speed increase.
Set by using: ON/OFF
Best Usage: Can cause visual distortion but increases speed. If you see visual artifacts, check to see if this is the cause.

String Value: ES
Simple Name: Eye Fog
Purpose : Toggles Eye Fog usage.
Set by using: ON/OFF
Best Usage: Seeing as I have had no fog problems with this NOT in the registry, why turn it on?

String Value: OS
Simple Name: Oversampling AKA full screen anti-aliasing.
Purpose : Enables full scene anti-aliasing...or it would if it worked..
Set by using: ON/OFF
Best Usage: This feature is broken, but if it was enabled it would allow full scene anti-aliasing.

String Value: OSX
Simple Name: OSX
Purpose : Specifies the amount of oversampling to do.
Set by using: 2X/4X
Best Usage: Specifies whether to do 2X or 4X oversampling. Beatiful visuals, but huge speed cut. 2X = 1/2 speed, 4X = 1/4 the speed. Oversampling is broken though, so oh well. This won't work.

String Value: WC
Simple Name: Write Combining
Purpose : Speed increase of AMD K6-2+ / Pentium 2+ /AMD Athlon processors
Set by using: ON/OFF
Best Usage: Enabled.

String Value: AGP
Simple Name: AGP
Purpose : Sets the speed of the AGP bus.
Set by using: 1X/2X
Best Usage: For stable systems, 2X should work, but if your system is having stability issues, try this at 1X.

String Value: AGPSB
Simple Name: AGP Sidebanding
Purpose : Enables/disables AGP Sidebanding
Set by using: Uses bandwith for textures, makes transistions is texture-heavy scenes smoother.
Best Usage: Enabled, unless it causes a loss of stability.

String Value: AGPSize
Simple Name: AGP Aperture Size
Purpose : Tells the drivers how much of you system RAM to use if you are using AGP textures.
Set by using: #
Best Usage: Well, there is not an exact science for this. Try half your system RAM unless you have 64MB or less.

String Value: COB
Simple Name: Not known, Clear on Buffer?
Purpose : Speed increase
Set by using: ON/OFF
Best Usage: Speed increases, possible stability decrease.

String Value: WF
Simple Name: Unknown
Purpose : Not known though JanKees thinks it's Wait for Flip, and I agree.
Set by using: ON/OFF
Best Usage: It's a MeTaL only setting so turn it on, it helped me a bit.

String Value: DDSW
Simple Name: DirectDraw Software Mode
Purpose : Enables/Disables DirectDraw in software or hardware.
Set by using: NO/YES
Best Usage: Severe performance hit in 2D games when set to Yes, unfortunately you can only get TV-cards to work with it at YES. If you don't have a TV card set it to NO.

That's my list. A quicker way to do this would be to download my drivers or Phido's USR. I take no responsibility for any damage to your registry because of this.